teaching philosophy to youth

[PsyEythan]

Hi everybody, i'm Eythan from Israel.
I've been volunteering/working in education and community stuff for years now, even done my army service as an instructor on how to teach.

I now got this job of a "Youth Manager"(it sounds a lot better in hebrew haha) in a small community up north and I'm having some problems.
So this thing is bassicaly like the Scouts, but it's only for this small community. I'm in charge of of youth activity in this community. This includes youth instructors(ages 15-17 mostly) who carry out weekly activities with 4th to 8th grades, train 9th grade youth and try to get them to become instructors also and carry out activities to the rest of the youth untill they finish highschool and get drafted to the army.

I've been having success in private conversation with few of them. We've been having great talks about self knowledge, economics, philosophy and day-to-day life. I've been handing out books to any of them who would read it an I'm actually working on translating "On Truth" to hebrew so some of them could read it. Sadly, I can't seem to get them excited about it collectivly in our weekly activity.
To get things worse, all the people I work with(managers from nearby communities, the regional council etc.) are complete SJW leftist nutcases. I obviously can't ask them for help. All of the written stuff that is supposed to help me is full of leftist propaganda(and this is the main reason I'm work in education for shit money although I study CS).

Remember that the activity is supposed to be fun and engaging, non of them are forced to participate and it's really hard to get today's youth's attention for more than five seconds.
So far I've been using food as a bait every time I wanted to talk about something "heavy", next week we're going to watch "The Matrix" and through that movie have a nice talk(I hope) about philosophy.

There's a lot of stuff out there on teaching kids philosophy, not so much about youth - especially in an active way, not in the classroom/lecture way.
Can you people relate to this? Have some decent advice? Activities you know about?

[M.2]

Hi, PsyEythan

I know exactly what you are talking about, since I am still kinda youth. You mentioned "north". How relevant is that to your situation? How are the people there in general?
- First thing you have to recognise is that public education murders interest for philosophy in children. I, for example, could only start mustering enough brain power to entertain abstract thoughts when I was being homeschooled.
- Secondly, we know for a fact that not everyone is able to think abstractly. Philosophy is torture for people under IQ 90. I would go as far as saying IQ 100.
- Thirdly, I'm sure you know that youngsters are just in comlete awe at the world. They haven't seen anything yet, and they know it. They are waiting impatiently for someone who will broaden their horizons THE RIGHT WAY. School does a pisspoor job at that.

You have Jewish pupils, which means you have a great audience with an astronomical IQ. I have studied in Mongolia for a decade, which is around 5th in the world by IQ. Yet, wehenever anyone talked to them in an abstract and logic-oriented manner, one could have almost seen their brains going blank. It did not move them at all. Some of my teachers were very wise however, so they took the route that many great philosophers do: they told the students stories from their own lives. Stories with some weight, some suffering, some adventure, some suspense, and most importantly some lesson. They employed this tactic often to silence an unruly class, as they knew that the children will be too busy pondering over the story for at least half an hour.
Another method, which you may already use, is free debate over serious issues. The youth love to see who is better, and competition is always invigorating. This what I must highlight though: After the debate, you must tell them the Absolute Truth. If you don't, you will encourage sophistry and moral and intellectual relativism. It doesn't matter who won the debate, there is only one truth, and it has been revealed to us by God. (I assume you adhere to Judaism)

[barn]

Hi @PsyEythan

Boiling down to the essence:

- Encouraging extraction of meaning by using critical thinking, graded to the abilities of the participants.

- Modelling curiosity, even by asking simple open ended questions as: 'What was the best/worst thing for you today? Why were they so?'

- Always explaining if something you can't get, as to why that is and perhaps what could be helpful to you grasping better.

- Ensuring that you mirror/clarify/level regularly.

- Get used to short attention span and plan around variety rather than depth until you 'hit the spot'.

- Kinaesthetic - Moving / physical manipulation aids working with concepts a great deal. Works reverse too.

(Although if you are in a part of the world, strong socialist... chances are, the indoctrination got the better of the children... it can take you minimum a year to achieve some notable success with a fifth of the group... don't forget, parents aren't sitting in your sessions.)

Barnsley

 

[ofd]

At school we reenacted the trial of Socrates. That gave the participants a good introduction to his ideas.

[PsyEythan]

First, thank you all for your feedback!

 

On 15/11/2017 at 10:52 PM, Mishi2 said:

Hi, PsyEythan

I know exactly what you are talking about, since I am still kinda youth. You mentioned "north". How relevant is that to your situation? How are the people there in general?
Well it's just a figure of speech. I'm used to saying that to people when they ask me where I work.
But if we're on the subject, I work and live in a "Kibbutz"(look it up), so the people here are mostly 99% leftist/socialist but where I live and work they're not hardcore about it and they're "lookng for something else". They actually kicked out the Communist youth movement that used to do the work I did.
- First thing you have to recognise is that public education murders interest for philosophy in children. I, for example, could only start mustering enough brain power to entertain abstract thoughts when I was being homeschooled.
You don't have to tell me about that
- Secondly, we know for a fact that not everyone is able to think abstractly. Philosophy is torture for people under IQ 90. I would go as far as saying IQ 100.
I'd even say that if you bought in to what school told you, you're f'd no matter the IQ.
- Thirdly, I'm sure you know that youngsters are just in comlete awe at the world. They haven't seen anything yet, and they know it. They are waiting impatiently for someone who will broaden their horizons THE RIGHT WAY. School does a pisspoor job at that.
School makes it worse.

You have Jewish pupils, which means you have a great audience with an astronomical IQ. I have studied in Mongolia for a decade, which is around 5th in the world by IQ. Yet, wehenever anyone talked to them in an abstract and logic-oriented manner, one could have almost seen their brains going blank. It did not move them at all. Some of my teachers were very wise however, so they took the route that many great philosophers do: they told the students stories from their own lives. Stories with some weight, some suffering, some adventure, some suspense, and most importantly some lesson. They employed this tactic often to silence an unruly class, as they knew that the children will be too busy pondering over the story for at least half an hour.
Another method, which you may already use, is free debate over serious issues. The youth love to see who is better, and competition is always invigorating. This what I must highlight though: After the debate, you must tell them the Absolute Truth. If you don't, you will encourage sophistry and moral and intellectual relativism.
It doesn't matter who won the debate, there is only one truth, and it has been revealed to us by God. (I assume you adhere to Judaism)
I'll take that as an advice.
I don't really believe in "God", but I wouldn't say I'm an atheist. I love my culture and tradition and I often find myself seeking guidence in the Bible and some of the oral law.

 

On 21/11/2017 at 4:26 AM, barn said:

Hi @PsyEythan

Boiling down to the essence:

- Encouraging extraction of meaning by using critical thinking, graded to the abilities of the participants.

- Modelling curiosity, even by asking simple open ended questions as: 'What was the best/worst thing for you today? Why were they so?'

- Always explaining if something you can't get, as to why that is and perhaps what could be helpful to you grasping better.

- Ensuring that you mirror/clarify/level regularly.

- Get used to short attention span and plan around variety rather than depth until you 'hit the spot'.

- Kinaesthetic - Moving / physical manipulation aids working with concepts a great deal. Works reverse too.

(Although if you are in a part of the world, strong socialist... chances are, the indoctrination got the better of the children... it can take you minimum a year to achieve some notable success with a fifth of the group... don't forget, parents aren't sitting in your sessions.)

Barnsley

Great advice, wrote it down.

 

 

On 22/11/2017 at 11:05 AM, ofd said:

At school we reenacted the trial of Socrates. That gave the participants a good introduction to his ideas.
And how did you end up doing that? Was it in a philosophy class?
I'd love it if you could share more.

Again, thank you all.

[ofd]

Quote

And how did you end up doing that? Was it in a philosophy class?

Like a courtcase, where you have the defendant and his attorney who make their case, the judge, the accuser and the jury. Both sides presented their arguments and the jury argued in favour of the accuser. Once again, Socrates was put to death

It was in a political science class.