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If students are free to express their thought, and graded on how coherent an argument they put forward, then this is great. If it's about mucking up and memori

If students are free to express their thought, and graded on how coherent an argument they put forward, then this is great. If it's about mucking up and memorizing someone else's thoughts (that you probably don't even agree with), then it's terrible. I don't know which of above it is; but I will say, the examples in that article are splendid ("Is truth preferable to peace?", "Does power exist without violence?", etc.) These are things students should really think about; and I think it's great that it's mandatory for everyone (if it's being done right).

Jacqued 13y ago
I have passed the scientific variant of the baccalaureat, which only includes 5 hours a week of Philosohpy, so I can't talk for those who are in the literary variant. However, in my experience it has been mostly about coming up with a coherent reasoning, structuring it, and conveying it propely in a 4-8 pages long written argument. History (in general) gave us a great deal of examples, but we did not study the ancient and modern philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Nietzshe, Schopenhauer) just for the sake of knowing them. I think it's great to do that in high school ; however a lot of students found it extremely hard and struggled to find value in it. (But then again, they struggled to find value in anything we did)
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  > includes 5 hours a week of Philosohpy Which is more than twice the hours a Belgian student is exposed weekly to the topic whatever her cursus is.
boulem 13y ago
in theory it's a great idea but in practice it isn't. for example those question aren't meant for you think about when they give these kind of question they are expecting a specific kind of things to find in your writing which have nothing to do with your opinion,answer by a yes or no and give them your arguments ,you'll get a big zero faster than the speed of light.
Xixi 13y ago
Students are perfectly free to express their thoughts. I was when I took the Baccalauréat in 2000, and I did fairly well (though it was the scientific Baccalauréat, where expectations in philosophy are not very high to begin with). That said it doesn't mean that you shouldn't memorize anything at all, otherwise you are soon going to run short on ideas. Think about it as building software on top of existing libraries rather than rewriting all from scratch. Take "Is truth preferable to peace?" for instance. Maybe it could bring you into a utilitarianism vs consequentialism debate (that's where I would go anyway, but I guess there are other interesting approaches). But if you've never studied these, well, good luck reinventing the wheel...

Jacqued 13y ago

I have passed the scientific variant of the baccalaureat, which only includes 5 hours a week of Philosohpy, so I can't talk for those who are in the literary variant. However, in my experience it has been mostly about coming up with a coherent reasoning, structuring it, and conveying it propely in a 4-8 pages long written argument. History (in general) gave us a great deal of examples, but we did not study the ancient and modern philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Nietzshe, Schopenhauer) just for the sake of knowing them. I think it's great to do that in high school ; however a lot of students found it extremely hard and struggled to find value in it. (But then again, they struggled to find value in anything we did)

johnchristopher 13y ago
> includes 5 hours a week of Philosohpy Which is more than twice the hours a Belgian student is exposed weekly to the topic whatever her cursus is.

boulem 13y ago

in theory it's a great idea but in practice it isn't. for example those question aren't meant for you think about when they give these kind of question they are expecting a specific kind of things to find in your writing which have nothing to do with your opinion,answer by a yes or no and give them your arguments ,you'll get a big zero faster than the speed of light.

Xixi 13y ago

Students are perfectly free to express their thoughts. I was when I took the Baccalauréat in 2000, and I did fairly well (though it was the scientific Baccalauréat, where expectations in philosophy are not very high to begin with). That said it doesn't mean that you shouldn't memorize anything at all, otherwise you are soon going to run short on ideas. Think about it as building software on top of existing libraries rather than rewriting all from scratch. Take "Is truth preferable to peace?" for instance. Maybe it could bring you into a utilitarianism vs consequentialism debate (that's where I would go anyway, but I guess there are other interesting approaches). But if you've never studied these, well, good luck reinventing the wheel...