Articles
School Teaches Students How to Argue
Watch the video
Art McFarland:
WABC New York Eyewitness News; January 4, 2010
Read the article or watch the video
Most schools do what they can to prevent arguing and fighting. But at the Columbia Secondary School, the arguing involved is for a class in philosophy.
In Middle School, Philosophy Is Part of the Lunch Menu
Nelson Hernandez: Washington Post; January 4, 2010
During lunchtime at Kenmoor Middle School in Landover, MD, the youngsters sitting in a small circle were tackling the really deep questions: Ethics. Fairness. How to split dessert.
Philosophy Program Benefits Teachers and Students
John C. Tucker: Columbia Record; November 9, 2009
Columbia Teachers’ College Philosophy Outreach Program
Columbia Arts & Humanities Gazette; October 8, 2009
These two articles explore a new cooperative philosophy outreach program at Columbia University and Teachers College.
Philosophy Returns to Mount Greylock
Meghan Foley: The North Adams Transcript; October 8, 2009
A philosophy course taught at Mount Greylock High School in North Adams, MA, was made possible by a grant from the Squire Family Foundation.
Why Health Care Will Never Be Equal
N. Gregory Mankiw: The New York Times; September 19, 2009
Are the benefits and costs of the American health care system ethical?
Philosophy Students Explore ‘Big Questions’
Mary Ann Zehr: Education Week; August 2009
Read the article (requires subscription)
Read Mary Ann Zehr’s blog (with non-subscription link to article)
The Education Week article highlights both the SFF-sponsored national pre-college philosophy teachers network, and philosophy curriculum at the Center for Talented Youth (Johns Hopkins University).
Loyola Blakefield Wins Baltimore High School Ethics Bowl
Lionel Foster: greatkidsupclose.org; May 2009
80 students from 10 Baltimore City and Baltimore County high schools competed in the 2nd Annual Baltimore High School Ethics Bowl hosted by the Hoffberger Center for Professional Ethics at the University of Baltimore.
New Jersey high schoolers solve the dilemma of the runaway train
Sergio Bichao: MyCentralJersey.com; May 28, 2009
Students at Woodbridge’s Colonia High School try to find ethical solutions in day-long program.
Philosophy encourages high school students to think outside the box
Merle English: Newsday; April 16, 2009
More and more high schools are offering philosophy courses and clubs, with a special focus on ethics.
Philosophy Program Inspires Middle Schoolers
Sara Hoover: University of Memphis News; December 2008
http://www.memphis.edu/releases/dec08/philosophy.htm
Middle-school students are participating in a new philosophy discussion program at the University of Memphis.
Learn Philosophy:
The classic discipline can help with
contemporary dilemmas and modern careers
Diane Cole: U. S. News & World Report; December 18, 2008
The importance of logic and ethics skills is getting national attention. Squire grantee Dr. Thomas
Wartenberg is featured in this article in U.S. News & World Report
A Matter of Life and Debt
Margaret Atwood: The New York Times; October 22, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/opinion/22atwood.html
To heal our economic wounds, we must repair the broken moral balance that let this chaos loose.
Why How Matters
Thomas Friedman: The New York Times; October 14, 2008
www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/opinion/15friedman.html
The Puritan ethic of hard work and saving still matters.
Digging Out Roots of Cheating in High School
Maura Casey: The New York Times; October 12, 2008
www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/opinion/13mon4.html
Surveys show that cheating in school has soared since researchers first measured the phenomenon in the 1960s.
White-collar ex-con: Jail looms for mortgage execs
Mike Celizic: TODAYShow.com; October 8, 2008
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27081173/from/ET/
Walter Pavlo, a former MCI manager who served time in a federal prison for concealing business improprieties now lectures on ethics.
The Thinker
Jonathan Mahler: The New York Times; September 19, 2008
www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/magazine/21jolley-t.html
How did Auburn University become a hotbed of philosophical talent? Read this essay from the Sunday Magazine’s College Issue.
Just think: it’s important
Laura Parker: The Sydney Morning Herald; August 25, 2008
Link to full article on www.smh.com.au
Why is philosophy as a subject such a fizzer in schools?
Decades Later, Still Asking: Would I Pull That Switch?
Benedict Carey: The New York Times; July 1 , 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/health/research/01mind.html
Stanley Milgram’s Shock Experiments Still Provide Insight.
Frog, Toad & the Big Questions:
Grant to help foster philosophical education for kids
Bob Flaherty: Daily Hampshire Gazette; June 11, 2008.
www.squirefoundation.org/news.dhg_20080611.1.html
In this profile of Dr. Thomas E. Wartenberg of Mount Holyoke College, learn about the SFF grant to support his work on philosophy for children.
A Natural Bent for Deep Thought
Bob Flaherty: Daily Hampshire Gazette; June 11, 2008.
www.squirefoundation.org/news.dhg_20080611.2.html
This are article explores current innovations in ethics education for youths in Massachusetts.
A review of Susan Neiman’s
Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists
K. Anthony Appiah: Slate Magazine; May 27, 2008.
http://www.slate.com/id/2191959
As an academic discipline and as a practical, everyday concern, ethics is alive and well, says Appiah, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton’s Center for Human Values, in his review of Susan Neiman’s new book.
In a New Generation of College Students,
Many Opt for the Life Examined.
Winnie Hu: The New York Times; April 6, 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/education/06philosophy.html
Once scoffed at as a luxury major, philosophy is being embraced by a new generation of college students who are drawing lessons from the age-old discipline as they try to make sense of their world.
Birds Do It. Bees Do It. Dragons Don’t Need To.
Neil Shubin: The New York Times; February 24, 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/24shubin.html
The big question that virgin births raise is this: If some females can get along without males, why does any species have males?
A review of Experiments in Ethics by Princeton’s Kwame Appiah
Paul Bloom: The New York Times; February 3, 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/books/review/Bloom-t.html
Imagine that you are standing next to a railway track and you see a runaway trolley… Today, the quandry of moral dilemmas is no longer the purview solely of the philosopher.
When a Murderer Wants to Practice Medicine
Lawrence K. Altman, M.D.: The New York Times; January 29, 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/views/29docs.html
A Nazi sympathizer entered a famed Swedish medical school in 2007, seven years after being convicted of a hate murder. Should a murderer ever be allowed to practice medicine?
The Moral Instinct
Steven Pinker: The New York Times; January 13, 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html
Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the author of “The Language Instinct” and “The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature.”
Are We Born Moral?
John Gray: New York Review of Books; May 10, 2007.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=20171
Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior
Nicholas Wade: The New York Times; March 20, 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html
Mind Makes Right: Brain Damage, Evolution, and
the Future of Morality
William Saletan: Slate.com; March 31, 2007.
http://www.slate.com/id/2162998/
Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion
Jonathan Haidt: The Third Culture; Edge.org.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt07/haidt07_index.html
Jonathan Haidt is a professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia.
Ethics — by the Numbers: Survey of Ethics Education in Schools
Bongsoon Zubay: Independent School, Fall, 2007.
Single copies of the magazine can be purchased at the National Association of Independent Schools website: www.nais.org/go/bookstore.
Teaching Philosophy to High School Students:
Indiana University’s Summer Philosophy Institute
Stephen Hicks and Monica Holland: Teaching Philosophy, 12:2, 1989.
The Summer Philosophy Institute of Colorado: Building Bridges
Robert Figueroa and Sara Goering: Teaching Philosophy, 20:2, 1997.