Many of the four million young people currently being educated in Australian schools feel that the system neglects them. The Grattan Institute, an independent think tank, summarises the state of the nation when it identifies one in four students as “compliant but quietly disengaged”.

Of course, schools do so much more good than harm for young people. But this is not to say that they cannot do better. The current education system prioritises finding the ‘right’ answer, not the process of reaching it. Students are not being expressly taught modes and frameworks of thought, nor are they instructed on how to express such thoughts.

“I want to raise my hand, but I can’t. I sometimes find it difficult to talk. It feels like school prioritizes high grades over creating functioning human beings,” says Zara, a 17-year-old student from Melbourne.

One solution to this, according to an increasing number of researchers and organisations at national and international levels, is to integrate philosophy into both teaching methods and the curriculum itself within primary and secondary schools. Advocates say that the advantages of teaching philosophy are manifold, helping young people socially, emotionally and academically.

Benefits of teaching philosophy

Philosophy can help students to overcome their fear of speaking. It works to overcome fear of being wrong through the repeated insistence that respectful ideas, perspectives, questions and even expressions of dissent cannot be wrong. If those trends of fear and discomfort in expressing novel ideas are not addressed, they can continue to be experienced beyond the world of secondary education.

“The nature of philosophy builds skills and confidence in expressing views within a classroom context and builds that feeling of a safe space and culture of sharing,” according to Michelle Garrett, a Gifted and Talented Education coordinator at a secondary school in Melbourne.

A personal perspective

Lana (not her real name), 17, reflects on her own experiences of studying philosophy, in both semi-formal and informal ways, examining what aspects she hopes might be transferred into a more universal experience for other students.

At the age of nine, she joined her school’s Thinking Skills class, meant “to foster philosophical thinking and build critical and creative thinking through inquiry”. She had no homework, no worksheets and no tests. Instead, the five (and later more) students would sit around a long table, for half an hour every week, and talk.

Lana credits that class as having had a profound impact on her development as a person. However, she identifies that she was only given that chance to grow further because she already was a child who raised her hand too much in class. She was, from the outset, outspoken, living in a home where she was encouraged to read and to question things.

In year 8, Lana, then 14, began to attend her school’s student-run Philosophy Club, every Friday lunchtime. Midway through year 9, she and two friends took on the role of club facilitators. She’s in her final year of secondary school now, and the club is still going. Attendance varies: they’ve had meetings with as few as five people perched on desks and as many as 30 crammed into every corner. They’ve discussed everything from artificial intelligence to capital punishment to animal rights to deontology to beauty to time travel.

A possible way forward

Given all these benefits, why is philosophy not taught more often in Australian schools?

Garret identifies the “crowded curriculum” as an ever-present issue, and also suggests that “the perception of elitism around the subject is something that may also be a factor.” Finlay agrees: “Philosophy has a reputation for being done in armchairs by old white men who maybe don’t have the breadth of experience they need to be talking about some of the things they do.”

However, Daniel Donahoo, policy adviser and manager of digital innovation at Project Rockit, which runs anti-bullying workshops in schools across Australia, offers a more hopeful perspective.

From his experience discussing issues of bullying, hate and prejudice with young people, he says: “We are at a point where students in schools are more than ready for ways of grappling with problems, thoughts and ideas that philosophy offers. Indeed, they seek more than simple answers, but desire the tools to explore and unpack how they can make the world a better place.”

Finlay says he would like to see philosophy as its own subject in school, and also integrated into most other subjects: “Almost every school subject will or can discuss philosophy in the form of ethics. For Art, it could be about plagiarism; for English, it could be about writing problematic characters; for Science, it could be about animal testing or medical trial standards. Ethics is embedded into most areas of life, so I’d like to see it integrated into the curriculum in a meaningful way.”