22 April 2019

We loved this article explaining how teaching philosophy is very economical to implement and has immediate impact on students' maths and literacy scores.

It teaches them to think broadly, problem solve and encourages creative approaches. It's called the fourth R - reasoning.

Burunda State High School in Queensland introduced Philosophy programs 5 years ago. In that time, their students' test scores have gone from well below average to above the mean in everything.

In the US, where they have entrance exams to law and other graduate degrees, philosophy majors had the highest scores. Even cooler, US Philosophy graduates have the highest earnings of non STEM graduates* - so those parents who wondered about their kid's employablility need not have been concerned - learning how to think does it every time.

Despite efforts in 2009 to have Philosophy included in the Australian National Curriculum, it hasn't been as yet, but Australian educators who see the benefits are including it.

Read the whole article here

*(STEM is an anagram for Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths)

Image: Yr 3 student doing a NAPLAN test.