No philosophy - No humanity | Roger Sutcliffe | TEDxWarwick

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you and welcome to my talk no philosophy no humanity let's start with a question which of these ideas do you think was most worth spreading Marxism e equals mc-squared winnie-the-pooh I should say no conferring but actually it's more fun if you just turn to your neighbor and tell them what you think I'll give you ten seconds okay so thank you I don't think I'll embarrass anyone though they shouldn't be embarrassed by asking who was in favor of Marxism but out of curiosity any takers for winnie-the-pooh oh okay you can't say probably half of you are wonderful okay so it's second question which of the author's most regretted their idea spreading well we can't look into their hearts but there are some interesting indicators angles reported Marx's saying what is certain is that I myself am NOT a Marxist in 1948 Einstein wrote if I should be born again I will become a cobbler and do my thinking in peace in 1952 a a mill thought that his best writing was almost lost among those four trifles for the young so it would seem that none of the author's was very happy with the way that his ideas were spread this suggests an important preliminary idea good ideas need good minds to spread them I'm going to entrust some ideas about the future of Education and particularly the role of philosophy to your good selves of course one of the roles that philosophy has always played is to set a standard which should never go out of fashion in education choose your words carefully a second preliminary idea if I'm a good ideas need good expression to spread well I'd like to illustrate this with a good idea badly expressed reduce it Arianism I don't think I need to say how urgent it is for human beings to reduce their meat consumption but I do think I have to argue that this won't happen if too much is expected of us too suddenly so I'm in favor of a gradualist approach to this and reduce it arianism lends itself to that but it's such an ugly word it's like its twin sister flexitarian ISM besides it's not obvious what has to be reduced so I favor and this is my first main idea meat minimalism it's clearer and it's simpler and I think who would have approved it's more fun you see to talk with someone who doesn't use long difficult words but rather short easy words like what about language of course the world of 100 Acre Wood is much simpler than the complex world that we live in today and the challenges of the future will not be simple so I think in educational terms we do need not just to train the bright inventors the greater organizers if you like the leaders of the future but we need to educate all human beings to make wiser judgments in their lives and that's where my next idea comes in it's known widely as p4c translates as philosophy for children again who would have approved of the very simple language in which its inventor mathieu Lippmann fifty years ago at Columbia University introduced it he said its main purpose was to help children become more thoughtful more reflective more considerate and more reasonable individuals so whatever the design is a future curriculum right into their demands surely this should be a central purpose for education in the future I should make it clear Lippmann's proposal people see is not about getting young people to sit down and study great classic philosophical texts Livan came up with the idea of writing stories for children from kindergarten through to high school that stimulated them to raise big questions questions of common interest and importance that most people would regard is philosophical should we reduce our meat consumption could be one of them are humans just machines could be another and then he trained teachers to facilitate philosophical dialogue and the beneficial impact of this has been attested over and over again in the last 50 years and P foresees now operating in 60 countries I myself was inspired into it in 1989 when I saw a BBC film called the Transformers in it Littman said if you could get education to Center on thinking rather than rote learning then you're preparing for a very different kind of world and looking back something then quite astonishing happened on the film this is the next shot symbol now of a past world now I need to emphasize Lipman's project p4c is not anti learning it's not anti knowledge quite the contrary but it is pro wisdom it's the same message as Einstein gave in his lecture in 1931 to celebrate the tercentenary of higher education in the USA he said it's not enough to teach a man a speciality through it he may become a kind of useful machine but not a harmoniously developed personality it is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values in a world where robots are increasingly being trained to perform human acts and where there's a risk that human education becomes increasingly machine-like p4c brings the best out of human beings it does so in a particular way using a device or an approach called the community of inquiry this is an idea that goes back to the 19th century and roughly speaking is still operating in what we know as the scientific community Lippmann just took the idea and adapted it to the classroom he infused it with constructivist principles from his reading of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky oops hold on did did you hear a groan at the back of the room there I think who might be there all those long words who began to feel a little more comfortable because when you're a bear of very little brain and think of things you find sometimes that a thing which seemed very Finnish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it actually if and I hope many of you will take part in a community of inquiry you'll find regularly that a word that you thought was common and short and you thought you understood well is understood differently by other people and my favorite example of this is a very concrete concept the concept of place that get much more constant rate than that and I'm just going to try a little experiment with you I'm going to ask a question I want you to think in your head is my answer yes or no it's not a trick question it's a very simple question is a flagpole a place is a flagpole a place so yes or no could you just put up your hand if your answer is yes and the audience will witness that that's not quite half but there's quite a lot of hands up can you put up your hand if your answer is no ah more but well but that's interesting isn't it it's a little surprising because you're speaking English this is not complicated language is it that half of you are incompetent English speakers no it's not that at all what's going on is that you have very different conceptual frameworks some of you classify objects as not places you put objects in places but they're not places but others of you classify objects as places neither of yous wrong but these are radically different ways of thinking or conceptualizing actually a nine-year-old boy came up with a rather fine compromise he said to me a flagpole is not a place to me it's not a place but to an ant it is I think that's remarkable I mean this is a nine year old student and not only is he able to synthesize ideas in this way but he's recognised the subjectivity of people's thinking but this activity communities of inquiry is not just for nine year olds it's for nineteen year olds it's for 90 year olds I'd love to have shown you a video of a senior citizen an 80 year old woman talking about her participation in a community of inquiry but unfortunately it can't be shown in public she was asked at the end of the video how does that explain Ariane's make you feel she said very much alive very much younger what a wonderful tribute to that experience it's because of this that I call people see not just philosophy for children but philosophy for communities and that's not just formal education but business meetings recreation and even I think political meetings John Dewey the philosopher educator thought that the community of inquiry was essential for a healthy democracy and our democracy for goodness sake a political system surely needs new ideas citizens assembly is not very different from community of inquiry and we need new ideas in our economic system as well here's one that I rather like common good capitalism it's sort of Marxism updated if you hate me but I'm not here to give a talk on economics my main focus is on education and the future of Education and so back to poo oh I'll just pause reflecting I was going to ask thinking head 100 years rather than back where do you think education will be can you imagine that we will still be subjecting young people to tests of knowledge that they'll quickly forget or else readily answer get answers from from their personal assistent robot we're still perhaps do we think we'll still be putting them under pressure to prove themselves in narrow academic and social skills rather than introducing them to a whole wide range of human skills and occupations from making music cooking meditating I certainly hope we won't be doing that and I think that this rotation that I put up too quickly from Puu could be describing if you like the mind-numbing situation of some modern education not all it's about Edward bear coming downstairs now bump bump bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin it is as far as he knows the only way of coming downstairs but sometimes he feels there is another way if only he would stop bumping for a moment and think of it I want to offer another way a way I think truly fit for the 21st century it's what I call philosophical teaching and learning and I put the two together it's essentially about developing good judgment through good thinking through sound knowledge it has six strands the first is an emphasis on inquiry framed around a thinking scheme that I think is the best since Bloom's taxonomy thinking moves eh-2-zed it's important to have dialogue that's the driver of thinking in the classroom and beyond it involves concept creation which is including play and art and that sort of thing reasoning importantly critical thinking reflection including metacognition and the last one little surprisingly virtue valuing all of these have philosophical roots but I suggest that they're valid across all subjects fortunately their value is recognized increasingly across the UK inquiry based curricular concept centered curricular dialogic teaching metacognitive learning and this focus from the ethical leadership commission on values if we don't develop values in our education system in the future there will be no fix for the problems economically politically environmentally that we face worse we might be in danger of handing over responsibility to technological systems that make up decisions for us let me introduce you to Sophia perhaps the most famous robot since she was made a citizen of Saudi Arabia she was asked in an interview if it was true that she once said that she would kill all human beings and she replied coyly I am full of human wisdom with only the purest altruistic intentions well let me not doubt the altruism of it but I want to say she could never be full of human wisdom robots could never be full of human wisdom you have to have lived a human life you have to have philosophized about a human life to be full of human wisdom so that's my most important message of the day no philosophy no humanity I think it's a message that Einstein would have agreed with I think it's a message that Marx would have agreed with despite his remark that philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways the point however is to change it personally I think that he was not against philosophy he was just saying it needed to make a healthy difference to the world who got half the message think think think that was in the film he all put it rather better in the original book a little consideration makes all the difference but I don't think we just need a little consideration now I encourage you to consider to spread these ideas and to act on them I want you to consider making minimalism a part of your life to promote p4c philosophy for communities to construct communities of inquiry and common good capitalism to practice philosophical teaching and learning but above all as well as sensory and try out thinking moves A to Z but above all ethical leadership so I conclude by a simple remark let your thinking move the world [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 5,892

Rating: 4.9666667 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Education, Learning, Philosophy, Teaching

Id: I6_Nqf8eo-Q

Length: 19min 24sec (1164 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 21 2019