By: Kevin Sigrist, Editor-in-Chief

When I began my time as a student at Waubonsee Community College, I was astounded by the wide variety of topics and courses I could learn about. It was a mighty jump from high school, where, in retrospect, my choices were severely limited. Generally, however, I found that despite my limited choices in secondary education, high school did a good job of preparing me for the future and educating me on a variety of subjects of study so that I would be prepared when moving on to college. This was true, except for one area of study. 

In college, it is generally true that most studies fall into either the humanities or stem fields, and within the humanities there are many different subgroups. Different sources label the subgroups differently, but there are multiple that are almost always there, such as history, arts or language, all of which are covered in secondary education. There is another topic that makes up a large portion of the study of humanities and is unanimously agreed on as a pillar of the disciplines that seems to be almost entirely disregarded in secondary education, and that topic is philosophy. 

“[Philosophy] comes from two ancient Greek words: phil is the sort of idea of love, and then sophy is wisdom, so literally philosophy is the love of wisdom, but you can kind of think about it in sort of the big picture view of philosophy, which is sort of all those really big questions that we have about the world,” Associate Professor of Philosophy at Waubonsee Community College Steve Zusman said. “What is space? What is reality? Does God exist? Are we free or predetermined? So these really big fundamental questions that we have about the world and universe sort of philosophy wants to tackle those kinds of questions.”

Zusman, who has been a professor of philosophy for 24 years, including time teaching at Illinois State University, Heartland Community College and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, believes that teaching students philosophy at a younger age could promote many incredibly important life skills.

“Philosophy does a great job with respect to critical thinking as it is one of the main ways that philosophy and philosophers [function]. Providing evidence and support, providing reasons for why you hold certain positions,” Zusman said. “I think it really helps with intellectual curiosity. Like it gets you thinking about these deeper questions and it gets you to sort of make sure that you can defend with reason particular positions or views that you have.”

It is rather difficult to find exactly why this subject is rarely discussed, but two common arguments are that it is not something that is essential to preparing our young population for the outside world, and that in order to discuss philosophy, you must have your own life experiences to apply the material to. 

The fact that philosophy is a promoter of critical thinking is a perfect rebuttal to the first claim, as it directly helps you be a better student, learner and thinker which are all incredibly important for existing in the modern world. 

The idea that philosophy can only be taught to those with life experiences to back things up is a vast misconception of how philosophy operates and the material it discusses. Young children are known for always asking the question “Why?” They ask a broad range of questions about how the world works, both of which are very quintessential to the subject of philosophy. 

“I think kids are really great at sort of being natural philosophers in the sense that they’re intellectually curious. Kids are notorious for asking why and that is what philosophers do, like we ask why and little kids want, for example, answers to those big questions, so they’ll ask why is the sky blue, right?” Zusman said. “And they want answers, you know. Where does the universe go? All that kind of stuff. 
So I think feeding into that intellectual curiosity they already have, but getting them to think in a more systematic way and in a way that maybe incorporates a little bit more reason… is very beneficial.”

PLATO, short for Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization, is an organization that is working to incorporate the teachings of philosophy into younger children’s education. They give some examples of these kinds of questions on the homepage of their website.

“Children ask big philosophical questions – Are numbers real? Can dogs think? But often their thoughts and questions are not taken seriously,” PLATO’s website homepage states.

The program of PLATO was made to combat the lack of philosophy education in younger students within America. They explain in their mission statement on their website: “PLATO nurtures young people’s curiosity, critical thinking, and desire to explore big questions, through philosophy and ethics programs for students, educators, and families.”

The program offers K-12 classes that help young people become more involved in philosophical discussions and ask questions they may have about various philosophical topics. The program elaborates on their purpose as well, explaining how teaching philosophy to the youth does not just benefit those taught, but the material as well.

“We believe that every child’s voice matters and every student deserves the opportunity to engage in meaningful philosophical conversations. Offering philosophy to young people, including those whose voices historically have been marginalized, brings needed new perspectives to philosophy and the humanities,” PLATO states.

PLATO is not the only program that works in this way. There are other programs like The Principle Institute for Ethics that achieve the same purpose but focus on other offshoots or subcategories of philosophy, which in their case is ethics.

While the existence of organizations like PLATO and The Principle Institute of Ethics is great for the American population, an introduction of philosophy education into secondary education is something that would streamline the process of educating the youth, as well as solve many problems for the population.

According to a 2019 Reboot Foundation survey on the public’s notions on critical thinking and critical thinking’s prevalence in education, 94% of the public finds critical thinking to be very important, but 86% find that it is lacking in the general public.

More notably, however, is that the public and professionals alike agree that critical thinking education should be implemented at greater levels regardless of level of education, with 90% believing that it should be covered in K-12 education. Alongside this, 43% believe that early childhood education is the best age to develop these critical thinking skills, which the Reboot Foundation claims is also agreed upon by social scientists and psychologists.

Alongside this, depression rates are currently the highest among young adults than any other demographic, with 18-25-year-olds being at 18.6% in 2021, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

It has already been established that the study of philosophy is crucial in the development of critical thinking, but the study of philosophy can also help with mental health struggles and stress management.

“I think it would help individuals that have a lot of stress and what not to think in this sort of philosophical way, and there’s certain schools of thought, especially like stoicism… a branch of philosophy… that could definitely be applied in such a way that would have very beneficial ways or would be very beneficial to students, especially if they have a lot of stress and that sort of thing,” Zusman said. “Thinking differently and knowing different lenses in different ways that people have thought. Students could then apply those in such a way that can help them in their various situations and reduce stress and that kind of thing, for sure.”

In the battle for philosophy in younger education, the United States is behind in the scope of the rest of the world, as many developed countries such as Austria, Croatia, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and many more have been teaching philosophy in their equivalents of high school for many years, with other countries like Germany teaching offshoots like ethics for decades now.

Given all this information, the question of what exactly the solution would be arises. In high school education, there are many required courses that fill up a student’s schedule that generally limit their ability to choose electives. I am not proposing the immediate implementation of a new required philosophy course, though that could be a desired end goal, but at minimum a much more enforced mandate of a philosophy elective is a start. The subject was something that was not even offered at my high school, but something I would have taken advantage of had I had the chance.

Philosophy is a massive part of the humanities sphere and a massive part of the human experience. It is incredibly important in forming a person’s self-awareness, their critical thinking and potentially improving their mental health or stress management. Beyond its benefits, it is also simply a massive part of the education world, and for its existence in primary and secondary education to be borderline nonexistent is simply criminal. Other countries have had success in its implementation for many years, and so can the United States.