Surfing Waves

I have to teach an A level philosophy lesson to a bunch of 18yr olds... it's on a topic I've barely heard of and never studied before (despite having a degree in philosophy ). I started reading about it last night and even though I've now read about 100 pages from 3 books on the matter, I still don't have a clue what it's going on about, or even what direction I should be focusing on...

I will do it for you, i can bluff my way through most things !

I'd go with the "photocopy a chapter from a book, get the kids to read & highlight, then present their findings to the group" option. Tell them that it's a session for them to discuss the subject amongst themselves with as little input from you as necessary!

Turn up tell them to do what they want, you only have another term left anyway.

It's philosophy.... you're not MEANT to understand it Anyway, there's no such thing as a wrong answer in philosophy... Just bluff it, with loads of psychobabble.... try and cofuse them so much they cant see how confused you are!! There's my words of wisdom anyway....

..here ya go dudette !

..." good morning students,

today we are going to look at personal philosophy, i could ask you for text book responses to this subject i.e who were, are the great philosophers etc .. but today i would like to hear about your own personal philosophy's and more importantly what shapes them ... things to consider are : Background, up-bringing , lifestyles, beliefs etc etc and then we will see if those with similiar backgrounds and lifestyles, have similiar philosophy's (sp!)....

Basically dudette you'll have nothing more to do than listen to them all agree that some life-backgrounds will suprisingly (or not!) have similiar philosopy's on life , love yadda yadda ... occasionally throw in some well known philosophers thoughts and before you know it .. the bell will ring and your outta there

Just bluff it, with loads of psychobabble.... try and cofuse them so much they cant see how confused you are!! There's my words of wisdom anyway....

..lmao .. there it is right there , philosophy is simply psychobabble that some smartass in history realised would get him out of learning real stuff

" works for me on a daily basis lolololol

thanks cheezee & everyone else! I'm sat here still reading through lots of stuff... I think I've just about understood William James on the neotic quality of mystical experiences but that's only one tiny weenie part of it... I'm gonna give it another 3/4hours and if I still don't get the rest then I'll have to blag it with your suggestions!

I'm trying to read an article on the rejection of enlightenment evidentialism but i'm confuseda bout how/why most contemporary epistemology of religion is postmodern in being a reaction to the enlightenment thesis of the hegemony of evidentialism

If anyone knows about it, feel free to offer some suggestions....

I'm trying to read an article on the rejection of enlightenment evidentialism but i'm confuseda bout how/why most contemporary epistemology of religion is postmodern in being a reaction to the enlightenment thesis of the hegemony of evidentialism Confused

.. laughing my absolute ass off here darhlin ..." aint it a doozee of a subject lolololololol

Thats a load of long words, cant you just let them finger paint ?

cant you just let them finger paint ?

...fleshing coffee accross the room bro lololololol0olohahahahahahaha ...


awwww class bro

i just spat out my cup of tea sboy!!!!

if only I could... life would be much easier... unfortunately I am a little stressed as their grades/ uni places/ entire future partly depends on me

I'm gonna get on with it now....

you'll do fine Thaya .. your a smart cookie , got every faith in ya and try not to feel totally responsible for the students .. you are not letting them down by not knowing everything there is to know








( all else fails ... finger painting )

Give them some glue, glitter, and let them make their own Easter cards !

better use saftey scissors though !

What about giving them a free lesson for revison, with complete silence.

that would be good, but I need to teach them this module...

I've just stumbled across an excellent idea thank you to the creator of the internet!

I can actually link the entire lesson to the experience drug taking (I mean that in a general way ) I've just found an article about mystical experience through drugs which sorta links in with the topic... I could easily spend an hour discussing the effects of drugs... all I have to do now is find a bit more academic "stuff", get my head round a few more concepts, add some more long words to make it look like I know what I'm talking about and bob's your uncle!!!

I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier... I spent all that time worrying about it when actually it can all be simplified really easily (I'm still stuck on enlightement evidentialism though )

I found philosophy easy to blag all i did was take look at eastern myticism and choose ideals i knew my teachers would no absolutely nothing about Then i blagged the rest

ooooooooooo i've been a busy little bee.

I've made a PP presentation with some key ideas & quotes for me to talk about & discuss. I've done a sub-section on drugs and their effects with some pretty pictures of raves etc! I've got a list of 5 questions to discuss and some tables for them to fill in with notes in the boxes. I've done a "match the key words with their meanings" to explain all those big words that sound complicated and then they're going to each research a specific thing and present back to the group. To end, we're going to play "who am I" and I've made some stickers for them... you know each person has the name of a philosopher stuck on their head and they have to go round asking questions to find out who they are.

I think that'll do for now...

At last, I can relax (well, for a few hours anyway!)
Thanks for all the ideas... if it all goes pear shaped then fingerpainting it is!

thaya wrote:
I'm trying to read an article on the rejection of enlightenment evidentialism but i'm confuseda bout how/why most contemporary epistemology of religion is postmodern aa a reaction to the enlightenment thesis of the hegemony of evidentialism

I re-read this article (for the fourth time ) and went D'OH * hit head with book* it suddenly clicked and i got it... FINALLY. My head went like this - ! Sometimes I think my brain's just a tad slow...

Isn't it weird how you can read and re-read something for hours and get really confused and then suddenly BING! I wish I'd understood it 3 hours ago...

Me thinks it's time for a drink

thaya wrote: ! Sometimes I think my brain's just a tad slow...

Isn't it weird how you can read and re-read something for hours and get really confused and then suddenly BING! I wish I'd understood it 3 hours ago...

Me thinks it's time for a drink

Are you naturally blonde?