Year 9 Philosophers Tackle the Big Questions

Loreto Kirribilli has recently added a 100-hour Philosophy course to our Year 9 elective offering. The course is designed to give the students a basic grounding in philosophical enquiry, and stimulate students to engage in its questions, arguments and rigorous methods of thinking.

The course is divided into four units; Introduction to Philosophy; Logic, Argument and Reasoning; Ethics; and Political Philosophy. The study of Philosophy has been shown in research to improve reasoning skills and contribute to the students’ ability to think critically. The students engage and contest the validity of ideas, then present their version of the how those ideas are, or are not, valid in the modern world. The students are enthusiastic about their new subject:

'Discussing problems with no definite ethical answer was a fascinating way to reflect on why we make the choices we do, and what right and wrong really mean to us. We collaborated on the idea of a ‘Good Life’, considering queries such as “Who determines if a life is good?” and “Is there a deeper purpose to life that could make it good?” We upload our classwork to personal blogs we have created, as we learn to present ideas in a clear and engaging way. The Philosophy course has encouraged us to reflect on ourselves and how we live.’ Sophie Hirschhorn

‘From Plato’s Allegory of the Cave to artificial intelligence, in Year 9 Philosophy we cover a variety of different topics, both modern and timeless, to get our minds thinking creatively and critically. Each lesson we investigate a different philosophical scenario and collaboratively share our different approaches about the problems and expand our ways of thinking.’ Arabella Gray

‘The discussions are great. It’s like we have a big mixing pot of everyone's ideas and what they think and we get a lot of different viewpoints in. We see each other's perspectives, and we cover a lot of different topics that can help us in all our subjects, and through our life as well. It's a really diverse area of study.’ Ren Tan