http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002295757
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.1/carlos_fraenkel_brazil_teaching_philosophy.php
I posted the Boston Herald story in my government class.
The official rationale for the 2008 law is that philosophy “is necessary for the exercise of citizenship.” The law—the world’s largest-scale attempt to bring philosophy into the public sphere—thus represents an experiment in democracy.
In every classroom I was at first flooded with questions: Who is this professor from Montreal and what’s he doing here? the students wondered. I quickly learned that my excitement about Brazil’s experiment with philosophy is not universally shared. “Learning how to read and write and basic mathematics is useful,” one student said. “But why should I care about Plato’s concept of the soul?”
I conceded to the class that learning philosophy for the sake of erudition may not be the best use of their time.
“But if you want to build a just and democratic society, isn’t it useful to get as clear as possible on what you mean by justice and democracy and to examine if you have good reasons to pursue these?” I asked. “And aren’t your intuitions about knowledge, goodness and beauty worth investigating?”
when I was in hs in the 60s I took "Humanities" which included philosophy, art history, culture, et al. I also had a course in "Sociology"
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