Philosophy, the science of thought in which most of the students find it boring. From my observations, college or high school students who see it as a boring subject is usually because they do not understand the subject and its contents, or, they probably have come across with the wrong teacher. But guess what’s interesting here? Many philosophers have been underperformed and were always bored in high school too. However, with the right teacher students may find that intellectual excitement for their further academical performance. Before going into why students should be taught philosophy, let us talk a little bit about philosophy in general.

The human being has been in search of knowledge since their existence. Maybe this is a kind of instinct; the instinct of curiosity. Anyway, without this instinct, humankind would not be able to survive. And this instinct of curiosity is still in progress. People cannot live without thinking, questioning, and without curiosity. Curiosity is the beginning of philosophy. Perhaps without philosophy, there would be no developed science and inventions. It all starts with philosophy.

> It widens students’ critical thinking:

“If you ask those why questions enough, you just find yourself doing philosophy. Now, that’s what makes philosophy so interesting and at the same it makes it frustrating because the further you ask, the harder the questions become to answer.”

Our education system, the media, and the society shape our way of thinking. Thus, there is no freedom left to us, we are giving up from our independence by letting others shape our perspective and thoughts and initially, we are being their puppets. In contrast to our educational system, philosophy instead of teaching us what to think, it teaches us how to think independently. Another one of the most important points of philosophy is to teach us to think rightly. With philosophy, students widen their interpretation capacities by developing their thoughts in terms of questioning their surrounding and such similar topics. They go in depth of the knowledge by analyzing it before blindly believing in any given topic.

> Philosophy develops one’s open-mindedness:  

“Philosophy teaches you how to think, not what to think.”

Nowadays our society has become full of ethnocentric, nationalist, and strict religious people who are surrounding themselves only with the people from their group, who share similar ideas as them. These people have completely closed their minds and themselves to different opinions and perspectives. If philosophy could be taught rightly in the school environment, including open-mindedness, there would be no conflicts between multicultural students and instead, they would welcome any novel, different idea with respect by thinking on various opinions critically.

> It is a self-development:

“Teaching students philosophy will make them smarter academically and better prepared for adult life.” – Socrates

Philosophy besides helping one for their further academic performance, it also gives life lessons for self-development and increases individual’s problem-solving, analytical thinking, reading and math skills capacities.

> It can be a tool for motivation and happiness:

Not all people feel pleasure from material things. Some people feel pleasure from engaging in deep thoughts by questioning the meaning of human life, or the self. Which means philosophy beside all gives the individual an intellectual, spiritual pleasure. With philosophy, students learn that what makes the human being is not only their body, or the material world, but also the spiritual entity; and it makes students realize that man can not reach for his purpose only by meeting his material needs, he must also satisfy his spiritual needs. At the beginning of human spiritual needs is the desire to solve the curiosity, to learn, to understand the universe and the self, to make sense of the life in this world. And this desire can also be met by philosophy to a great extent.

Copyright: Dream Humanity