To think that children of 14 are too young to be studying philosophy?

[roastlamb]

A friend of mine recently moved to Italy with her two girls, aged 14 and 12.

The 14 is in her first year of "liceo" and she is studying philosophy. I understand that this is part of the curriculum in Italy. However, 14 is far too young to understand the concepts being taught.

I had a hard time with philosophy in my early 20s, I couldn't imagine studying it as a teenager.

[nickytwotimes]

Thanks dinny!

[dinny]

yeah, totally agree, I wanted to study philosophy from about 12/13, read a lot by myself (no internet then, that would have been a real help)

couldn't wait to get to university and study stidy study - ended up with BA and MA, and relished every minute of it

[Cammelia]

Its my favourite subject

[roastlamb]

Dinny, I wish I'd known you at Uni....

The German philosophers made my head spin.

Learning to think is great, but some of the ideas are very complex.

[SenoraPostrophe]

yabu.

some philosophy will be beyond teenagers' understanding, but lot's won't. I think it's a good idea. perhaps they could teach it in british schools in assembly instead of the religious stuff (which is a kind of philosophy anyway, albeit one with supernatural bits)

[dinny]

I was soooo obsessed with Hegel at uni...

[Brangelina]

Blimey, were you going to write to the Italian minister of Education and get him to remove it from the school curriculum???? The fact that it was a thick book means nothing (I remember my maths book was very thick at high school - maybe I should have stopped learning maths as book on the strength of that) and in ITALIAN even less, as some people (eg. the Italians) can actually read Italian.

Philosophy is studied in high schools in many European countries and yet young people make it to adulthood farily unscarred. IMO it should be studied in the UK instead of some of the poncey non subjects that are the fashion these days.

Right, got to go as Italian X factor is on and I simply must watch it (in Italian).

[Aitch]

i think i was cleverer at 14 than any other time in my life... we did philosophy/theology in RE lessons, it was a brilliant time when you actually felt like you were being asked for your opinions about people the world regarded as heroic thinkers and your view had validity. oh i LOVED it.

[SenoraPostrophe]

what poncey non-subjects?

if you mean media studies and sociology (as many people do who claim that), they are actually very useful subjects.

if you mean citizenship - well, that's just general studies re-named and does include some things that teenagers need to know. it's arguably more useful than geography and I#d never argue for that to be removed from the curriculum.

now IT and RE, those are another thing...

[Jacanne]

Lol, my friends 5 year old son belongs to a Philosophy Club at school.

[Aitch]

i'm sure a five-year-old would have a really interesting viewpoint on the meaning of life. seriously.

[Cammelia]

i think i was cleverer at 14 than any other time in my life...
Quote Aitch

Love that, Aitch. Yes at 13/14 I was totally au fait with world current affairs and politics.

I started reading the French existentialists and went to see the film of L'Etranger, in French.

I knew everything.....

[Aitch]

yep, cammelia, i was battling my way through Ulysses at fourteen. my head swims at the sight of anything more complex than heat magazine now...

[yurt1]

I think it would be a good idea tbh. It forces you to think. Which the current UK curriculum is severely lacking in.

I'm with Aitch. I love the stuff ds2 (aged 6) comes out with.

[Monkeybird]

I used to carry round a copy of War and Peace. Never read it of course, but that's the sort of arse I was at 14...

[Aitch]

oh wasn't it great, though? those amnesty meetings in the school canteen, writing letters to political prisoners, trying to get to grips with the european canon, god i was such a geek.

[marina]

LOL, I remember how SURE I was that a Socialist Pacifist utopia was coming to the UK at that age. And then they voted in Margaret Thatcher

[Cammelia]

The world problems I was going to solve were civil rights, apartheid, The Vietnam War, equal pay for women......

There was a lot going on when I was a young teenager

[Aitch]

didn't you get those sorted out, cam? och, that's a shame. by the way, you and marina must be Very Old.

[Cammelia]

That's a bit of an insult to Marina

[Threadworm]

A few years ago I asked my son the Bishop Berkeley question about whether the world persisted in existence unperceived.

He put his fingers in his ears and pinched his nose at the same time(quite a feat), closed his eyes and jumped in the air, imagining himself at that moment to be out of all sensory contact with the world.

'Pah!' he said. 'I still knew it was there.'

Scepticism defeated.

[marina]

You cheeky thing. Yes I am, but sorry, cam is older, even though she doesn't look it .
I remember being utterly disillusioned with Brezhnev and the Supreme Soviet for starting the first Afghan War (was studying Russian at the time and had rather taken my USSR-approved propaganda about morally bankrupt capitalist nations textbook to heart).

[Walnutshell]

14 is about the time when you are passionate about things - before lethargy and 'realism' set in... perfect for philosophy.

perhaps that's why I'd like to study philosophy now, mental age of 14.

[Cammelia]

If Marina is Very Old then I am truly one the Ancients

My attempts to be taken seriously as a Revolutionary took a severe blow when my parents' response to being called Bourgeoius Capitalist Pigs at the dinner table was to laugh