Abstract
Background:
In the days of the Athenian polis, public speaking, debate and philosophy were the cornerstones of democratic life. Philosophy had the form of a dialogue between people with contrasting views, and philosophers taught the art of persuasion to citizens attending the ekklēsia—the principal assembly of the democracy of ancient Athens. In contemporary secondary schools however, debate clubs and philosophy classrooms have become separate worlds that, regrettably, seldom interfere. This state of affairs leads to a waste of knowledge and skills, and lowers the potential impact that debating skills and philosophical thinking could have on strengthening democracy.
Objectives:
With our new philosophical debate methodology, we hope to teach students how to apply philosophical concepts to question the status quo, and to discuss social issues in a respectful way with their peers. As such, we hope that the outputs of the ADAPT project will contribute to the development of high school students into engaged, critical and active citizens, and that teachers will find in it an effective tool to facilitate this process.
Implementation:
We researched the effectivity of using debate as a learning activity in the philosophy classroom. The research by Natascha Kienstra was published in a first paper in the peer-reviewed journal Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe (2021). A second paper was published in Forum Philosophie International, the journal of the Association Internationale des Professeurs de Philosophie (AIPPh), which describes the structure and intent of the project (Kienstra and Velema 2022). A third paper was published in a book from the established Dutch public philosopher Jos Kessels, with the title ‘Hoog spel: Filosoferen in de praktijk’ (Velema 2022).
Based on the research, we designed a set of key concepts that offer philosophy teachers a clear and comprehensive approach to debating. These concepts are visualized with logic symbols, which we have turned into a set of stamps. After downloading our 3D models, these stamps can be materialized with a 3D printer. They can be used in the classroom to analyze and evaluate debates, or used in combination with worksheets that offer practical assignments to become more familiar with our debate methodology.
Results:
The Erasmus+ project with the title A Debate And Philosophy Typology (ADAPT), coordinated by Natascha Kienstra from Tilburg University, aims at overcoming the divide between debate clubs and philosophy classrooms by developing innovative educational materials and researching their effectivity. Our method that combines the argumentative skills of debate education with central concepts in political philosophy can be found at https://debaticons.com.
On this website, we offer an Open Access book with the title ‘Debate / Philosophy: How to start debating in the philosophy classroom’, as well as a set of practical worksheets and a collection of 3D models, which can be turned into a set of stamps with a 3D printer.
All intellectual outputs of the ADAPT project (book, worksheets, debaticons, website, research papers, and Youtube channel) were developed by a consortium of four secondary schools (Wolfert Bilingual School, Rotterdam; Gimnazija Ledina, Ljubljana; Privatna klasicna gimnazija, Zagreb; ITE Enrico Tosi, Busto Arsizio), two universities (Tilburg University and Erasmus University Rotterdam), and three associations (Za in Proti, Slovenia; Hrvatsko Debatno Drustvo, Croatia; The Noisy Classroom, UK).
In the days of the Athenian polis, public speaking, debate and philosophy were the cornerstones of democratic life. Philosophy had the form of a dialogue between people with contrasting views, and philosophers taught the art of persuasion to citizens attending the ekklēsia—the principal assembly of the democracy of ancient Athens. In contemporary secondary schools however, debate clubs and philosophy classrooms have become separate worlds that, regrettably, seldom interfere. This state of affairs leads to a waste of knowledge and skills, and lowers the potential impact that debating skills and philosophical thinking could have on strengthening democracy.
Objectives:
With our new philosophical debate methodology, we hope to teach students how to apply philosophical concepts to question the status quo, and to discuss social issues in a respectful way with their peers. As such, we hope that the outputs of the ADAPT project will contribute to the development of high school students into engaged, critical and active citizens, and that teachers will find in it an effective tool to facilitate this process.
Implementation:
We researched the effectivity of using debate as a learning activity in the philosophy classroom. The research by Natascha Kienstra was published in a first paper in the peer-reviewed journal Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe (2021). A second paper was published in Forum Philosophie International, the journal of the Association Internationale des Professeurs de Philosophie (AIPPh), which describes the structure and intent of the project (Kienstra and Velema 2022). A third paper was published in a book from the established Dutch public philosopher Jos Kessels, with the title ‘Hoog spel: Filosoferen in de praktijk’ (Velema 2022).
Based on the research, we designed a set of key concepts that offer philosophy teachers a clear and comprehensive approach to debating. These concepts are visualized with logic symbols, which we have turned into a set of stamps. After downloading our 3D models, these stamps can be materialized with a 3D printer. They can be used in the classroom to analyze and evaluate debates, or used in combination with worksheets that offer practical assignments to become more familiar with our debate methodology.
Results:
The Erasmus+ project with the title A Debate And Philosophy Typology (ADAPT), coordinated by Natascha Kienstra from Tilburg University, aims at overcoming the divide between debate clubs and philosophy classrooms by developing innovative educational materials and researching their effectivity. Our method that combines the argumentative skills of debate education with central concepts in political philosophy can be found at https://debaticons.com.
On this website, we offer an Open Access book with the title ‘Debate / Philosophy: How to start debating in the philosophy classroom’, as well as a set of practical worksheets and a collection of 3D models, which can be turned into a set of stamps with a 3D printer.
All intellectual outputs of the ADAPT project (book, worksheets, debaticons, website, research papers, and Youtube channel) were developed by a consortium of four secondary schools (Wolfert Bilingual School, Rotterdam; Gimnazija Ledina, Ljubljana; Privatna klasicna gimnazija, Zagreb; ITE Enrico Tosi, Busto Arsizio), two universities (Tilburg University and Erasmus University Rotterdam), and three associations (Za in Proti, Slovenia; Hrvatsko Debatno Drustvo, Croatia; The Noisy Classroom, UK).
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Place of Publication | Mobility Tool Erasmus+ |
| Number of pages | 50 |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2022 |