Philosophy Outreach program returns to SUNY Geneseo
The Philosophy Outreach program was an initiative put out by the philosophy department here at SUNY Geneseo to try and connect with local grade schools to increase interest and awareness among the students of philosophy. The program had its first start-up in 2019, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ability for the program to make contact with other schools lapsed. This semester, previous faculty advisor and department chair, Dr. David Levy, with the help of senior philosophy major Aspen Griffing, sought to bring the program back to Geneseo.
Emails sent out by Dr. Levy earlier in the semester to all philosophy majors and minors, alongside ethics and values minors, advertised this budding opportunity. They asked for any interested parties to come to the group’s interest meeting, which occurred on Jan. 26, 2024. The program is currently being led by eight SUNY Geneseo students who range from first-years all the way up to seniors. Together, the group brainstorms thought experiments or philosophical concepts that they feel are appropriate for grade-level learning, creates skeletal lesson plans alongside the locating and creation of any needed extraneous materials, and is set to give their first round of mock-lessons on Thursday, Apr. 4 and Friday, Apr. 5.
The students’ first lesson is one surrounding the thought experiment known colloquially as the “experience machine.” This scenario was made in an attempt to refute hedonism, the ethical theory that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of any negative or painful experiences is the ideal way for one to live their life and results in ultimate ethical good. The experience machine thought-experiment then offers the question: if you could go into a machine that would allow you to lead your ideal life, without even knowing that you had entered the machine and the experiences were simulated, would you? This question was posited by Robert Nozick in the 1970s, and what he discovered is that when given this proposition, most people said that they would not partake.
The program saw this thought-experiment as a good starting point for the program’s newly growing resource center, as it is mutable, timeless, and calls into question ideas surrounding values and what it is we as people prioritize or see as important. This internal quandary is one that is much more approachable to grade-school students, as the ideas surrounding values are something that is familiar to them already, which therefore makes the level-of-entry much lower than for a discussion surrounding the basics of such things as the logical branch of philosophy. They are hopeful for how mock-lessons will go and anticipate starting to go into schools to teach their lessons by late April.
As the program is given more time to amalgamate, participants wish for it to not only teach high school-level students but also build lessons for students of all ages—including the elementary level! They hope to see the continued flourishment and refinement of the group’s process and an increase in their ability to go out into local grade schools. They are cautiously optimistic as the first lesson plan of the reboot of the program chugs along and are hopeful that it will have some degree of noted impact on the number of grade-level students who show interest in philosophy as a discipline in higher-level education.
Thumbnail photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons