We’re sorry it’s taken until now to send our first fresh resource bulletin of the new school year! During September, we’ve delivered oracy training and/or workshops to over 30 schools, and worked with over 4000 students and 200 teachers in the process. There’s been very little time for much else! Learn more in the “What we’ve been up to” section below. Our normal bulletin-service will resume from now on.
It was my (Tom’s) day at Brentwood Ursuline School in Essex on Monday that provides the inspiration for this week’s oracy resource. I had just run my third workshop of the day with a group of Year 8s, and they were queuing to head off to their next lesson. I asked if anyone had a juicy question similar to those that we had been exploring in our session. One girl turned to me and asked,
“Would you rather know everything, or know nothing?”
It’s fantastical yet relatable at the same time.
You can imagine having a brain with the power of ChatGPT, but you also can imagine being in a state of complete ignorance, with a caveperson-like knowledge of the world. And you can instantly envisage what life might be like if you had either. There’d be plenty of advantages to both, but also plenty of disadvantages as well. It’s rich with concepts such as weight of knowledge, ignorance, bliss, responsibility, and activism – discussions are guaranteed to go beyond surface-level preferences! [ed. Jason – foreknowledge is another angle here – one of the motions chosen by my p4he.org Debate Club on Wednesday evening was, “This house doesn’t want life to come with spoilers”]
In this instance, each side might need unpacking: knowing nothing still would probably involve knowing how to function every day and perhaps may involve your memory being wiped, a bit like on the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Conversely, knowing everything might need to have a few parameters placed on it (or should it, if it really is knowing everything?).
There are various ways you can get everyone arguing about this question. It might be a simple turn-and-talk followed by a class discussion, but you can enhance that by giving each person a side to argue for:
- Those closest to the door argue for knowing nothing.
- Those closest to this wall argue for knowing everything.
Or you could get everyone to pair up with someone to become their doubles partner and then have a round of argument tennis with another pair.
I also like this question because it invites questions about knowledge itself and could be a good starter for an enquiry about epistemology. You can click through to a resource that we have made on this in the past.
- When is it acceptable for governments to lie to their people?Â
- Can we ever know anything for certain?Â
- Are some levels of knowledge more worthwhile than others?
- What do animals know? Â
What have we been up to?
The numbers for schools, students and teachers above probably gives you a bit of an idea! It’s been our busiest ever September, even more so than this time last year, when we were down under working with the South Australian Dept. of Ed.
Our first weeks of the school year have been packed with P4C and oracy INSET, team-building days through our sister company Hidden Leaders, or oracy workshops and whole-year group Argumentag Wrestling tournaments with students (either as part of our collaboration with Essex County Council or as standalone days booked by schools). Jason’s also been literally out in the field wearing his Duke of Edinburgh expedition hat with his other venture, Outspark. A big thank you to everyone who’s hosted us, whether that’s been one Philosophyman, both of us, or our fantastic Hidden Leaders team (below) running the events for whole year groups. Visiting schools is our livelihood and we absolutely love it, especially seeing the difference it makes to confidence, communication, teaching and learning.
The next few weeks are also busy, but we do have some availability in the second half of October and also in November if you’d like to get in touch about how we can work with your school.
Between now and Spring, Jason is running oracy training in Romania, Spain, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, and China. If you’re in any of those places and want to take advantage of him being literally in your area, please do just reply to this email or contact us through our website. It can be a great way to get us into work with your teachers and students without having to front up the full travel expense! There are still also some slots available for international travel elsewhere.
Until next week,
Tom and Jason.Â
www.thephilosophyman.com
www.oracyforschools.co.uk
PS: Questions where both options are quite unappealing are great for oracy because it’s naturally fun to talk about stuff that you’d like to avoid. Just listen in to any young child’s birthday party where they start talking about the most disgusting things to put in a sandwich, or similar!