Volume 13, Number 20
27 Feburary
2007





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“Philosophy Beautifies Your Mind!” Children’s Perspectives on Philosophy

Bilkent students not only take philosophy courses, they also share what they have learned!

Volunteer Bilkent students who have taken some philosophy courses have been offering philosophy discussions to the children of Bilkent non-academic staff since the beginning of the 2007 fall semester as part of the ÜPDP (Üniversite Personeline Destek Projesi) which is one of the working projects of TOG-Bilkent (Toplum Gönüllüleri Grubu)/ TDP.

The idea behind this project is to encourage younger students to enjoy philosophy. Topics falling within the scope of ethics and political philosophy have been explored. Last week the group asked "What is debate?" and they will be holding a debate next week. The discussions began with three volunteer Bilkent students aiming to teach children critical thinking skills and help them improve their ability to discuss problems from different perspectives. Now, they have five volunteer mentors one of whom is not a Bilkent student, but has been part of "The Young Look" (Genç Bakış)-which is also one of the working projects of TOG- when he was in high school. Bilkent News asked some of the students participating in the discussion group what they think about philosophy, and their answers provide insight into how useful it is to expose people to philosophy at a young age.

BN: What do you think philosophy is?
İlkay: Philosophy means "different meanings."
Pınar: Philosophy is something enjoyable.
İrem: I cannot define philosophy with anything. I cannot assign any known meaning to it. I think it is nothing.
Tuğba: It is making discussions about different topics. Philosophy expands my imagination.
Furkan: Philosophy is already deep in your soul. If there weren't philosophy, the world wouldn't be as it is. If there weren't philosophy, there wouldn't be democracy either. There are lots of things to say about philosophy, but you cannot include all of them.

BN: How have the philosophy discussions helped you? What did you learn in your discussions?
Kerem: Philosophy makes us recognize the world in a good way.
Okan: Philosophy teaches us to think. It helps us to improve in our other courses.
Damla: Philosophy enables us to evaluate an idea from different perspectives.
Gazi: We distinguish right from wrong with philosophy.
Sefa: Philosophy helps us to speak better, and helps us to improve our abilities on making comments on different topics.
Ali: Philosophy beautifies your mind. You talk and discuss better with philosophy.
If you want to help children beautify their minds and lives, you can visit the web page of TOG for more information: http://tog.bilkent.edu.tr/  

Here is the contact information for philosophy classes:
M.Can Orhan (corhan@ug.bilkent.edu.tr)  
Aslı Özkan (aozkan@ug.bilkent.edu.tr)  
Çise Midoğlu (cisemidoglu@gmail.com

Banu Bilgiç (PHIL/III)


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