 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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