I mentioned the other day that I was thinking of starting a new ethics and critical thinking class on Outschool for older kids. Today I put together a class description and submitted the class to Outschool for approval. I expect it should be approved pretty quickly.
With the class description I included topics for the first four planned classes:
- Crime and Punishment
- Free Will and Determinism
- How to Rig an Election
- The Meaning of Life
Pretty ambitious, but I think I can pull it off! Assuming it’s approved, I’ll start scheduling classes to begin after Christmas, and leave them until then so new students can find the classes and enrol.
Here’s a photo of an Australian brushturkey that I managed to get extremely close to with my phone the other day.
There’s one of these (a different one to the photo) currently guarding a nest mound near my place. Whenever I walk past, it chases me, trying to drive me away, until about 25 metres from the nest. It’s very protective and chases everyone away, although it’s not aggressive and backs off if you approach it. Soon the chicks will hatch and it will abandon them to their fates. They’re really curious birds.
New content today:
That sounds like a class in philosophy as much as anything else. Are you trying to sugarcoat your philosophy class?
(Do Australians say “sugarcoat” to mean “make something sound pleasant and attractive, when it might not really be that”?)
Yep, we use “sugar coat” – though I would spell it as two separate words.
The class is billed as “Critical and Ethical Thinking”, so philosophical stuff comes under the critical thinking part. (And honestly, I think that’s really the skill that most parents are looking for, rather than ethics.)