83. SCHOOLS ARE GETTING IT WRONG AGAIN - It's Not The Uniforms, It's The Entire Broken System

May 17, 2021 by DaN McKee in Education, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Work

“There is a sense the wheels have come off. And so the idea is we need to "get back to basics". Administer punitive sanctions for loose ties, untucked shirts, off-brand hoodies, phones and earphones. Get the kids to stand up behind their chairs in silence when the lesson begins. Ask them to remove their coats if the temperature no longer requires one. The argument goes that if the students look ready to learn, they will be ready to learn...and conversely, their currently sloppy appearance must therefore be a sign that they are not in the right mindset to do well at school.“

- MAY DAY BANK HOLIDAY 2021 -

May 03, 2021 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Economics, Education, History, Philosophy Unleashed, Work

It’s May Day - an International Worker’s Day in memory of the Haymarket Affair and the battle for an eight-hour work day, amongst other things. As the teaching profession encroaches more and more into the free time of its employees, and our unions do very little about it, and teachers encroach more and more into the free time of their students with endless homework and revision tasks, this week I will not be writing a new Philosophy Unleashed and encourage you instead to consider what needs to be done in your school or workplace to make the working day more humane for all? Longer or more frequent breaks? Democratic say in the decisions that impact on you rather than top-down decision making? Looser rules, or no rules at all, about what you wear? Being left to work independently without micromanagement? Being able to collaborate more with others? Whatever it is - identify it and then work on making it happen. Happy May Day from Philosophy Unleashed.

76. SOME PEOPLE SAY I'VE GOT A PROBLEM WITH AUTHORITY - So What?

March 08, 2021 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Authentic Democracy, Censorship, COVID19, Education, Free Speech, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Work

“people seem to forget that their authority is a gift we must choose to bestow; one for which they have to give us good reasons. For anyone ever told they have been “insubordinate”, the question must be asked: what damage did this insubordination do?“

73. OF NESTS AND PALIMPSEST - Am I Really Making An Aesthetic Choice?

February 08, 2021 by DaN McKee in Environment, Identity, Meaning, Mindfulness, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Work

“I have always loved chaotic collage and my childhood bedroom walls quickly became an ever-evolving palimpsest of posters, pictures, postcards, photos, and things I’d cut out of newspapers or magazines, their content adapting over the years alongside my tastes but generally maintaining the same ragged aesthetic; an aesthetic initially limited to a single cork noticeboard on a nicely painted wall but eventually sprawling out and taking over everything until, at one mad point, I was even hanging posters upside down on my ceiling, occasionally waking startled in the night as they lost their battle with gravity and came crashing down on my face.“

67. DISPATCHES FROM THE CAVE - Why Being "Realistic" Demands The Impossible

December 07, 2020 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Authentic Democracy, COVID19, Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Environment, Epistemology, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, School, Work

“The pandemic has shown just how flimsy “the way things are” actually are. From basic norms of social interaction to entire economic systems, COVID-19 has unwittingly acted as the liberating hand breaking the chains of Plato’s epistemological prisoner and dragging them out of the cave and into the light…This isn’t, however, a post about the coronavirus…“

57. IT’S HARD TO FOLLOW THE LOGIC ON COVID 19 - Though It's A Little Easier If You Follow The Money

September 21, 2020 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Culture, Economics, Education, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, School, Work

“As a philosopher it’s hard to follow the logic around Covid policy because in many cases there simply isn’t any. There is only the illusion of logic. A symbolic nod to a vague sense of health and safety which doesn’t dare follow its own argument to a conclusion for fear of what that conclusion might say.“

56. TIME ENOUGH AT LAST: Success and Failure During Lockdown

September 14, 2020 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Meaning, Mental Health, Obligation, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Time, Work

“Before the lockdown came, we had borrowed three books from the local library. As I started the car engine to drive to work on Tuesday morning, one of the three books still remains unopened.”

53. WHEN IS A BUBBLE NOT A BUBBLE? - Educating The Department for Education

July 06, 2020 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Death, Education, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, School, Work

“It doesn’t take a logician to see the problems with the Department for Education’s plan for secondary schools this September, but it can help to crystallise the specific flaws by laying out the argument carefully.”

52. WRESTLING WITH THE GUILT OF WRESTLING: Can You Be An Ethical Person and Support an Unethical Business?

June 29, 2020 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Culture, Economics, Ethics, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Pop Culture, Work

“As a philosopher, especially a philosopher interested in ethics, it was the latest in a list that feels far too long of moral wrongs surrounding the industry that it feels increasingly impossible to turn a blind eye towards. I have been a fan since April of 1992, but this may have been the month wrestling and I finally have to part ways.”

45b. THE COVID-SECURE CLASSROOM IS A CLASSROOM UNFIT FOR PURPOSE - Further analysis in light of the DfE announcement

May 12, 2020 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Education, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Politics, School, Work

“To re-open schools before it is safe to do so is to mistake the purpose of schools and ignore how fundamentally transformed a “Covid-secure” school will be from the schools we knew before. With no obvious benefit for returning to the socially distanced classroom before it is safe to do so, we must, as both teaching professionals and as a wider society, ask the question of what we are trying to achieve with the push to reopen our schools? “

45a. THERE IS NO ARGUMENT FOR RE-OPENING UK SCHOOLS YET - To Warrant Change, Something Significant Needs To Have Changed

May 11, 2020 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Data, Economics, Education, Epistemology, Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Work

“When the stakes are this high (life and death) we need to be able to separate nostalgia and sentiment for what is sensible and what is necessary. “

42. LIFE DURING LOCKE-DOWN - Do We Remain Free While Trapped Inside?

April 27, 2020 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Free, Meaning, Movies, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Work

“I feel strangely trapped in my own home, and yet my life this last month looks little different to the life I lived before lockdown.”

38. QUESTIONS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD - Some Concerns and Queries As COVID-19 Continues To Spread

March 23, 2020 by DaN McKee in Work, School, Politics, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Obligation, Mental Health, History, Ethics, Epistemology, Education, Culture, COVID19

“the world has changed. And here are the questions arising to me as it does…”

37. ELEMENTARY LOGIC - Why UK Schools Must Close Now

March 17, 2020 by DaN McKee in Education, Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, School, Work, COVID19

“In the name of public health, but also sense and logic, we must close all UK schools now.”

36. COVID-19 AND PHILOSOPHY: Thinking Clearly In Times of Uncertainty

March 15, 2020 by DaN McKee in Culture, Death, Education, Ethics, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, School, Work, COVID19

“Doing the right thing only becomes hard when we have constructed a world which puts embedded obstacles in the way of doing so.”

31. GET WELL SOON - What Our Ethic of Personal Illness May Tell Us About Our Wider Hopes to be Ethical People

February 03, 2020 by DaN McKee in Ethics, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, School, Work, COVID19

“Possibly our lack of ethical concern about the spreading of diseases, speaks to our larger ethical deficit when it comes to sacrificing our own immediate pleasures for the greater good of others: the clothing that we want despite the potential bad treatment of workers who made them; the holiday that we want despite the environmental impact of our journey; the social media we enjoy despite the potential epistemic breakdown it is causing for many of our civilisation-sustaining institutions… “

29. THE VALUE AND LIMITS OF DEMANDING SILENCE - On Remembering Power’s Roots and Reasons in the Classroom

January 20, 2020 by DaN McKee in Education, Ethics, Free, Militarisation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, School, Work

“often neither students or teachers remember the justificatory roots for the powers, privileges and obligations which interplay within the classroom, and that this lack of awareness may well be the source of much student/teacher conflict at school.”

28. WHO ARE THESE CHARACTERS? - Questioning Using Teachers to Teach Our Children “Character”.

January 13, 2020 by DaN McKee in Education, Ethics, Identity, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Politics, School, Work

“are those of us in society who chose to be teachers within the current education system actually demonstrating good enough character to be suitable character “role models” for the next generation?”

24. BREAKING THE CODE OF POLITICAL SILENCE - On Why Teachers Ought To Share Their Political Beliefs With Their Students

December 02, 2019 by DaN McKee in Education, Ethics, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Politics, School, Work

“A teacher therefore has a duty to model democratic engagement to their students. A teacher not discussing an upcoming election or not having an opinion on the current political situation sends a negative message to their students that political engagement is not important.”

16. THE CHINESE ROOM THEORY OF LEARNING - Can We Avoid An Educational Imitation Game?

September 30, 2019 by DaN McKee in Epistemology, Meaning, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Work, Education, Qualia, Mind

“I think of the Chinese Room often as a teacher, especially around exam season, and wonder how much our obsession with testing has led to a Chinese Room approach to learning?”