180. WHAT PHILOSOPHY COULD BE - Breaking The Norms That Don't Have To Be Norms

March 04, 2024 by DaN McKee in Academic Freedom, Communication, Culture, Education, Logic, Meaning, Philosophy, Perception, Philosophy Unleashed, School

“Philosophy is difficult. But it is only as difficult as we choose to make it. Rigorous thinking does not have to be alienating. It does not have to speak a secretive and opaque language different from the way non-philosophers speak. That is a choice, not a necessity. Nor too should academic specialisation and disciplinary complexity be mistaken as necessary components of philosophy. Navel-gazing is still just navel-gazing, even when it props up an entire job market. So too is self-interested gatekeeping intended to preserve a questionable system rather than make it accessible to the masses.“

176. BURN IT DOWN - Why Elitist Institutions Can Never Be Inclusive

January 29, 2024 by DaN McKee in Culture, EDI, Education, Ethics, Gender, LGBTQ, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Racism, School, Teaching

“those who cling on to the old ways things were need more than an appeal to their personally liking the old standards to maintain them. They need to explain why keeping the bias, and the inequality and lack of inclusion those biased standards cause, is more important to them than making things better.“

168. IT'S NOT JUST THE KIDS, IT'S US - Why It's Important for Teachers to Look in the Mirror

November 06, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Education, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, School, Technology, Teaching

“in a world where there is a very real epistemological threat coming from falling down online rabbit-holes into algorithm-guided conspiracies, we teachers are spending a lot of our own free-time guided by those very same dangerous algorithms as we hunt and click for hours looking for the perfect clips for our students. We then normalise this behaviour to our students“

165. JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS - Why I Wouldn't Want My Killer Jailed

October 09, 2023 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Education, Ethics, Justice, Mental Health, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Politics, Punishment, School

“One student was obviously unconvinced, and remained incredulous that I was advocating a world without punishment. The last question of the night saw them ask: “what would you want to happen then if someone right now, god forbid, ran to the stage and shot you dead? What would you want to happen to them?“

164. CHALLENGING UNIFORM - The Unwarranted Assumption Behind What Children Wear at School

October 02, 2023 by DaN McKee in Education, Identity, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Work

“We realised that there was a big, and unjustifiable, leap that has been made to get from the starting assumption of needing a uniform to the end conclusion that children need to be dressing up everyday like businesspeople from a bygone age. That even if you wanted to justify the idea of enforcing a uniform, you needed to go a long way further from that to justify the bizarre uniforms most schools actually make their poor students wear.“

162. PRACTICAL ETHICS - When Do Economies Become Unethical?

September 17, 2023 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Economics, Death, Education, Ethics, Justice, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Punishment, School

“I am interested in the question of whether the practical compromises economies necessarily demand on our actions are, in fact, immoral, and whether such immorality makes these economies not only unfit for purpose, but unfit to such a capacity that we actually have a moral duty to replace them?“

161. THE GREAT CONSPIRACY - On Philosophy Classes and Dangerous Thought

September 11, 2023 by DaN McKee in Authentic Democracy, Communication, Culture, Education, Epistemology, Ethics, Meaning, Mental Health, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Perception, Politics, School, Technology

“conspiracy thinking - the initial pathway that leads to conspiracy answers - trades on many of the motivating assumptions of philosophy as an activity: a desire to get to some underlying hidden truth beyond the superficial understanding of everyday life.“

160. EPISTEMIC INEQUALITY - Why Should We Care About Inequalities in Knowledge?

June 28, 2023 by DaN McKee in Academic Freedom, Communication, Education, Epistemology, History, Justice, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Racism, School

“This week I’m doing something a little different on Philosophy Unleashed and releasing a lecture I gave last week to Year 12 students at a Sixth Form interdisciplinary conference on the theme of inequality…“

159. TAKING STUDENT SILLINESS SERIOUSLY - Lightning McQueen and the Importance of Battling Deepities

June 24, 2023 by DaN McKee in Culture, Economics, Education, Logic, Movies, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, School

“Like garbage washing up on the shore of a polluted sea, the Philosophy classroom is often where a lot of these deepities come to rest as students, impressed by their apparent wisdom, share them with the one person they think will be equally impressed: their Philosophy teacher. Often those students are soon disappointed, even angry, when that teacher is not impressed at all and, instead, pops the bubble of the illusion and exposes its emptiness.“

158. SOCRATES WEPT - On Resisting The Unexamined Life

June 19, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Education, Epistemology, Meaning, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Truth

“I had some interesting conversations with students this week about first principles. How, once you unpack the thing you are talking about you might realise that you no longer believe what you thought you did, or might even be having a different conversation entirely…“

157. I WON'T MISS SIR - On Naming Our Teachers

June 11, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Education, Gender, Identity, Meaning, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Work

“Any time we approach an area of education with an attitude of it being too difficult or even impossible for someone to do something, we make it so through a process of self-fulfilling-prophecy.“

ANARCHIST ATHEIST PUNK ROCK TEACHER

June 01, 2023 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Book, Education, History, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Work, Wrestling

Is the memoir of DaN McKee's twelve years as a conflicted Philosophy and Religious Studies teacher out June 16th on Earth Island Books!

It not only contains some highlights from the last four years of Philosophy Unleashed, but shows how anarchist philosophy, atheism and a background in DIY punk rock has influenced and shaped DaN's approach to the classroom, as well as his approach to life.

As the blurb says: "'Anarchist Atheist Punk Rock Teacher' is more than just a memoir of some teacher you've never met. It is philosophy of education, of anarchism, of authenticity, and of life. Throw in some personal history, the deaths of both of his parents to deal with on top of juggling all the professional absurdities that come with the job (not to mention having to teach through a global pandemic), and you have all the earmarks of a biographical classic."

If you want to pre-order it directly from the publisher, do so here. If you want to pre-order it from Amazon, do so here. It's available in both paperback and as an eBook.

154. DISRUPTION - Its Importance and its Impotence

May 15, 2023 by DaN McKee in Authentic Democracy, Communication, Education, Free Speech, Free, Justice, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, School, Punishment

“I’ve been thinking a lot about protest and rebellion the last week….“

151. INSTITUTIONALLY AFRAID - On The Importance Of Acknowledging Institutional Prejudice

March 27, 2023 by DaN McKee in EDI, Education, Gender, Justice, LGBTQ, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Punishment, Racism, School

“When we refuse, as Rowley has, to acknowledge the institutional nature - the structural nature - of the racism (and misogyny and homophobia) that permeates an organisation we are refusing to fully grasp the nature of the problem, or fully see what such prejudice looks and feels like for those who experience it.“

150. YOU CAN'T BE NEUTRAL ON A MOVING TRAIN - Gary Lineker and The Myth of Impartiality

March 20, 2023 by DaN McKee in Censorship, Communication, Culture, Education, Epistemology, Ethics, Free Speech, Immigration, Meaning, Media, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Pop Culture, Racism, School, Social Media, Sport, Television, Truth

“To not comment on the state of the world today is never to be impartial. It is to implicitly state a preference - a partiality - for maintaining things exactly as they are, inflammatory immigration policies and all.“

148. THINKING ABOUT WORLD BOOK DAY - How Reading Is More Than The The Fetishisation of Books

March 06, 2023 by DaN McKee in Book, Censorship, Communication, Culture, Education, Free Speech, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, School, Social Media

“Instead of asking what we are reading on World Book Day, we ought to raise the level of questioning: what are we reading and how is it changing us? What is it making us think? What questions are the book raising? Even if the answer is, to all these questions, not a lot (I am unchanged, not thinking about anything, and asking no questions), to ask them makes us perhaps realise that some books are like junk food while others are more nutritious.“

145. IT'S NICE TO HAVE OPTIONS - Existentialism and UCAS.

February 06, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Education, Existentialism, Epistemology, Ethics, Free, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School

“Deciding not to bore the student with Donald Rumsfeld’s treatise on known knowns and known unknowns, I instead decided to offer guidance from the existentialists. That is to say: no real guidance at all. What my student was facing, I suggested, was a living example of the sort of anxiety and despair existentialist philosophers suggested comes from our absolute freedom.“

143. ARTIFICIALLY PRODUCED - Is using ChatGPT To Do Your Work Cheating?

January 23, 2023 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Communication, Education, Ethics, Epistemology, Mind, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Student Writing, Technology, Artificial Intelligence

“The following essay for Philosophy Unleashed was produced by AI. ChatGPT to be precise. I asked it to attempt to write a Philosophy Unleashed post on the topic of the ethics of using ChatGPT to cheat in school work, and do it in the style of me as author. I will present the essay to you first, then show you how it came to be. As you read, ask yourself the question: if I hadn’t told you it was artificially generated, would you know that a human being didn’t write this? And if you know my work specifically, would you know that I hadn’t written it?“

140. SABBATICAL - On The Importance of Taking a Break

December 12, 2022 by DaN McKee in Christmas, COVID19, Education, Free, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Work

“It shouldn’t be surprising to realise that, for an animal which literally shuts completely down every night and knocks itself unconscious as a means of essential restoration, stopping is good for human beings.“

132. BLACK HISTORY WITHOUT TEETH - On The Potential Epistemic Deficit of Black History Month

October 10, 2022 by DaN McKee in Academic Freedom, Black Lives Matter, EDI, Education, History, Identity, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Racism, School

“we need to first address with students core concepts like structural racism, white supremacy and white supremacist thinking, historical constructivism, critical race theory, colonialism, ideology, education policy and curriculum design. Without that, it will be very hard for the students we teach to place any of what they learn during Black History Month into a meaningful, long-term schema of knowledge.“