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Grade 11: Philosophy Club Introduction

October 11, 2021

On the morning of Friday, October 8, 2021, the 11th-grade students of SHSID gathered in the auditorium of the Xianmian Building Annex for an assembly. 11th-grade students gave a wonderful and interesting speech to promote the Philosophy Club. The pair drew inspiration from a TED talk and proposed a conundrum on how to educate three aliens in their speech, which overwhelmed the audience as they struggled to find the answer. The auditorium was filled with a lively atmosphere as the students actively thought and buzzed with discussion. After the students still did not come up with an answer to the puzzle before the end, the presenter had successfully inspired the students' interest and encouraged everyone to join the Philosophy Club so that they can explore the answer during club sessions. Philosophy offers a profound inquiry into the worldview and many fundamental questions, and the answer to the intriguing question proposed earlier is also offered to students interested in philosophy at the Philosophy Club.

To continue to demonstrate the charm of philosophy, the presenter then showed the students a question from the forum and answered it philosophically, presenting the role of philosophy in daily life and critical thinking. After that, he also quoted the famous words of French philosopher Descartes, "I think, therefore I am", and Sartre, "I am, therefore I think", to showcase the students the charm of philosophy clearly with vivid yet concise wording, attracting students' interest and provoking their thinking. At the end, the speaker showed the help of philosophy to their studies through charts and data. Among them, the students who had studied philosophy scored in first place in oral expression and writing exams, and even in the relatively less relevant exams related to numerical expressions, they came in fifth place, which was higher than other students who had studied social sciences and sufficient enough to show the benefits of philosophy for academics. Not only that, but the two students combined the content of the lecture with the content of the IB TOK (Theory of Knowledge) course, which is deeply engrained in the minds of many students, making the lecture interesting to them. Philosophy is not only a profound inquiry into many fundamental issues in life and the world, but also a substantial help to academics, and it is anticipated that more students interested in philosophy will join the Philosophy Club.

(Written by 11-2 Lucy Pictures by 11-1 Winnie Xiong Supervised by Jialong Liu Reviewed by Qian Zuo)