Inservice in Ethics, Values and Culture:

A Collaboration between Lee High School
and the University of Houston Philosophy Department

Preface

The year 2001 marked the centennial celebration of the founding of the American Philosophical Association (APA). To help mark this significant event, the APA organized a program of events nationwide with the general title “PHILOSOPHY MATTERS: A Celebration of the Power of Thought.? Philosophers across the country were invited to join the celebration by organizing lectures, book-signings, coffeehouse discussions, radio spots, readings, and other events to show the personal value and social usefulness of philosophy. The APA noted, “The most successful programs are those in which local philosophers address their broader communities.?

The University of Houston Philosophy Department had previously engaged in several outreach programs to the public schools in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). A number of our department’s graduates (both majors and Master’s students) have become public school teachers. Many philosophers in our department have been speakers in local school classrooms or at special panels held in schools.

The tragic events of recent years, such as the Littleton, Colorado school shootings and the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attack, have brought home to everyone both the difficulty and the importance of discussing values with our children of all ages. Parents and school boards are also urging further teacher involvement in the school child’s formulation and articulation of values. Philosophers are well-suited to play a leading role in this discussion. Our discipline has developed approaches to ethics and morality for more than 2000 years. Of course, some philosophers have been religious, but on the whole the discipline advocates the reasonable discussion of values without bringing in religion, either to defend or attack it. Philosophers often are called upon to serve in advisory roles at medical centers and in important new areas of scientific research. They also write about and discuss many issues relating to values in the media, such as the role of movie violence, how films depict gender roles and ethnicity, and so on.

Background

The project between the University of Houston (UH) Philosophy Department and Lee High School in Houston evolved out of discussions between Dr. Cynthia Freeland, a UH philosophy professor, and Mary Ann Natunewicz, a teacher in the HISD system at Lee High School. The two had become acquainted through the “Houston Teachers Institute? which is part of a national demonstration project based on the over 20-year-old Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Freeland taught a seminar called “Addressing Evil? in 1999 and another on “Film and American Values through the Decades? in 2001. Natunewicz was a participant in both seminars and served as their coordinator, or teacher advisor. Both Freeland and Natunewicz felt that these seminars offered valuable information to teachers who would learn how to draw on philosophical material to teach a wide variety of subjects, across fields such as history, American and British literature, health, biology, special education, and art. An expansion of the outreach effort that would also offer a more streamlined and focused version seemed an ideal topic for subject matter inservices to HISD teachers. Freeland participated in a proposed pilot inservice program at Lee High School in 2001, along with two of her colleagues, Professors James Garson and David Phillips. The inservices were well-attended and were also approved for “Gifted and Talented? credit by the appropriate office in the State of Texas, enabling more teachers to participate for relevant credit.

Overview

In 2002 The UH Philosophy Department offered a series of six inservice workshops on content areas having to do with “Ethics, Values, and Culture? as a pilot program at Lee High School. The schedule was worked out at the convenience of all participants. The arrangement was that the UH professors would come to Lee High School on a late afternoon and lead an hour- to hour-and-a-half long workshop for roughly 20-30 teachers each time. The professor provided background information about how philosophers have addressed, and are currently addressing, the basic issues on the table. There were reading lists, short sample readings, a bibliography, and other related handouts for distribution to all teachers. The professors took questions and offer suggestions about adapting the material for classroom use at different age levels—although the teachers themselves remain the best judges of how to do this.

The workshops were designed to provide teachers with concepts and vocabulary that they could then use directly in their classrooms to encourage their own students to ask questions, debate about issues, seek further information, and formulate their own positions about many difficult value subjects. In no case was it intended that the philosophers would teach the “right? and “wrong? answers on a particular ethical question. Naturally, as individuals, philosophy professors might have their own views on things like stem cell research or arts censorship, but the goal in the classroom is to provide key background as well as insight into a diverse array of possible frameworks that can be applied to try to resolve the issues in question.

Several participants in the outreach program also took part in a panel at the Texas Gifted and Talented Convention in Houston, October, 2002. Professors James Garson and David Phillips from UH, and Dr. Natunewicz from Lee, gave a report on the Lee program. There is much interest in expanding this program to other schools in the Houston area so that more teachers can participate and benefit from it.

Fees