If Philosophy was taught in high school, would people be able to think more critically or just confused?

While philosophy does indeed encourage and teach critical thinking, it is not the only thing that does, nor would it be a be-all end-all subject. The problem of a lack of critical thinking in high school students these days does not lie squarely on the backs of teachers and students, but more on that of lazy administrators, ignorant parents, and grandstanding politicians and school board members. Simply teaching social studies as the study of societal change instead of the rote memorization of names and dates would go a long way to encourage critical thinking, and it would probably be easier than teaching something difficult such as philosophy.

But that is not likely to happen. Even before programs like No Child Left Behind, school administrative culture was pushing teachers ever harder into teaching their students to pass standardized tests and little more in an effort to artificially make the school look like a paragon of education even while student knowledge and skill in subjects that are not typically on standardized tests (i.e. , fine arts, foreign language, science, social studies) continued to fall due to inattention and lack of funding.

Certainly there are teachers that do not care about their students or are frankly ill-equipped to do anything other than read lessons from a book, but oftentimes the teachers who care about their students and think outside the lesson plan are the first to be hammered down by overprotective or ignorant parents and school officials. Do remember that an important aspect of critical thinking is not blindly believing as true anything an authority figure says. I can certainly see parents viewing the teaching of Philosophy as "corrupting the youth" just as they thought of Socrates.So, long story short, basic philosophy taught in high schools would encourage critical thinking, but so would teaching other social studies properly.

Unfortunately, neither is likely to happen so long as the education system demands conformity and teaches to the testing of a narrow field of subjects.

I think... both. But, I think that there's value in being confused. I purposefully use confusion when working with clients to bump them out of their focus and start thinking outside the box as it were.

I think it would be interesting to learn philosophy in HS. I really enjoyed learning psychology in HS. But I don't know if a high school aged person would have the emotional capability to work through philosophy.

There are some who are capable, but I think it's pretty heady stuff that might start you marching down inappropriate roads. Then again... there's quite a bit of philosophy that would work well in that time in a teen's life when they are developing a sense of self. I say... the more education the better!

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.