This child is a breath of fresh air in these times of right-wing CRAZY. He, at the early age of 17 has gone through an epiphany of an entire lifetime (--78.2 years in the USA--). Starting out at the age of 13 as a conservative pundit (His political philosophy, he now believes came from the right-wing hate radio that he listened to everyday in his home of Georgia.) spouting all the right words that the right-wing radio talk hosts repetitively (ad nauseam) jam down the throats of their obedient, low information listeners.
Jonathan, has a brilliant mind and can memorize volumes of information all at once; so in essence the garbage went in from the right-wing hate radio and he pumped it out from his innocent frontal lobes. Now that he is older, he is pondering upon those programmed, unenlightened thoughts that he believed were correct and finds out that so many of his beliefs were not only wrong but did not coordinate with his perception of life. HAT'S OFF TO JONATHAN KROHN! thinkingblue
Philosophy for Children
First published Thu May 2, 2002; substantive revision Mon Jun 8, 2009
In the United States, philosophy typically makes its formal entry into the curriculum at the college level. A growing number of high schools offer some introduction to philosophy, often in special literature courses for college bound students. In Europe and many other countries, it is much more common to find philosophy in the high school curriculum. However, philosophy prior to high school seems relatively uncommon around the world. This may suggest that serious philosophical thinking is not for pre-adolescents. Two reasons might be offered for accepting this view. First, philosophical thinking requires a level of cognitive development that, one may believe, is beyond the reach of pre-adolescents. Second, the school curriculum is already crowded; and introducing a subject like philosophy will not only distract students from what they need to learn, it may encourage them to become skeptics rather than learners. However, both of these reasons can be challenged. They will be addressed in turn. MORE HERE: http://plato.stanford.edu/...