American Association of Philosophy Teachers Studies in Pedagogy

Volume 1, 2015

Practices in Pedagogy

Leslie Miller
Pages 129-156

Philosophical Practice in the Classroom, or, How I Kill Zombies for a Living

After a brief introduction to Philosophical Practice, I explain why I use it in my courses and elaborate on some of the material and techniques I present to students in the hope that it helps them to become better-adjusted and happier people. As an example of the sorts of assignments I create for these courses I present a semester-long assignment called “Everyday Philosophical Practice” that is based on the practice of mindfulness (with a bit of motivational interviewing thrown in) and requires intentional metacognition from the students. This approach has shown success not only at helping students to gain self-knowledge, but also at awakening and strengthening different positive cognitive dispositions such as desiring to think about difficult things, acceptance of the need for effort in clarifying thought, and the like.