Philosophy teacher at secondary school ALASCA (Amsterdam Liberal Arts & Sciences Academy) Niels Hexspoor has received the NWO Doctoral Grant for Teachers. With the grant, Hexspoor will start a five-year research project at ESPhil from 1 May on a lesson plan on ecological ethics for secondary schools, which he will develop under the guidance of promoters Vincent Blok and Liesbeth Noordegraaf-Eelens.
Besides Hexspoor, 22 other teachers received the Doctoral Grant for Teachers. A total of over EUR 4.9 million has been allocated. The scholarship allows teachers to develop further and strengthen the connection between schools and universities.
Hexspoor wants to use ethics that focus on objects rather than people to teach students how to deal with future conflicts of values created by the climate crisis - an ethic the teacher says is not yet available. We interviewed the prospective PhD student about his research plans and their significance for education: ‘There is a lot of involvement among students in the climate crisis. My research is a response to that involvement.'
What was your first reaction when you heard you had been awarded the grant?
‘I was extremely happy. I have cherished the dream of doing a PhD for quite a long time and at the same time I don't want to stop teaching in secondary school, so this combination of doing research and teaching is perfect for me. So I jubilantly called my girlfriend and my mother and then I very stoically wanted to continue grading tests in philosophy of science, but that really didn't go anywhere. Then I went for a Surinamese sandwich nearby and went for a walk (sorry V5...)’
"The subject of Philosophy is capable of teaching students to deal with conflicts of values created by the climate crisis."
On the NWO website, you indicate that the ecological ethics to be developed by you focus on objects rather than people. Why is this approach relevant as a topic for philosophy classes in secondary schools?
"To answer that question, I must first explain a bit about philosophy classes in secondary schools. Secondary schools in general have a strong focus on specialisms. As a Geography teacher, you know all about the earth, as a Social Studies teacher you know all about how politics and society work, and as an Economics teacher, you know all about finance. However, there are problems in society, such as the climate crisis, that do not benefit from such specialism. As a teacher, if you want students to think about possible ways to deal with the climate crisis and ultimately push them to act, you need interdisciplinary knowledge and skills."
The school subject Philosophy is capable of being such an interdisciplinary subject because philosophers are able to have a conversation about the values implicit or explicit in other subjects. Thus, the subject of Philosophy is capable of teaching students to deal with conflicts of values created by the climate crisis. This requires the Philosophy subject to adopt a more theme-oriented approach - where the Philosophy subject is currently focused on the sub-fields of philosophy such as epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, and anthropology. This theme-oriented approach is thus the focus of the renewal of the subject in the coming years. My research aims to contribute to this theme-oriented philosophy education by developing a lesson plan on climate ethics."
"I hope students learn to think critically about possible solutions to the climate crisis, and most importantly, feel empowered to make their voices heard.”
Philosophy lessons are thus ideally suited to address complex, cross-curricular and urgent issues such as climate change. How will you teach students to think about - and deal with - the climate crisis in your curriculum to be developed?
"I will base the curriculum on the ecological ethics I am going to develop. An ecological ethics is important because existing ethical theories such as virtue ethics, utilitarianism, and duty ethics are fundamentally humanistic: they are about good human qualities, human calculations, or using human reason to see how to solve a conflict of values. Unfortunately, this problem is not solved if you extend these human values with ecological values: this again leads to endless debate about whether nature has a value or a purpose in itself. With an ecological ethics, I want to combine both views and think them through even more fundamentally by taking the relationship between humans and nature as the starting point of ethics. I will investigate the normative aspects of this relationship by using James Jerome Gibson's affordance theory: natural things nudge our behaviour in a certain direction. To what extent is there an ethical component to this?"
Why do you think you received this Grant?
“I think first of all because there is a lot of engagement among students on the climate crisis. Pupils often come to me with questions about this, whether they are fans of Greta Thunberg or Thierry Baudet. In addition, the government itself also sees the importance of involving pupils in politics. With the 2021 Civic Integration Act, the government has tasked education with promoting active citizenship and social cohesion. My research is a response to student engagement and the government's mandate.”
What do you hope students take away from your lessons?
“I will put the lesson planinto practice myself as part of our school's own ‘Philosophy & Technology’ curriculum - also affectionately called FiloTechno. First of all, I hope that pupils learn to think critically about possible solutions to the climate crisis, and that they see both the limits and the opportunities of using technology in relation to nature, for example. In addition, I especially hope that students feel empowered to make their voices heard and that they know how to find local and national politics.”
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Niels Hexspoor is a philosophy teacher at ALASCA secondary school, a school for interdisciplinary education in Zeeburg in Amsterdam that falls under the school umbrella Esprit.
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