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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2011 12:34:23 GMT
Today was the philosophy section of the baccalauréat for French high school students. You must pass this exam to gain access to university.
Depending on what section of studies the students are in, they had to write a three hour essay on one of the following subjects:
1. A. Can a scientific hypothesis be proven?
---B. Is mankind condemned to have illusions about itself?
---C. commentary of an excerpt by Nietzsche
2. A. Is freedom threatened by equality?
---B. Is art less necessary than science?
---C. commentary of an excerpt by Seneca
3. A. Does culture distort mankind?
---B. Is it possible to be right when the facts contradict you?
---C. commentary of an excerpt by Pascal
4. A. Does self-mastery depend on self-knowledge?
---B. Does feeling injustice give one an understanding of what is just?
---C. commentary of an excerpt by Nietzsche
I am really happy I am not in school anymore, even though I wouldn't mind debating a lot of these subjects over dinner.
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Post by bjd on Jun 16, 2011 13:42:13 GMT
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Post by onlymark on Jun 16, 2011 13:49:02 GMT
I'm glad I never had to study the subject.
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Post by fumobici on Jun 16, 2011 14:33:07 GMT
I actually think those are mostly interesting questions and something someone completing high school should be well capable of expanding upon in some depth. I wish American secondary education was more focused on such things, I can't tell you how many people I've met that have completed American Bachelors or even Masters degrees who would probably be hopeless when faced with such questions and asked to write a cogent essay on them.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2011 17:41:49 GMT
On another forum, somebody replied: "That appears to be the premise on which this message board is founded."  |
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Post by lola on Jun 26, 2011 0:26:57 GMT
I'd rather throw some one liners into a dinner table discussion than be obliged to write or say anything cogent about these questions.
It's heartening to see those questions required. We will have a 17 yo girl from Rouen staying with us for a few weeks in July, so I'll print this out for when dinner table conversation flags, get her a head start.
In the past month I've heard of more young men majoring in philosophy. In our acquaintance,
double majors in:
Philosophy and Math, Physics, Finance. (This last really wants to be a dance teacher. As the wife of a philosophy major who really wants to be a rock star, and the daughter of one who really wanted to be a playwright, I had to warn my daughter about him.)
Also the son of a friend who's a Rhodes Scholar is studying Philosophy at Oxford. He claims to be disappointed with the program there, or maybe that's just what he tells his mama.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2011 5:17:25 GMT
One interesting thing about the philosophy essay of the "bac" is that everybody has to take it, even if they are planning on majoring in mechanics.
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Post by rikita on Jun 26, 2011 12:16:07 GMT
well i think they are interesting topics, and i suppose the students were confronted with the questions in discussions in class before, so it's not like they have to come up with an opinion on the issues only at the exam - but what i wonder is, how do they grade it? if a student has opinions highly different to those that the teacher has, but can put them well and argue his/her point of view, is that better or worse than someone who repeats exactly what they learned in class? this problem i guess exists for a lot of exams - but in this subject i suppose it is especially visibil...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2011 14:56:35 GMT
Yes, the possible subjects were all covered one way or another as part of the courses. Since France has a "national curriculum" the same subjects must be covered by every school, whether public, private or religious.
Grading is indeed a great controversy. The grading is done by professionals (an extra job for teachers), but never anyone from the same school where the test was taken. In any case, the baccalauréat exam is generally taken in a different high school than the one attended -- one of the reasons being to reduce the possibility of hiding notes and stuff, but of course electronic devices have created a new challenge, even though they are banned. (Students are not searched.)
The subjectivity of grading will always be there. There is an urban myth about one of the subjects several decades ago. The question was along the lines of "Can audacity be more important than planning?" and one student reputedly wrote a 3 word essay ("Yes, it can!") and received a passing grade.
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Post by rikita on Jun 27, 2011 18:39:46 GMT
well, seems he/she was right...
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LouisXIV
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L'estat c'est moi.
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Post by LouisXIV on Jul 5, 2012 15:30:24 GMT
Interesting, and like K2 says, would make interesting dinner conversation. I just can not imagine how the average American student would handle this. I doubt the would handle it well.
How do you grade something like this? Grammar and spelling, yes, but most is opinions and everyone has those. And if your opinions are different than those grading, are you in trouble? I guess the best I can see here is your ability to think on your feet.
"B. Is it possible to be right when the facts contradict you?" The simple answer to that is one word, yes. But since they have four hours I am sure they are temped to go beyond that, and then they start getting in trouble. More stuff for the person who is grading to pick apart. About the only thing I would possibly add would to to mention all the people who were executed and later found innocent.
Many, many, many years ago when I was in high school my English teacher would have the room write an essay one day each week on a topic he wrote on the board and we had the whole hour to write. One week the topic was "Why?". After about five minutes one student handed in his paper and the rest of the class used the whole hour. The next week we all got our graded papers. The one that handed his paper in after 5 minutes got an A+, the highest grade in the class. This is what he wrote: At the top of the page was his name and hour of the class, they on the first line in the center he wrote the topic, "Why?" and then on the next line he had a one word essay, "Because." Here it is 50 years later and I am still impressed by that.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2012 16:35:09 GMT
There is an urban legend in France that one year a topic was "What is audacity?" and a student turned in a two-word essay. "This is!" While he did not get a top grade, he did get a passing grade, which is more than a lot of the students who wrote for 3 hours got.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2012 16:38:24 GMT
Here are some of the topics from this year's exam:
Can desires exist naturally?
Would we be freer without a State?
Are all beliefs the contrary of reason?
Do we have a duty to search for the truth?
What is actually earned through work?
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Post by fumobici on Jul 5, 2012 18:07:58 GMT
I love the fact that essays can't be machine graded. There's a worrying and simplistic tendency in education to attempt to quantify outcomes by means of standardized testing, and doing so by testing the ability of students to regurgitate "facts" by rote in a multiple choice or true false tests is really lazy and unprofessional policy. One cannot usefully measure the success or failure of the educational process by those means. Education is not an accretion of facts but a means of enabling students to think and express themselves clearly and cogently.
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Post by bjd on Jul 5, 2012 20:10:02 GMT
Never having studied philosophy myself, I think these topics are good dinner-table talk too.
As far as grading goes, I believe the students are supposed to incorporate ideas on the chosen subject by philosophers studied during the course of the year. I tend to think those one word answers to big questions are urban legends. Students study philosophy in France in order to learn to think logically, learn the history of philosophy (as much as they can with one class a week), and to learn to express an opinion and develop it.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2013 14:37:40 GMT
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Post by htmb on Jun 5, 2013 21:24:00 GMT
Pity those poor deranged individuals who must administer the examinations. What a thankless job they have.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2013 22:40:43 GMT
The people who actually have to give a grade to the essays have my greatest sympathy. They receive a big packet from students who are total strangers to them. Not knowing the background story of any student being judged must be terrible, although the whole point is not to know.
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Post by bjd on Jun 6, 2013 8:34:55 GMT
Well, they are philosophy teachers, so they must know what to look for in answers with respect to the course work.
And indeed, better to have anonymous marking, rather than having a teacher who knows the kids marking their exams.
This said, I'm glad I never had to study philosophy. Better dinner table conversation than high school subject.
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Post by htmb on Jun 6, 2013 20:47:57 GMT
Students are taught how to respond to examination questions, whether it's philosophy or another subject area. They have also studied how to communicate their responses so that examiners, who are typically held to high standards, can determine accurate and fair scores for each examinee. But you are right, Kerouac. In speaking about the different high-level advanced examinations students take on an international basis, examiners will not know if a student is a lazy individual, but good at communicating information. They won't know if a student has just experienced a death of a close family member or if that student happens to be autistic or wheelchair bound. It's possible that may not even know a student's ethnicity or gender. All they will know is the information communicated through the student's written word.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2013 21:39:24 GMT
I think it would be extremely interesting if travellers were obliged to take something like a philosophy exam rather than get a visa to go from country to country.
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Post by htmb on Jun 6, 2013 22:16:02 GMT
And those who utter the phrase "That's not how we do it in (insert home town)" would be denied a visa.  |
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Post by fumobici on Jun 7, 2013 19:41:13 GMT
That's going to put a real dent in trans Atlantic tourism.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2013 11:54:14 GMT
Okay kids, are you ready to spend 3 hours writing an essay about one of this year's subjects?
For science students:
◾ Is it possible to act morally without having any interest in politics?
◾ Does work permit a person to gain conscience of oneself?
◾ Explanation of a text by Henri Bergson from his work "The Creative Mind".
For arts & letters students:
◾ Is language just a tool?
◾ Is science limited to observing facts?
◾ Explanation of a text by Descartes from "Letter to Elisabeth".
For economy and social science students:
◾ What do we owe the State?
◾ Does one make an interpretation when one fails to know?
◾ Explanation of a text by Anselme of Canterbury's "Of Concord".
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Post by bjd on Jun 17, 2013 12:47:23 GMT
It's 4 hours, Kerouac. They start at 8.
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Post by rikita on Jun 17, 2013 13:32:47 GMT
well, if i was a student in french i'd probably be an arts and letters student, and i'd chose the first question there. anyway, also in school times, i'd have taken writing an essay on that topic over a math test anytime...
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Post by mossie on Jun 17, 2013 15:31:31 GMT
I'm glad I left school 65 years ago ;D ;D
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2013 5:14:20 GMT
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Post by htmb on Jun 19, 2013 20:55:45 GMT
It's a pretty one-sided article. I'm surprised none of our British members have expressed an opinion.
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Post by patricklondon on Jun 20, 2013 5:31:53 GMT
OK. I'll bite. I think this is an area where we understand there are differences in cultural expectation of what an education system is for. They won't persuade us of the merits of theirs, nor vice versa, and each (like any system) has the weaknesses of its strengths (and, perhaps, also vice versa). Our weakness is that we never really had a national system until recently (too French!), more a series of adaptations and compromises with existing (patchy) local and voluntary provision (often dominated by church and local philanthropic organisations, which could all so easily be captured by local commercial interests, of course). Until well into my lifetime, the idea that the central government should dictate how local authorities and voluntary providers should organise their schools (above a basic minimum of safety and competence) was highly controversial, let alone that politicians should interfere with what teachers were actually teaching. For the most part, the system was driven by "academic" aspiration, with technical and vocational education always struggling to get equivalent status and support; all-round education was demonstrated at 16 (the legal school-laving age in those days), with 16-18 being for more specialist concentration, mainly for preparation for university entrance (for the very academic few). Interestingly, you could get something like the French bacc philosophy exam, not necessarily taught as academic philosophy or a primer of "great thinkers", in "general papers" for the entrance exams run separately for the major universities, or in the north of England, incorporated into a "General Studies" A-level run by the local examination boards (all run by universities in those days). And the principle is still included in the International Baccalaureate, which an increasing number of schools offer.
Since the education system has been turned upside down and shaken vigorously by every successive government since the 70s, it's hard to keep touch with a general systematised concept of what it's for. But as I understand it, it still runs on the principle that you take a broad range of subjects until 16 (GCSE), and three or four A-levels at 18. In my day (a long time ago) that was likely to be more specialised (I did very little other than languages and literature after 16). Schools may be more flexible now (I think the article may be right about a wider range of choices (A-levels were made more modular with bits being taken at different times rather than all in one final exam, but this government now seems to be trying to turn everything back to the 1950s model) - but I reckon the advice from teachers and parents about future options is more powerful than the author suggests, so that there's probably still a high degree of specialisation. I believe there are people now arguing that since almost everyone is expected now to stay on at school to 18, we should be moving more towards only requiring external examination requiring a broad general education at 18 rather than 16.
We have a legend about a university philosophy examination which included the question "Is this a question?", to which someone (apparently successfully) wrote "If it is, this is an answer". I suspect such blunt empiricism wouldn't have been appreciated in France.
I'm not surprised. But then, I went to Cambridge.
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