ONTARIO PHILOSOPHY TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION
FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2015
University of Toronto Schools (UTS)
371 Bloor Street West
Toronto ON M5S 2R8
8:00 – 9:15 REGISTRATION in the foyer of UTS
There is no pre-registration.
Coffee, beverages and muffins are available in the foyer.
9:15 – 10:15 SESSIONS
1. Alistair Macrae – Room 135
Stoic Emotions
2. Vince Dannetta and Zach Fanni – Room 137
What do zombies, androids, teenagers on Ritalin, and gender identification have in common?
3. Dr. David Jopling – Room 139
Resources for teaching The Meaning of Life
Coffee, beverages and muffins are available outside Room 135.
10:30 – 11:45 PLENARY SPEAKER
DR. INGRID LEMAN STEFANOVIC
Environmental Philosophy as Core Curriculum
12:00 – 1:00 LUNCH
Lunch is not provided. There are several fine eateries of varying international cuisines within a 5-minute walk from UTS.
1:15 – 2:15 SESSIONS
4. Andrew Cresswell – Room 135
Reading the word to read the world: a critical pedagogy
5. Dr. Meredith Schwartz – Room 137
Bioethics: Philosophy Making Better Health Care
6. Dr. John Caruana – Room 139
Giving up Certainty: Thinking Intelligently about Existence for
Believers and Non-believers Alike
Coffee, beverages and muffins are available outside Room 135.
2:30 – 3:30 SESSIONS
7. Brock Baker – Room 137

Blending It All Together
8. Dr. Paul Bentley – Room 139
Mental Health in Canadian Schools
3:40 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING – Room 137
This meeting will be brief.
PLENARY SPEAKER – Room 135
DR. INGRID LEMAN STEFANOVIC , Dean of the Faculty of Environment at Simon Fraser
University, Burnaby, BC.
Environmental Philosophy as Core Curriculum
If “environmental ethics” is mentioned at all in introductory philosophy textbooks, it appears as peripheral to the curriculum and one of several examples of “applied philosophy.”
My presentation argues that there are important reasons why Philosophy should be defined in essence as Environmental.
The argument will be made that “applied” philosophy is no longer simply an “add-on” but should be understood to be core to the mission of the discipline. As interdisciplinary and applied, current environmental changes demand that issues of climate ethics, water ethics and environmental philosophy in general define philosophy curriculum, if it is to be meaningful and responsive to global needs.
Dr. Ingrid Leman Stefanovic is Dean of the Faculty of Environment at Simon Fraser
University, Burnaby, BC. Having spent much of her career as a Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Toronto, her interdisciplinary research and writing continue to address themes that intersect philosophy, ethics, behavior change and environmental decision-making. She has taught courses in Environmental Ethics as well as Climate Ethics and Water Ethics at UT. Recent books include The Natural City: Re-Envisioning the Built Environment (co-edited with Stephen Bede
Scharper) and Safeguarding Our Common Future: Re-thinking Sustainable Development. A current
SSHRC-funded project addresses the topic of “Interpreting Interdisciplinarity: The Case of
Environmental Studies” and a second SSHRC-funded project researches the theme of “Water
Ethics and Public Policy.”
SESSIONS – Rooms 135, 137 and 139 at the west end of the first floor.
1. ALISTAIR MACRAE (Room 135). Stoic Emotions
St. Jerome famously claimed that the emotional range of a Stoic is like that of a stone.
This workshop challenges the common misconception that the life of a Stoic resembles that of joyless literary characters such as James Bond, Dirty Harry and Mr. Spock. I will demonstrate that although a Stoic person is fearless even while contemplating the prospect of bodily harm, he or she nonetheless leads a joyful life. Participants will receive a detailed outline of this presentation and a bibliography.
During his 30-year career as a secondary school teacher, Alistair Macrae taught for the
Peel District School Board, the Toronto District School board and a Toronto private school. After retiring in 2009, he started teaching non-credit courses at both the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies and Ryerson University's G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing
Education.
2. VINCE DANNETTA and ZACHARY FANNI (Room 137). What do zombies, androids, teenagers on Ritalin, and gender identification have in common?
We’ve created a website for the UTS philosophy course that reorganizes the course around topical issues: all key units from the curriculum are covered through an examination of

zombies, artificial intelligence and gender studies, with a healthy dash of Monty Python. Our goal is not only to demonstrate how to create a Wordpress website for your philosophy class, but how to creatively organize all key aspects of the curriculum around topics that will excite and engage students without losing a sense of core content.
After fourteen years with the York Region District, Vince Dannetta came to UTS in 2001.
He has been Subject Co-ordinator for the Canada World Studies Department and has been an
Associate Teacher since 1992 with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) and the faculties of education at Trent, Queens, York and the University of Buffalo. Mr. Dannetta is working toward the degree of Doctor of Education.
Zachary Fanni teaches philosophy at Humber College.
3. DR. DAVID JOPLING – Resources for teaching The Meaning of Life
This presentation offers a few suggestions about how to teach a difficult and elusive topic, the meaning of life. It will cover primary and secondary readings, assignment design, discussion points, and philosophical resources.
Dr. Jopling teaches philosophy at York University.
4. ANDREW CRESSWELL (Room 135). Reading the word to read the world: A critical pedagogy
“Living is learning. We need to learn how to live again.” - D. Pugh
A critical pedagogy recognizes that learning is an act of freedom. Rather than saying “We must liberate students!”, critical pedagogy proclaims “We must liberate ourselves!”. It embraces a dialogical relationship that transcends the traditional student-teacher power imbalance, where all become learners and are encouraged to make meaning by and for themselves. Hence, learners
develop new interpretations and implications based on their relationship with the text. And as critical pedagogy is reflective, the experience of the text is also within the learner’s frame of understanding. Both the meaning and the impact are individual but become tempered within the fire of dialogical exchange, as in testing within the forces of the lived world. As a result, the text becomes both a guide and a signpost in a continuing journey of becoming.
This session narrates the experiences of three grade 12 philosophy students as they seek to make meaning of texts, test their understanding in dialogue with others (including traditional
“experts”), write and share their interpretations, and reflect on their learning and its implications.
Andrew R. Cresswell is a Curriculum Head and senior philosophy teacher at
Humberview SS in the Peel DSB. A graduate student at Nippissing University, he is also an educational consultant for OSSTF, the Ontario Ministry of Education, York University and publishers McGraw-Hill Ryerson and Pearson.
5. DR. MEREDITH SCHWARTZ (Room 137). Bioethics: Philosophy Making Better Health
Care
Bioethics uses ethical theory to examine issues that arise in the practice of medicine, nursing, medical research, public health, and health policy. Topics in bioethics can be a useful addition to teaching standard ethical theory because they allow students to see how moral theory has concrete applications in emerging areas of medical technology and access to health care. In this session I will do three things: First, I introduce some of the philosophical questions that arise in bioethics (e.g. “How do advances in genetics and epigenetics affect how we think of persons and personal identity?” “Do abilities imparted by genetic engineering have the same value as abilities developed through hard work and practice?” “Is Facebook’s new benefit of egg-freezing good for its female employees?”). Second, I provide some exercises that could be used to teach bioethics in the classroom and I discuss some web resources (with a Canadian focus where possible) to keep abreast of developments in bioethics. I will provide handouts with some of this

information. Finally, I discuss some of the employment possibilities for philosophy graduates with an interest in bioethics. Although I resist the idea that education should be aimed at career preparation, students are often unsure where a philosophy degree might lead them. Medical technologies are constantly advancing and bioethics provides a relevant way to connect philosophical question to current social issues.
Dr. Schwartz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Ryerson
University. She has won a teaching award from Ryerson University, and several awards for her research from the Canadian Bioethics Society, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and the Trudeau Foundation. Dr. Schwartz’s research focuses on the moral concepts of respect, responsibility, trust, and risk as they are deployed in clinical ethics and health policy. She is coauthor of the book, Gestational Trophoblastic Neoplasia: A Guide for Women Dealing with Tumors of
the Placenta, such as Choriocarcinoma, Molar Pregnancy and other forms of GTN. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Schwartz has worked in the bioethics departments of various hospitals in
Toronto and Halifax.
6. DR. JOHN CARUANA (Room 139). Giving up Certainty: Thinking Intelligently about
Existence for Believers and Non-Believers Alike
Teaching anything related to religion (philosophy of religion, existentialism, etc.) presents philosophy instructors with an interesting set of challenges. We face students who are inclined towards fundamentalist religious positions, and currently, an increasing number who adopt a militant atheist position. Both types of students are resistant to philosophy.
To tackle this issue, I assign a short essay by the British philosopher, Jonathan Rée. He cogently shows how a newer generation of atheists (students and faculty) is adopting the same unquestioning attitude that we sometimes encounter with certain religious students who are not prepared to think philosophically about their worldview. This leads Rée to properly frame the issue for us: the “real distinction is between those who are willing to be intelligent about the problems of existence and those who are not.”
In the context of existentialism, Rée shows that real philosophy happens when believers and non-believers alike let go of the illusory claim that their worldviews are grounded in epistemological certainty. Rée’s advice makes it possible, amongst other things, for a genuine conversation to take place between both groups.
Dr. Caruana is Associate Professor of Philosophy and currently the director of the philosophy program at Ryerson University. His published work is in the area of phenomenology, continental philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of film. He has strong teaching interests in existentialism and the philosophy of film.
7. BROCK BAKER (Room 137). Blending it All Together
I have been experimenting with technology in the philosophy classroom for years. This session is divided into three parts. I’ll begin with a fully immersive lesson showing how you can successfully enhance your philosophy course (increase understanding, interest, collaboration and descriptive feedback for your student’s learning while decreasing your workload) by leveraging freely available software and school/personal devices. Part two will highlight how to go from planning (marrying Curriculum/ Growing Success) to successfully leveraging technology in the classroom using the full capabilities of the free provincial learning management system (LMS)
Desire2Learn (D2L) and OSAPAC software (Mindomo). The remaining time will be used to collaborate, ask questions, play and plan.
Brock Baker teaches at Clarington Central Secondary School and is a long-time philosophy-class experimenter. He was the Blended Learning Consultant with Kawartha Pine

Ridge DSB.
8. DR. PAUL BENTLEY (Room 139). Mental Health in Canadian Schools
This session is a discussion of the educational philosophy of John R. Seeley, Canadian pioneer in the field of mental health in schools. Seeley was Director of the Forest Hill Village
Project, 1948-1956, the most ambitious, yet perhaps least known, mental health project in schools undertaken in Canadian history. To understand Seeley's work, we will need to learn something about the educational thinking of Sigmund and Anna Freud. To critique Seeley's work we will also need to consider Foucault's concerns about psychoanalysis and the social sciences. At the level of application in the classroom, we will discuss Seeley's experiment on the benefits of "free discussion".
Dr. Bentley Ed. D., currently head of History at King City Secondary School, was educated in history and philosophy at the London School of Economics and the University of
Toronto. For a short introduction to the session, see my short polemical comment published recently in CounterPunch. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/16/mental-health-in-canadian-schools/
Visit the OPTA website: www.ontariophilosophy.ca
Contact: kpeglar@rogers.com