World history teacher Wayne Perkins will offer new class next year called Eastern Philosophy. The class will focus more primarily on Asia than Europe and the United States with the western themed philosophy class, economic and philosophy teacher Mike Weiss teaches.
Ever since college, Perkins was always interested in the subjects of history and philosophy. He enjoyed the subject so much that he decided to become a teacher and teach history. Now he wants to teach eastern philosophy.
Perkins is offering this class because he wants to, “provide a secondary philosophical perspective in relation to the one that we already have with Mike Weiss’s philosophy class. His class focuses pretty heavily on Western philosophy, so philosophies from Europe and from United States, whereas I’m focusing more on philosophies that are coming out of India, China, Southeast Asia, Japan, things like that.”
One of the main purposes of the class is so students will learn to have a better and new perspective of the world and themselves. The class will encourage students to think differently, understand others and learn more about who they are and their identity, also including culture and religion.
“That’s one of the main purposes of the class, is to understand who they are, and what their self, what their place in the world is and in the environment. I think it will challenge a lot of cultural norms that we have here in Minnesota and in America and in the West in general. And I think it will develop and progress to like where kids can open up their minds a little bit and and see things through a different lens,” Perkins explained.
Learning philosophy could be applied to be useful and beneficial in everyday life. Examples could be making wise decisions, thinking insightfully and finding the meaning and purpose of why in life.
“It’s always good to kind of know things that you wouldn’t think you would know in life. You know. You never know when you would have to apply philosophy to your regular day life. So I feel like it’s good to kind of already know those tactics in school. So when you’re an adult, when you’re in the real world, you already know those,” senior Emilio Rosario Matias, president of the philosophy club, said.
In addition, Perkins is known to be a great and helpful teacher acknowledged by students and teachers. He has been teaching for a long time and is always a bright and insightful person.
“I’ve only heard good things from students about Mr. Perkins, his teaching, and I know him as an individual, and he’s extremely well read. He’s a very good speaker and communicator, and if I was a student, I would want to take him as a philosophy teacher,” Weiss said.
Overall, offering Eastern philosophy class next year, Perkins hopes that students, “walk away with a revamped and replenished view of who they are and how they look at the world.” And ultimately, for students to “be able to think critically, develop an amount of discernment, and just not take everything for granted and really like truly wonder and inquire about the wonderful world that we live in.”
