These have been shared by philosopher Garrett Pendergraft

1 The Bridge Riddle

2 Coming and Going

In 1978 the Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned an old exam question:

Q. How far can a dog run into the woods?

A. Halfway. The rest of the time he is running out.

Harvard’s Richard E. Baym wrote in to take issue with the answer:

The correct answer is ‘All the way’. Certainly we understand that the dog is running ‘in’ only until he reaches the middle of the forest, but this is in fact, all the way in. If the dog ran only half ‘in’, he would not yet be at the middle. Indeed if the dog ran halfway in and then ran halfway out, he would still be in the woods.

The editors noted, “It occurs to us that the dog’s continued presence there would be useful, in case something happens to that tree that we’ve been hearing about since high school physics — the one that falls when no one is in the forest and since there is no eardum to register sound waves, makes no noise. You know what a fine sense of hearing a dog has. Let him run halfway in (or as Mr. Baym argues, all the way), settle there, and keep an ear cocked for that tree.”

(from Robert L. Weber, ed., Science With a Smile, 1992.)

3 Penniless Pilgrim

4 The River Crossing

5 Fun With Venn Diagrams

Euphony

A charming puzzle from Crux Mathematicorum, December 2004:

If all plinks are plonks and some plunks are plinks, which of these statements must be true?

X: All plinks are plunks.
Y: Some plonks are plunks.
Z: Some plinks are not plunks.

Answer

6 The Troll’s Paradox Puzzle:

7 The Jail Break Riddle

8. Prisoner Hat Riddle

9. Wizard Standoff Riddle

10 The Temple Riddle

11 The Pirate Riddle

12 The Dark Coin Riddle

13 Which Box Has The Gold?

14 The Giant Iron Riddle

The cosmological argument basically says something like: I have parents, and my parents had parents, and so on in time back to the beginning of the universe, asking how the materials that made up The Big Bang got there in the first place? The theist says we must posit God as creator to start the chain of causes. In fact, this theistic answer is a God of the Gaps fallacy, like the ancient Greeks not knowing why the sun went across the sky so they imagined the God Helios driving the sun across the sky. There is a gap in scientific knowledge regarding a precise scientific consensus about the very beginning of our universe, but as scientific and mathematical knowledge grows we can see we are certainly not at the point where a reasonable answer is that fairies created the universe. Here is an important video explaining why:

• (A) Curriculum Connections

Consider the Ontario, Canada, diversity and pluralism in education directive (2009): http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/equity.pdf   From the document it says:

• Religion: By 2017, about one-fifth of our population will be
  members of diverse faith communities including Islam, Hinduism,
  Buddhism, and Judaism, in addition to a growing number of individuals without a religious affiliation (8)
• Curriculum and Courses – Revised curriculum policy documents contain a section on antidiscrimination education that encourages teachers to recognize the diversity of students’ backgrounds, interests, and experiences, and to incorporate a variety of viewpoints and perspectives in learning activities. New courses are also being created that focus on gender studies, equity studies, and world cultures. (25)

This is important to emphasize, but what is currently lacking in many public schools are effective cross-curricular units outlining the core elements of the secular point of view that should be incrementally taught at each grade level along with the other pluralism/multicultural points of view.  Teachers lack the resources to properly teach the secular worldview. 

On this site you will find ideas and resources that are helpful in building multicultural/pluralism lesson plans. These lessons express and engage with the secular point of view, and “philosophy for kids/critical and creative thinking” generally.  So, consider some of these strategies for creative and critical student skill building.