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Persuasive Speaking

Our Persuasive Speaking Workshop teaches students how to use speaking as a tool for civic leadership by delivering passionate speeches.

Sample Day Schedule

9:30 am Registration and Breakfast
10:00 am Introduction + Icebreakers
10:30 am Conversation on Speaking Advocacy in Society
11:00 am Introduction to Argumentation + Persuasion
11:30 am Watching + Evaluating Strong Speakers
12:30 pm Lunch
1:00 pm Speaking Practice/Lesson
1:30 pm Brainstorming Topics
2:00 pm Outlining Your Speech
2:30 pm Thinking About Your Audience
3:00 pm Delivering Your Speeches
4:00 pm Final Questions and Certificates

Details

Length: We run workshops that range from 1-hour to multi-day workshops. Our speaking workshop is the most flexible workshop and is suitable for all lengths.

Cost: We aim to keep our workshops accessible, so we can work within most budgets. We also allocate a portion of our budget for covering expenses for external workshops for some nonprofits and schools each year.

Number of Students: We offer workshops for anywhere from 5-100 students!

Location: We can do workshops at your location, at our offices in Boston and New York, or remotely through Zoom/Skype.

Argumentative Writing

Our Argumentative Writing Workshop teaches students how to use writing as a tool for civic leadership by developing reasoned articles.

Sample Day Schedule

9:30 am Registration and Breakfast
10:00 am Introduction + Icebreakers
10:30 am Conversation on Writings Role in Society
11:00 am What Makes Strong Social Change Writing?
11:30 am Introduction to Persuasion + Argumentation
12:30 pm Lunch
1:00 pm Brainstorming Topics
1:30 pm Writing an Outline
2:00 pm Thesis Statements
2:30 pm Counterarguments
3:00 pm Writing Your Article/Sharing
4:00 pm Final Questions and Certificates

Details

Length: We run workshops that range from 1-hour to multi-day workshops. Our writing workshop is best suited for a day-long workshop or longer.

Number of Students: We offer workshops for anywhere from 5-100 students!

Location: We can do workshops at your location, at our offices in Boston and New York, or remotely through Zoom/Skype.

Content Workshops

Our Content Workshops cover various different topics in philosophy, current events, economics, decision-making, leadership and more!

Sample Topics

Liberty or Justice: How Far Can the State Go?: In this workshop, we will focus on the dilemmas between liberty and justice that modern democratic states face in making state policy. We will discuss how states should make policies in cases where pursuing justice would infringe on individual liberties as well as exactly what liberties and justice are. We will then talk about cases like naming children, restricting sugar content in fast food, smoking regulations, circumcision, and the banning of religious headwear.

Educational Justice: In this workshop, we will spend time covering major philosophical issues in education. This ranges from policy issues like the charter school debate and affirmative action to pertinent philosophical paradigms like equality versus equity. Students interested in better understanding their own position in education and society should take the class. This will be a heavy discussion-based class!

Cognitive Biases and Social Change: In this workshop, we will learn about the common cognitive biases that affect the way people interact with each other in society. Discussion topics will include what makes up (and breaks down) how people act, think, believe, and react.

The Philosophy of Ethics: In this workshop, we will cover the basic schools of thought surrounding ethics. We will talk about various ways humans have come up with moral frameworks and how we try to understand those today. Students will leave the class knowing the difference between Hedonism, Nihilism, Consequentialism, and even some Kantian perspectives! Students interested in exploring the question of what is ethical and how individuals have thought about it in the past should attend.

Climate Change & Tragedy of Commons: Why is it so hard for us to solve a problem that affects nearly everyone? What actions are actually needed to curtail environmental destruction? Students will learn about topics in behavioral economics and environmental policy as we explore why solving the world’s biggest has been so difficult.

What Are Rights?: We hear a lot about different types of rights when we talk about justice, law, and even relationships. What exactly are these things that are rights? Who gives them, and who can take them away? What are the different types and categories and what makes them so? We’ll discuss rights such as the right to vote, the right to remain in a country, the right to life, the right to someone else’s property or work, the right to get revenge or just compensation, and more!

Are Moral and Legal Obligations The Same?: People often confuse what is legally obligated and what is morally obligated. This causes a lot of confusion when discusses personal ethics and morals and their relation to the law. It also causes confusion when legal rules and procedures are taken as moral obligations. We’ll discuss the different between moral and legal obligations, when, if, and how they relate, and of course, if it’s ever moral to break the law!

Why Believe In a God: A History: For as long as humans have existed, we’ve debated the existence and properties of a higher being. The arguments in favor of believing in God range from probabilistic accounts (Pascal’s Wager), empirical accounts (Design Theory), rational accounts (Aquinas and Causation), experiential accounts (Al-Ghazali on Mysticism), and many more. In this class, we’ll go through some of the most popular arguments in favor of believing in God and try to see which, if any, we find convincing!

Global Pandemics and Health: What’s the difference between a pandemic and an epidemic? Who decides? How are global health crises managed by the international community? This workshop takes students through the various disease outbreaks of the last hundred years as a way to explore how something invisible can upend the entire fabric of society.

Leaders 4SC: In this group-activity structured workshop, student leaders will get together to enact scenarios involving non-profit, government and private sectors to discuss solutions to societal problems. Students will come up with a joint plan to solve an issue through cooperation and debate. Students will be divided into small groups to facilitate the discussions. Students will present to the entire group after discussion.

Details

Length: We run workshops that range from 1-hour to multi-day workshops. Our topic workshops can be accommodated for any of these lengths.

Cost: We aim to keep our workshops accessible, so we can work within most budgets. We also allocate a portion of our budget for covering expenses for external workshops for some nonprofits and schools each year.

Number of Students: We offer workshops for anywhere from 5-100 students!

Location: We can do workshops at your location, at our offices in Boston and New York, or remotely through Zoom/Skype.

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