Kenneth LeSage, a teacher in the social studies department at Lewis-Palmer, has many unique personal views on philosophy and how to incorporate the act of thinking into everyday life. He is an abject proponent of personal thought and seeks to instill in his students the idea of thinking for oneself.

“A lot of times, kids come to school and it’s all about them being taught. What I like about philosophy is that it causes the students to think, that’s why I like to give the background and to then launch into quotes and the analyzing of passages and dialogue. If you look at yourself, inside yourself, have a reference point that you can then examine the world with, that is what I try to do with philosophy is allow that to be both a rudder and a guiding star. Existentialism is this idea of, “Who are you? Where do you find meaning in your life?” There’s all this confusion and emptiness all around us, so where do you find meaning? If you just sit back at school and just have teachers give you the answers, you’re not finding any meaning in your life. It’s also this idea of, “You’re not going to find meaning in somebody else. If you do, you’re going to be disappointed,” so you need to bring meaning to your own life which basically boils down to responsibility. If I want my life to have meaning, it’s my responsibility to find meaning, not my wife, not my grandchildren. I can find joy in my grandchildren, I can find joy in my wife, and in my job. But if I want to find meaning in my life, that has to be through myself. I think, like all of us, I have my story outside of class and my own internal demons and everything that I’m struggling with just like everybody else. When I’m having those inner conflicts within myself, my ideology of Christianity, of Stoicism, all of that kind of goes to the wayside. But then I use both of those ideas to bring myself back to that focus that I need.”