What kind of high school has a philosophy course? I never heard of such a thing in high school.
First, realize you can’t teach it all. Second, I’ve found the best approach is to consider very basic questions, let the students discuss their thoughts, and guide them into arguments and concepts presented by the usual suspects (Plato, Aristotle, Kant, etc.).
Here’s an example: Ask the students to develop an answer to the question “What is reality?” Once you get past the semantic discussion (What do you mean by “reality”? What does “is” mean?) and develop useful definitions for the terms, I would expect students to latch onto a very physical, sense-oriented definition of reality. Then ask if abstractions like numbers or justice are real things in the same way, and if so, how? To make the problem more concrete, ask them to define what, say, a hammer is, or a chair; does this definition have an idealized reality, or is it just a shorthand for the common properties all “hammers” and “chairs” have? This leads directly into Plato’s Theory of Forms and Aristotle’s realistic criticism of the theory.
Philosophy was developed in order to answer questions that are by their nature difficult to answer–this, IMO, is the only reasonable approach for a teacher. What we call “philosophy” today rests mainly on speculative thought–so it’s arguments don’t reach the level of mathematical or even scientific proof–but it is a well-disciplined speculation, which at times has produced tangible benefits to mankind (I echo others here in recommending the development of the scientific method as an essential topic for your class). Avoid the idea of just throwing some texts at you class–or worse, turning it into one of those meandering, late-night dormroom bull sessions. Real thinkers can philosophize–it isn’t all pot-addled bullshit:-)
And that’s why most high schools don’t have a “philosophy teacher,” and why, if there’s going to be a philosophy course, it gets taught by someone whose area of specialty is something other than philosophy.
Ideally, a philosophy class should be taught by an expert in the field, both because they’ll have read widely enough to have at least encountered the Great Questions and many of the main answers, or at least way of thinking about the questions, that have been proposed, and because they’ll have the experience in logical reasoning that can keep a discussion from becoming a nebulous dormroom-type bull session.
One book I recently read that might be good background reading for the OP is The Latest Answers to the Oldest Questions: A Philosophical Adventure with the World’s Greatest Thinkers. It may not be as definitive as its title suggests, but it gives a good, readable overview of what some of the big questions in philosophy are and what philosophers are saying about them today.
I just got back from my 5th grader’s science fair and I am painfully aware of the problems of teachers teaching outside their speciality 
but I’m interested to explore this idea a little.
Ideally every subject would be taught by an expert in the field but high schools fall short ideal in oh so many ways. Is there anything especially problematic with non-experts teaching philosophy?
My first reaction to the OP was, “lucky kids! They have an enthusiastic teacher who wants to expand their horizons.” but Frylock seemed to suggest that high school kids might be better off without enthusiastic amateurs teaching philosophy and they should leave it to the experts. Thudlow is not quite so judgmental but warns us of some dangers. Maybe you have some anecdotes to share of philosophy gone bad?
For my part, I can foresee some problems with meandering discussions or with a teacher missing the subtlety in, say, Berkeley’s immaterialism but, could we not concoct a syllabus that steers clear of these pitfalls?
I think my teenaged self would have immensely enjoyed to learn that some seemingly obvious ideas (in ethics, in aesthetics, in epistemology) 1. Were not so obvious after all 2. The topic of centuries of discussion and 3. Despite 2, still unresolved.
Wouldn’t a class like that be interesting and a net-positive for a curious teenager even if the teacher was somewhat less than an expert?
I spent a very pleasant evening recently discussing trolley problems with my 5th grader and my 10th grader. Was I doing more harm than good?
Perhaps we can avoid criticisms of the OP’s specific situation and talk about the general principles involved?
A number of posters have mentioned the scientific method as an important topic in philosophy. I don’t disagree that it’s important but, IMO, the way it is taught in American schools manages to strip away all of the essentials of the method and leaving just the accidentals in the student’s mind.
For perspective, during my schooling in England, we did 7 years of separate subject physics, chemistry and biology starting in (the equivalent of) 6th grade. I don’t remember ever being explicitly taught the scientific method but we lived it every day with 3 sessions a week in the lab, forming hypotheses and demonstrating their validity with experiments.
By contrast, I have done the science fair thing in America with two kids now and I am sure that, if they learned anything, it’s that the scientific method is where you write boilerplate text under six obscure categories (purpose, question, hypothesis etc), dump a bunch of sugar in a glass of water and then make a poster board. It doesn’t seem to get much better in high school. No wonder there is a shortage of scientists.
Hypothesis: the scientific method is something to be experienced, not taught.
prematurely posted
I don’t know the names but some ideas are:
Individualism vs. collectivism. We are a more individualistic culture, more or less
Faith in the progress of science/technology vs. ludditeism or no faith in the power of science
Democracy vs. a government of unelected people who ‘deserve’ their power and don’t need to bother with elections (because their power is granted via god, parents, special talents, etc and not by elections)
Theocracy vs. secularism (we are mostly secular, despite what we say)
Foreign policy interventionism vs. isolationism
Inclusive vs. exclusive national and social boundaries.
etc
For the most part we are a culture that tries to give the individual a large amount of worth and freedom, but we are also a very materialistic culture that likes to objectify self/others while pursuing material gain rather than emotional well being. That is my impression.
Nihilism?
(from link, emphasis added):
People like you, who possess such a worm’s eye view of the
foremeost ideals of Western culture, should not be allowed
to teach.
If I could find out who you really were, and where you taught
I would send a copy of your OP to the school board, and take
my chances with the fact that some school boards are so clueless
that they might give you a promotion.
Realistically, do you think you can do any in depth philosophy w/o someone getting upset and complaining to the school? I really don’t know if encouraging people to question deeply held assumptions is something the parents will want to accept. But I could be wrong, and if it is an elective class and not mandatory, hopefully it won’t be a problem.
For example in military operations the US places a high value on soldiers lives, while some other countries do not (Islamic suicide bombers or Japanese kamikaze as an example). Exploring the motives of each party could be controversial. Why do we place so much value on soldier’s lives when other militaries do not?
Then you start talking about god and the various branches of religion (deism, atheism, polytheism, non-abrahamic forms of monotheism, etc) and how life differs under each.
NCDane, our main rule here is “don’t be a jerk,” and your comments in this post aren’t in keeping with that rule. Insults belong in the BBQ Pit. Your suggestion that you would try to get the OP fired from his job is not welcome here. And if you’re not going to contribute to the topic, you don’t need to participate in this thread. Don’t do this again.
Would it have been OK if I had just said:
Threadstarter has a a worm’s-eye view of the foremost ideals
of Western culture
No. At that point in the thread, with such a limited OP, the appropriate response would have been to simply ask for clarification:
*Why does the OP think that Nihilism is “number one”?
What is the understanding of the OP regarding what Nihilism actually is?*Starting off a discussion with an insult, (and sneaking it back into the post to which I am responding), does not actually provide any information or any actual debate. Mudslinging is mudslinging and you will stop.
[ /Moderasting ]
Actually, having gone back and re-read the entire thread more closely, it is apparent that the OP is well over his head on this topic and needs a significant amount of support and direction, (to which he is obviously open), so both your original comment and you “rephrasing” are nothing more than pointless insults.
If you come back with more of the same, you will be Warned.
[ /Moderating ]
blood63, you are pretty clearly out of your element on this topic. I would suggest that you start with a decent overview of the history of Philosophy just to understand the terms and development. (Something like Stumpf’s Socrates to Sartre will get you started. It ends a bit too soon in the 20th century, but it gets most of the older ideas across clearly. His later Socrates to Sartre and Beyond probably rectifies that lack, but it is rather pricey, so you might want to get the first one, used, then read the last chapters of the next edition from the library. 
When you refer to your students as experiencing nihilism, I suspect that you are simply describinbg a perceived psychological or social condition arising from a combination of factors, (not least teen angst), rather than an actual philosophical approach to life.
Utilitarianism is definitely something you’d want to cover. And then when you’ve got everyone nodding their heads and agreeing that they’ve finally found a philosophy that works, throw them the involuntary organ donor paradox.
I second this recommendation. It’s a good book with a lot of introductary philosophical ideas in nice sized chunks.
Personally, I feel that walking high school students through the mud of ancient philosophies is a waste of both your and their time. What they need to be learning in that level of a class is ethics, and how we come up with them. In this case you, as a teacher, really need to understand where the majority of modern arguments begin. As others have noted, these are the types of classes that WILL cause issues if you don’t lay things out straightforward from the beginning. Any decent philosophy course must occasionally touch on religion as a basis for ethics; and thus the students must be made aware from the first day that their ideas may, and probably will be challenged at some point. I suggest you address this thoroughly on the first day of class and assign them a simple thought experiment to ponder as homework. Give them a minor ethical problem to solve and allow them to come up with a solution. They must justify their position through some sort of logic of their own. Then sit back ad watch the fireworks.
One of the best philosophy classes I took laid out the structure as a sequence of ethical questions we had to resolve. Then, as a class we discusses and came to a decision on how to solve the problem. We explored HOW we made our decisions and what principles we were implicitly applying. This was far more effective at getting everyone thinking than running through a long sequence of names, ideas, and principles that have only cursory relevance to today’s world. Critical thinking, logic, and principles of reciprocity and equality should be the touchstones.
As one who did a whole bunch of name-dropping in this thread, I wanted to clarify something: my intention in citing specific people was to provide the OP with particulars to help formulate a curriculum. That is, provide pointers to help establish some personal background knowledge, hopefully enough to identify, trace, and counter primary ideas. (And I forgot to mention Hume, who is pretty inescapable for empiricism, and thus science.)
That is, IMHO, a terrible way to present the material, however. I forget who provided a list of areas earlier, but that’s how I’d go. It’s quite clear that Acid Lamp’s proposal would be effective and interesting, but my hesitation is that I’m not sure it’d meet the OP’s “western ideals” requirement.