Philosophy 101 reminds us that Thales believed the arge was water, Heraclitus believed it was fire, Anaximenes believed it was air, no one believed it was earth but the Parmenidian weltanschaung (forgive me if I mispelled it) could fit earth as Parmenides' arge, Empedocles believed air, water, fire and earth were the four building elements of reality... Some say it was Xenophanes who blieved it was earth... I've done the stretch to assign philosophers to wood and metal (oriental substitutes for air) but I am having trouble summarizing Anaximenes as a philosopher whose school of thought was worthwhile, ditto for Thales, I will be working on using elemental superheroes to teach ancient philosophy but I am far away from my university's books and hoped I could get assistance from people that have studied philosophy, even better if unlike me they did graduate from it. I am facing Anaximenes and Thales as the greatest challenges, as well as Empedocles, the value of Parmenides and Hraclitus is just too obvious to miss. So just to begin, what about Anaximenes and Thales would you teach to kids? and how? (by the way, hi, I am new to these forums as you may have noticed, I googled for philosophy forums and found this and another one whose format reminded me of dragonsfoot where ad&d is discussed so I let my worrying about philosophasters and ventured in with this question, I also abandoned my fears that sharing my project may lead to copycats, after all, its how i handle the project what should make it unique, I had hoped I would find the level and answers I am looking for but the discussions over there were low brow and even the mods trolled, so I am having greater hopes for this site since it can't be as bad as that one).