There is a widespread belief in Philosophy for Children that Plato, the famed Greek thinker who introduced philosophizing to the world as a form of dialogue, was averse to teaching philosophy to young children. Decades of the implementation of P4C program’s inquiry pedagogy have shown conclusively that children are not, in fact, incapable of receiving philosophical training and education. But was Plato wrong? Or has he been largely misunderstood? Does his theory of education show the (...) value of cultivating virtues in the young? This paper attempts to answer these questions by reading the Republic, specifically Plato’s theory of education and the allegory of the cave, as an education manual that can strengthen one’s understanding of the pedagogical approach of P4C and the importance of educating children in wisdom and other intellectual virtues. It demonstrates that the Platonic conception of education is consistent with P4C’s theoretical position of education being transformative, facilitative, and virtue-based. By unpacking the symbolisms and meanings of the cave metaphor, it also discusses effective facilitation, teacher capacity building, and sharing of responsibility in education. Ultimately, drawing from Plato’s theory of education can recalibrate and improve the way one sees the role of education in building caring communities that empower learners and educators for democracy, higher learning, and achievement. (shrink)

The significance of value-based education in character development and inculcation of ethical citizenship attitudes in Kenyan schools cannot be overemphasized. In the recent past, cases of unethical behaviour among primary school-going children and those who have graduated from this important segment of education have been on the rise, despite the various interventions by the Kenyan government to integrate value concerns in the curriculum. Since 2020, there has been a sharp increase in the cases of student-led arsons in learning institutions (...) in Kenya. From independence, the government of Kenya adopted an indirect approach of value education that advocates for integration of values within regular curriculum. This strategy seems ineffective owing to an increase in the cases of indiscipline among learners. This study seeks to examine the application of Philosophy for Children (P4C) as the architecture for implementing value-based education and the realization of Chapter Six of the Constitution of Kenya because the values thatP4C aims to nurture are highly consistent with those of the Kenyan Constitution. Through P4C, the Kenyan Education system can achieve its goal of preparing responsible and ethical citizens of high moral integrity. Chapter Six of the Kenyan Constitution has laid the cornerstone principles of Leadership, Integrity and elements of ethical citizenship. It dictates the code of conduct for state officers and responsible citizenry. Through the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), the Ministry of Education seeks to inculcate these principles in the learners at an early age. (shrink)

The present article is an attempt to put together our collective reflections about the experiences of the past three years with teachres we have introduced to the "philosophy for children" program. Each of us has some experience working with an element of supervision, and we have brought our problems together at our weekly research meetings. We have also been involved in analyzing video recordings of experienced teachers, with the aim of clarifying what we mean by a good philosophical (...) discussion. (shrink)

The introduction of the new National Curriculum in England, was initially viewed with suspicion by practitioners, uneasy about the radical departure from the previous National Curriculum, in both breadth and scope of the content. However, this paper will suggest that upon further reflection the brevity of the content could lend itself to a total re-evaluation of the approach to curriculum planning in individual schools. This paper will explore how, far from creating a burden of extra curriculum content, Philosophy for (...) Children can in fact be a driver for the whole primary curriculum. With the renewed focus on Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development in England, it will investigate the potential for P4C to engage and enhance these areas, which often are neglected or side-lined in the primary curriculum. It will consider the benefits to a class, and indeed school, of creating communities of enquiry and how they can influence school ethos, values and vision. The paper will also share reflections on my own practice as a new trainer with SAPERE over the past two years of training student teachers, colleagues at the university as well as local primary school teachers and head teachers. In addition it will share examples of good practice from three schools where Philosophy for Children has been successfully integrated in a variety of models across the whole school curriculum. (shrink)

정보화 사회로 특징지어지는 현대를 살아가기 위해서는 홍수처럼 밀려오는 대량의 정보를 능동적으로 처리할 수 있어야하며 이러한 능력은 지식의 양을 극대화하는 것만으로는 불가능하다. 그러므로 미래 사회를 살아갈 어린이는 급속도로 변화해가는 세계에 능동적으로 대처할 수 있기 위해서는 다양한 정보를 비교, 분석하여 변화된 실제 상황에 적절하게 적용할 수 있는 사고 능력과 실천 능력을 갖추어야 한다. 이를 위해 논리적 사고력, 비판적 사고력, 창의적 구상력, 전체적 통찰력, 도덕적 판단력과 실천력이 초등학교에서부터 체계적으로 교육되어 길러져야 한다. 이러한 사고 능력은 철학의 특성을 고려해볼 때 철학 교육을 통해 함양될 수 (...) 있다. 그러나 전통적으로 철학은 논리의 일관성을 중시하며 난해한 개념을 사용하는 개념적 사고와 추상적 사고를 중심으로 이루어지는 학문이라는 점에서 어린이가 배우기에는 적합하지 않은 것으로 이해되어 왔다. 이러한 주장에 대해 본 논문에서는 어린이가 배워야할 철학을 철학적 활동의 결과물인 학문으로써 ‘철학’이 아닌 철학적 활동 자체인 ‘철학함’임을 보이고자 한다. 이와 함께 어린이를 위한 철학교육이 불가능하다는 근거로 가장 영향력이 있는 발달 심리학의 이론을 반박하고자 한다. 따라서 어린이를 위한 철학교육의 가능성을 밝히기 위해 아동의 인지 능력에 관한 연구의 근간이 된 피아제의 인지 발달이론을 비판적으로 재검토하여 어린이를 위한 철학교육의 가능성을 밝히고자 한다. (shrink)

Philosophy for Children in Transition presents a diverse collection of perspectives on the worldwide educational movement of philosophy for children. Educators and philosophers establish the relationship between philosophy and the child, and clarify the significance of that relationship for teaching and learning today. The papers present a diverse range of perspectives, problems and tentative prospects concerning the theory and practice of Philosophy for Children today The collection familiarises an actual educational practice that is (...) steadily gaining importance in the field of academic philosophy Opens up discussion on the notion of the relationship between philosophy and the child. (shrink)

This is an easy to use, theme-based resource book for Philosophy for Children (P4C) practitioners in primary school settings. It covers 10 popular themes which include many current affair issues and enduring curriculum themes such as artificial intelligence, biodiversity, resilience, and waste. Each theme provides planning for every subject and links to the relevant English national curriculum expectations. Offering ideas for a year's worth of work, it can be dipped into for inspiration or used for step-by-step sessions. There (...) are links to video-clips, websites, and stories that teachers and practitioners can use to base their concept exploration and enquires on. Presenting a range of philosophical ideas, activities and resources, this book is essential for all primary P4C facilitators excited by embedding and exploring philosophy across the curriculum. (shrink)

Philosophy for Children (P4C) is an approach to learning and teaching that aims to develop reasoning and judgement. Students learn to listen to and respect their peers' opinions, think creatively and work together to develop a deeper understanding of concepts central to their own lives and the subjects they are studying. With the teacher adopting the role of facilitator, a true community develops in which rich and meaningful dialogue results in enquiry of the highest order. Each chapter is (...) written by a leading P4C expert and provides an introduction to the relationship between P4C and the subject area, lesson stimuli and activities for extending and deepening students' thinking. The book includes: • guidance on how to embed P4C in curriculum subjects in a crowded and demanding secondary curriculum timetable • troubleshooting advice for the teacher-turned-facilitator • a companion website containing useful links, downloadable resources and material to display on your interactive whiteboard. Edited and collated by the UK's leading P4C organisation, this book introduces a rationale for using and adapting P4C in the secondary curriculum. (shrink)

In this paper I trace the dialogical and narrative dimensions of the philosophical tradition and explore how they are reconfigured in the notion of community of philosophical inquiry (CPI), the mainstay of the collection of novels and discussion plans known as Philosophy for Children. After considering the ontology and epistemology of dialogue, I argue that narrative has replaced exposition in our understanding of philosophical discourse and that CPI represents a narrative context in which truth comes to represent the (...) best story, in a discursive location in which there are always multiple stories. Finally, I raise the issue of children's philosophical voice. Can children philosophize, and if they can, do they do so in a voice different from adults'? If so, what are the distinctive features of that voice? I assert that it is children's historical marginalization in the Western construction of rationality that now – as that rationality undergoes its crisis – makes of them, like women and other “natives,” privileged strangers to the tradition, who are, through CPI, enabled to enter it through dialogue and narrative. (shrink)

A Platonic dialogue, an undergraduate lecture, an enquiry in philosophy for children (P4C): Are all three activities "philosophy"? Is there a difference between doing philosophy and studying philosophy? What is the importance of philosophy in each guise, and how might the different guises relate to the aims of "teaching" philosophy? Drawing on the work of Bernard Williams, I suggest that doing philosophy involves making sense of our lives, and that this requires a (...) wider knowledge base than traditionally taught in academic philosophy. I argue that both academic philosophy and P4C both involve philosophising, and that this is more valuable than an encyclopedic knowledge of the products of this process - the canon. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of teaching philosophy for children (P4C) on the development of non-cognitive skills among students. Although the main focus of modern schooling is on attainment, non-cognitive skills and attitudes are still within the scope of modern education. The Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia introduced a new policy to teach critical thinking and philosophy in its public schools in 2017. Although the effects of teaching philosophy on cognitive skills have been well-researched, fewer (...) studies have studied the effects the teaching philosophy has on non-cognitive skills. The current study is the first to explore this issue in the Saudi educational context. This paper presents findings from a quasi-experiential design using 28 students in a Saudi elementary public school. An experimental group of sixth-graders participated in Philosophy for Children (P4C) sessions for 3 months, while the other group of sixth-graders did not receive any philosophy-related training. To collect data, the researchers used a survey designed for non-cognitive outcomes. The results show that the P4C group ranked higher in measures of communication, sociability, self-confidence, determination, willingness to try new things, happiness, and solving problems. On the other hand, the results show that the P4C group lagged behind in terms of empathy, democracy, and diversity compared to the experimental group. However, the differences are minor, and the sample is small. Nonetheless, the results are promising in indicating that P4C can improve students’ non-cognitive skills. (shrink)

In this article, I contextualize the community of inquiry approach, and Philosophy for Children, within the current milieu of education. Specifically, I argue that whereas former scholarship on Philosophy for Children had a tendency to critique the problems of teacher authority and knowledge transmission, we must now consider subtler, learner-centered scenarios of education as a threat to Philosophy for Children. I begin by offering a personal anecdote about my own experience attending a ‘reverse-integrated’ elementary (...) school in 1968. I use this anecdote to show the detrimental aspects of the turn to learning—and the concomitant turn away from teaching—over past five decades. I go on to detail what I call “the logic of learning.” The logic of learning has five components: 1) That learning has a theory, or ‘logic,’ in other words, that learners can be figured out. 2) That learning is instrumental, that people need to learn things in order to acquire something that will be obtained after the learning is complete. 3) That learning concerns normation, or, some people get learning ‘right’ while others do not. 4) That teaching is the same as instruction, so that teaching always means delivering knowledge to students. 5) That authority should reside as a possession of the learner, and thus authority is understood as a thing rather than a relation. I show that these elements of the logic of learning stand in the way of the goals of Philosophy for Children, and that opponents of Philosophy for Children have used these elements to assail the Philosophy for Children project. I continue by describing a relational understanding of authority. I demonstrate the importance of relational authority and relational teaching as key components of Philosophy for Children. In conclusion, I argue that Philosophy for Children needs to spearhead a movement of relational teaching. (shrink)

A new analysis of the Best Interests Standard is given and applied to the controversy about testing children for untreatable, severe late-onset genetic diseases, such as Huntington's disease or Alzheimer's disease. A professional consensus recommends against such predictive testing, because it is not in children's best interest. Critics disagree. The Best Interests Standard can be a powerful way to resolve such disputes. This paper begins by analyzing its meaning into three necessary and jointly sufficient conditions showing it: is (...) an "umbrella" standard, used differently in different contexts, has objective and subjective features, is more than people's intuitions about how to rank potential benefits and risks in deciding for others but also includes evidence, established rights, duties and thresholds of acceptable care, and can have different professional, medical, moral and legal uses, as in this dispute. Using this standard, support is given for the professional consensus based on concerns about discrimination, analogies to adult choices, consistency with clinical judgments for adults, and desires to preserve of an open future for children. Support is also given for parents' legal authority to decide what genetic tests to do. (shrink)

The article examines the need to increase an education toward the development of complex thinking in urban areas where there is a considerable amount of social unrest. The school often fails to bridge the gap between educator/education and learner and this happens in particular when it comes to kids ‘disadvantaged’. The P4C is a pedagogical method that can heal this divide, inter alia, through its dialogic practice. The practice of philosophy can became a way to bridge the sense of (...) fragmentation that the learner feels during his school track when he is having to do with a series of parceled knowledge, because it facilitate the cognitive access to them. The risk to which the student meets with the traditional education, as Freire says, is to undermine the faculty to make aware and to problematize his learning process. To built complex thinking opens the possibility of a 360-degree access to the real and increases the development of critical, creative and caring cognitive spheres. The P4C methodology application should be widespread in many school settings possible, but not only. The article continues with a brief description of some non-formal educational services offered to minors in situations of social disadvantage in Naples, focusing in particular on the Territorial Educational Laboratories. In one of these, L’Officina dei Sogni, an organization working in the territory of the 1st Municipality of the city, I carried out from October 2010 to June 2011 a P4C laboratory with children between 8 and 12 years old, driven by the reflection that this educational methodology can improve on cognitive skills in children and adolescents who are living in situations of high social problems and difficulties at school, in order to reduce for them the risk of social exclusion. The success encountered by the laboratory has had a positive effect also on the other daily Territorial Educational Laboratories activities. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the use of this philosophical practice is not only possible but necessary in the educational fields that attend in urban areas where there is a strong presence of social problems. (shrink)

This paper is a short report about a series of picture books and manuals designed for P4C (especially Philosophy for Korean Young Children). There were not proper educational reading materials or books to help Korean young children to think by (or for) themselves and dialogue with. Dr. Sharp’s is a very helpful guidebook for young children to think by themselves, dialogue with friends, and discuss with others (peers, older or younger children, teacher and parents, etc.). (...) However, there remain some needs for consideration of Korean culture. I developed new eight picture books for young children and short manuals for parents and teachers to do ‘thinking experiments’ with children. The stories were created in the contexts of Korean young children’s daily lives and typical episodes. The community of inquiry, which Korean young children participate in, needs to consider general and special aspects, such as the relationship between peers, children-parents, and children-teachers, Confucius or new western customs, new and old generations, moral and cultural atmosphere of Korean kindergartens or childcare centers, etc. Various episodes and scenes in the picture books will revoke and encourage Korean children’s deeper or higher thinking, interesting and creative dialogues, vivid and harmonious discussions based on their own experiences and contexts of life in the community of inquiry. (shrink)

Some philosophers claim that young children cannot do philosophy. This paper examines some of those claims, and puts forward arguments against them. Our beliefs that children cannot do philosophy are based on philosophical assumptions about children, their thinking and about philosophy. Many of those assumptions remain unquestioned by critics of Philosophy with Children. My conclusion is that the idea that very young children can do philosophy has not only significant consequences (...) for how we should educate young children, but also for how adults should do philosophy; and that further research is urgently needed. (shrink)

The philosophy for children curriculum was specially written by Matthew Lipman and colleagues for the teaching of philosophy by non-philosophically educated teachers from foundation phase to further education colleges. In this article I argue that such a curriculum is neither a necessary, not a sufficient condition for the teaching of philosophical thinking. The philosophical knowledge and pedagogical tact of the teacher remains salient, in that the open-ended and unpredictable nature of philosophical enquiry demands of teachers to think (...) in the moment and draw on their own knowledge and experience of academic philosophy. Providing specialist training or induction in the P4C curriculum cannot and should not replace undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in academic philosophy at universities. However, although for academic philosophers the use of the P4C curriculum could be beneficial, I will argue that its use poses the risk of wanting to form children into the ideal ‘abnormal’ child, the thinking child—the adult philosopher’s child positioned as such by the Lipman novels. The notion of narrativity is central in my argument. With the help of two picturebooks—The Three Pigs by David Weisner and Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne—I illustrate my claim that philosophy as ‘side-shadowing’ or meta-thinking can only be generated in the space ‘in between’ text, child and educator, thereby foregrounding a ‘pedagogy of exposure’ rather than ‘teacher proof’ texts. (shrink)

For the past year we have been introducing teachers in western Massachusetts to Philosophy for Children by means of letters, bulletins, and informational demonstrations. Occasionally we find that a number of teachers in a given school district are interested in the idea, but they may not want to commit themselves to the time and expense of taking a course for college credit. A useful alternative, at least in Massachusetts, has been for the teachers to apply to the state (...) for funding to set up a Commonwealth Inservice program. If their proposal is approved, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts pays for a consultant to conduct the requested program and supplies a fixed amount of money for materials. Upon successful completion of the program teachers receive inservice credit which count toward salary increments. (shrink)

Entry in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies.

The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in school closures around the world, leaving lasting negative impacts on many children. Given that such closures are justified public health measures, this raises the question of compensating children for school closures. In this article I address the question of compensation from the perspective of a popular theory of justice: luck egalitarianism. In doing so, I examine a problem with applying luck egalitarianism to children, called the agency assumption. I then argue this assumption (...) results in a dilemma for luck egalitarianism and suggest how this dilemma can be overcome. I argue that the resulting form of luck egalitarianism reveals something interesting about compensating children for school closures: luck egalitarianism requires us to address all bases of justice-relevant inequality among children—Covid-19-related and beyond. Although much of the current discussion of compensating children for such closures has focused narrowly on the need to make up for lost instruction time or to prevent reductions in educational achievement, I argue that a luck egalitarian conception of justice requires us to go beyond merely compensating children for educational losses and instead aim for radical equality in education. (shrink)

Children are surrounded by a lot of problems here and there, and they often show any tendency to answer them promptly. In this paper, I argue that helping children understand their problems properly before answering them is one of the good ways of meta-thinking teaching in philosophy for children, and then I suggest how teachers help them do so.

From its origins, the philosophy of liberation has had both a critical and a creative aspect. The first seeks to critically examine domination, dependency, and the permanent effects of colonization. The second aims to create and re-create the liberation of peoples, developing and reconstituting ways of existing, imagining, thinking, and philosophizing that surpass colonial ways of existing, imagining, thinking, and philosophizing. Thus, for the philosophy of liberation, the liberation of peoples is distinguished from the notions of emancipation and (...) freedom that hide reality under processes of ideologization. An example of the latter is modernity’s notion of emancipation. In this paper, I propose to approach the critical and creative function of the philosophy of liberation from a childist lens in which not only the voices of children are considered, but also the adultist and modern vision of emancipation is overcome. This will be particularly important to continue the legacy of the philosophy of liberation, and its mission to criticize and create from the political and philosophical participation of the victims in the processes of ideologization. From this legacy the children are participants, who, by engaging in pedagogical practices of liberation, act as un pueblo, a collective political actor without age. of the latter is modernity’s notion of emancipation. In this paper, I propose to approach the critical and creative function of the philosophy of liberation from a childist lens in which not only the voices of children are considered, but also the adultist and modern vision of emancipation is overcome. This will be particularly important to continue the legacy of the philosophy of liberation, and its mission to criticize and create from the political and philosophical participation of the victims of the processes of ideologization. Of this legacy, the children are participants, who, by engaging in pedagogical practices of liberation, act as un pueblo, a collective political actor without age. (shrink)

With the development of information technology and the Internet of Things, the distance between people has decreased. This has brought great convenience to people’s lives, but it has also greatly changed human life. Video games and short videos have become dominant forms of entertainment, significantly influencing children's attention and time allocation. Children should be learning and developing, but entertainment that primarily focuses on superficial engagement and instant gratification have invaded children’s lives, making it difficult for them to (...) think deeply. This has resulted in many social problems. As an emerging discipline, philosophy for children (P4C) invites us to investigate how to improve children’s mental lives, allowing them to engage in independent thinking and judgment in the era of the decline of critical thinking skills and reflective capacities. This paper introduces the origin of P4C, explores its educational principles and methodologies, and presents two case studies illustrating its application in fostering collaborative learning with children in a hyper-connected society, thus illustrating the potential of P4C in addressing societal challenges arising from technological development, including issues like existential meaninglessness, depression, social isolation, and excessive gaming. (shrink)

The Archaeology of Semiotics and the social order of things is edited by George Nash and George Children and brings together 15 thought-provoking chapters from contributors around the world. A sequel to an earlier volume published in 1997, it tackles the problem of understanding how complex communities interact with landscape and shows how the rules concerning landscape constitute a recognised and readable grammar. The mechanisms underlying landscape grammar are both physical and mental, being based in part on the mindset (...) of the individual; the same landscape can thus evoke different meanings for different people and at different times. People's perception has greatly influenced the construction of landscapes over millennia but, until recently, the potential of this area has been largely untapped. Apart from chapters focusing solely upon human interaction with landscape, there are several which skilfully integrate artefacts and place with landscape (e.g. Gheorghiu and Sognnes). Other chapters look at the way people have marked the landscape through such mechanisms as rock-art (e.g. Clegg, Devereux, Estévez, Fossati, Kelleher and Skier). Rock-art establishes personal and communal identity in relation to landscape and it is clear that other forms of visual expression were in place which distinctively created special places within the landscape. Landscape constructs can bind cultures together; bringing the old ways of reading the landscape into contemporary life (e.g. Smiseth). Defining early and late prehistoric landscapes and segregating these into, say, mundane domestic and ritualised spaces rely on both clear and subtle archaeologies and in this volume distinct monument clustering and ritualised linearity are considered (e.g. Mason and Nash). A volume such as this cannot escape the influence of New World approaches, such as anthropology, and in many respects chapters by Bender, Muller and Merritt give context to other chapters within the book. Finally, one must consider text as a means of constructing landscape and this is considered by Heyd, who eloquently deconstructs the travel diary of a 17th century Japanese poet. This will be an important volume for archaeologists, landscape scholars and students. The many approaches used are tried and tested, forming an invaluable resource and not just another edited book. (shrink)

At the very least, even though Chinese schools do not look very different from those in the West, China offers an opportunity for Philosophy for Children to question its basis, its methodology, its aims. It seems to be expressing a different cultural voice, and to be disposed to the kind of dialogue we are more used to claiming than practicing. Both Kunming and Shanghai provide, in their own ways, formidable contexts: the deep, strong and disciplined educators of Railway (...) Station School of Kunming and the scholarly, sophisticated and committed members of the Shanghai institute for Research in the Human Sciences seem determined to take Philosophy for Children, not just beyond their own limits as Chinese, but beyond the limits Philosophy for Children has already established for itself in the West. Philosophy for Children in China, then, looks like a wonderful opportunity to think ourselves--what we are as educators engaged in the practice of philosophy--again. An invitation to think ourselves again. Is this not what dialogue and philosophy are about? It’s up to us to accept the invitation. (shrink)

The content of the article is in the thematic field of practical philosophy, designated as “philosophy for children”. Within the framework of the article, the author considers specificity of the philosophical language. The main linguistic means are explicated and described, making it possible to expand the usual descriptions of the world, to achieve expression of non-trivial philosophical intuitions, to outline new directions of philosophical search. Particular attention is paid to such techniques as using metaphors, tautologies and a (...) vicious circle in the definition in philosophical texts, as well as a step-by-step, gradual refinement of thought by introducing “operational concepts”. In conclusion, the author gives examples of tasks aimed at acquiring the language of philosophy by school-aged children (10–13 years old) as part of the program of additional education for children and adolescents “Green Sun” (team of authors: N. Ilyushenko, N. Kutuzova, D. Kutuzov, O. Davydik). (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how Philosophy for Children classes can contribute to decolonization efforts. I begin by describing what I mean by both “coloniality” and “decolonization.” Second, I provide a sketch of what P4C classes frequently entail and motivate the case for P4C as a “decolonizing methodology.” Third, I engage a series of decolonial critiques of P4C classes. Finally, I explore ways in which P4C can contribute to decolonization efforts if reformed in response to these critiques. Throughout (...) this paper, I shall draw upon examples from my experiences teaching P4C at the Mexico-U.S. border and in Oaxaca. (shrink)

What is impressive about the children's novels published by the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children is that they situate student dialogue within the great traditions of Western philosophical thought. One can discover the ideas of Plato, Descartes, Hume, and James, among others, echoing through the words of characters like Harry, Lisa, Mark, and Suki. What I intend to suggest in this paper is that there are intimations of Eastern thought in these novels as well. (...) An awareness of this can enrich our perception of the layers of meaning embedded in the Philosophy for Children literature. (shrink)

Beginning in 1988, I tried an approach to teacher-training in Philosophy for Children which, though labor-intensive, was very rewarding. It involved: a one-semester course in Philosophy for Children prior to program implementation, twelve to fifteen visits to each classroom during the implementation year to conduct demonstration lessons and observe teacher performance, and a journal and commentary on classroom visits, which was shared on a regular basis with the teachers. The scope of the project was partly what (...) made it so "labor-intensive." It included eleven teachers at six schools and nearly 250 children. (shrink)

Petit philosophy is an experimental project, conducted in the private elementary school Nova in Zadar, Croatia, aimed at introducing philosophy to children in the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. In this program we make use of children’s stories and games, but the program itself does not differ essentially from other philosophy programs for children in so far as it makes use of discussions, questions, arguments and counterarguments. This article offers the complete syllabus of our (...) program for one school year, together with an example of a preparation for one specific school hour. (shrink)

As conceived by founders Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp, Philosophy for Children is a humanistic practice with roots in the Hellenistic tradition of philosophy as a way of life given to the search for meaning, in American pragmatism with its emphasis on qualitative experience, collaborative inquiry and democratic society, and in American and Soviet social learning theory. The programme has attracted overlapping and conflicting criticism from religious and social conservatives who don’t want children to question (...) traditional values, from educational psychologists who believe certain kinds of thinking are beyond children of certain ages, from philosophers who define their discipline as theoretical and exegetical, from critical theorists who see the programme as politically compliant, and from postmodernists who see it as scientistic and imperialist. The paper is written as a dialogue in order to illustrate the complex interactions among these normative positions. Rather than respond to particular criticisms in depth, I indicate the general nature of my position regarding them and provide references to published material where they have been made and responded to over the past 40 years. (shrink)

With this book, any teacher can start teaching philosophy to children today! Co-written by a professor of philosophy and a practising primary school teacher, Philosophy for Young Children is a concise, practical guide for teachers. It contains detailed session plans for 36 philosophical enquiries - enough for a year's work - that have all been successfully tried, tested and enjoyed with young children from the age of three upwards. The enquiries explore a range of (...) stimulating philosophical questions about fairness, the environment, friendship, inclusion, sharing, right and wrong, manners, beauty, pictures, the emotions, dreaming and reality. All the stories, drawings and photographs that you'll need to carry out the enquiries are provided and can be used with your children directly from the book. Each step-by step enquiry includes: The philosophical topic and the aim of the enquiry The stimuli you'll need Questions to ask the children Possible answers to help move the discussion forward Ideas to help you summarise and extend the enquiry. If you are an Early Years or primary school teacher, this complete resource will enable you to introduce philosophy to your children quickly and with confidence. (shrink)

The integrity of a practice requires critical self-reflection. Such critical self-reflection, it can be argued, requires for its objectivity the participation of reasonable individuals constituting a community whose members present their reasoned analyses for inter-subjective interpretation and assessment. Philosophy for Children, therefore, must demand of its participants an on-going consideration of its theory and its practice. This paper is a call for such continued and reasonable critical self-reflection.

During the past 40 years, the Philosophy for Children movement has developed a dialogical framework for education that has inspired people both inside and outside academia. This article concentrates on analysing the historical development in general and then taking a more rigorous look at the recent discourse of the movement. The analysis proceeds by examining the changes between the so-called first and second generation, which suggests that Philosophy for Children is adapting to a postmodern world by (...) challenging the humanistic ideas of first-generation authors. A new understanding of childhood is presented by second-generation authors as giving possibilities for the subject to emerge in truly philosophical encounters. This article tries to show some of the possibilities and limits of such an understanding by considering the views in the light of general educational theorisations concerning pedagogical action. The continental tradition of European educational discourse, especially in the German-speaking regions, has stressed a necessity for asymmetry in the educational relationship. This line of thought is in conflict with the idea of a symmetrical, communal emergent system, which seems to be at the heart of second-generation understanding of educational philosophical dialoguing. The concluding argument states that in education we are always confronted with questions about purpose and aims, which have a special character in relation to pure philosophy /dialogue, although the philosophical/dialogical dimension is necessary for the emergence of unique subjectivity. (shrink)

The present study intends to provide empirical evidence on the effect of Philosophy for Children integrated with English picture storybook instruction on adolescent learners of English as a foreign language. Previous studies have documented the instructional benefits of P4C in various fields; very little evidence, however, can be found in ESL or EFL contexts. The present study was therefore carried out to explore the beneficial effects of P4C applied in EFL instruction with picture storybooks as instructional materials. A (...) total of 62 students participated in the study, divided into one P4C group and one non-P4C group. Participants in the P4C group underwent 10 weeks of English storybook instruction with P4C in a school club, and the effects of instruction were measured by questionnaires and reading comprehension tests. Results of the study showed that students in the P4C group experienced a slightly higher level of English learning anxiety, retained higher English learning motivation after the instruction, and improved their English reading comprehension. Finally, pedagogical implications are presented. (shrink)

In the first issue of the renewed Analyic Teaching, A. T. Lardner opens a debate on how to react to postmodern and multi-culturalist positions and their critique on Philosophy for Children. Lardner concludes: This paper has not been set out to disagree with either the postmodern or multi-culturalist positions. Indeed, it accepts most of the claims made. It has attempted to show that the critique from these quarters of the work of Philosophy for Children in settings (...) outside the USA is based on a misunderstanding of what we do. It has suggested how those working in the program might answer such critiques along with suggesting caution in how we describe our goals and methods. Finally, it has suggested an uncomfortable parallel between the extreme postmodern and multi-cultualist position about eduactional work based on critical, reflective inquiry, and previous, elitist notions which the same people are sure to reject.I'd like to comment on some of Lardner's theses. (shrink)

Philosophy for Children (P4C) is a movement that teaches reasoning and argumentative skills to children of all ages. This book looks at the progress that P4C has made in the UK in addressing issues of literacy, critical thinking, PSHE, education for sustainable development and wider issues such as bullying. Chapters identify the different theories and practices that have emerged and discuss the necessity for a reflective approach that P4C brings to education. The book highlights how this movement (...) can fit into the early years, primary and secondary curriculum and the challenges and rewards that come with it. Chapters include: The Evolution of Philosophy for Children in the UK Pedagogical Judgement Negotiating meaning in classrooms: P4C as an exemplar of dialogic pedagogy The impact of P4C on teacher educators Being and becoming a philosophical teacher This will be an invaluable guide for all those interested in P4C and studying courses on Early Childhood Studies, Education Studies and Initial Teacher Training courses. (shrink)

A workshop in Philosophy for Children was offered this summer at Viterbo College with generous support from the Wisconsin Humanities Committee. Dr. Ronald Reed and the author conducted the week long workshop. The workshop was promoted primarily by distribution of brochures to regional schools. Four questions were addressed in the brochure: What is Philosophy for Children?, How will Philosophy for Children work in your classroom?, Why teach Philosophy for Children?, and Who should (...) attend?. This approach was taken as part of an effort at making teachers, principals and parents informed about the basic nature fo a Philosophy for Children program. (shrink)

There are tensions within formal education between imparting knowledge and the development of skills for handling that knowledge. In the primary school sector, the latter can also be squeezed out of the curriculum by a focus on basic skills such as literacy and numeracy. What happens when an explicit attempt is made to develop young children's reasoning—both in terms of their apparent cognitive abilities and their basic skills? This paper reports an independent evaluation of an in-class intervention called ‘ (...) class='Hi'>Philosophy for Children’, after just over one year of schooling. The intervention aims to help children become more willing and able to question, reason, construct arguments and collaborate with others. A group of 48 volunteer schools were randomised to receive P4C or act as a control for one year. This paper reports the CAT results for all pupils in years 4 and 5 initially, and the Key Stage 2 attainment in English and Maths for those starting in year 5. There was no school dropout. Individual attrition from a total of 3,159 pupils was around 11 percent—roughly equal between groups. There were small positive ‘effect’ sizes in favour of the P4C group in progress in reading and maths, and even smaller perhaps negligible improvements in CAT scores and writing. The results for the most disadvantaged pupils were larger for attainment, but not for CATs. Observations and interviews suggest that the intervention was generally enjoyable and thought to be beneficial for pupil confidence. Our conclusion is that, for those wishing to improve attainment outcomes in the short term, an emphasis on developing reasoning is promising, especially for the poorest students, but perhaps not the most effective way forward. However, for those who value reasoning for its own sake, this evaluation demonstrates that using curriculum time in this way does not damage attainment, and so suggests that something like P4C is an appropriate educational approach. (shrink)

There are tensions within formal education between imparting knowledge and the development of skills for handling that knowledge. In the primary school sector, the latter can also be squeezed out of the curriculum by a focus on basic skills such as literacy and numeracy. What happens when an explicit attempt is made to develop young children's reasoning—both in terms of their apparent cognitive abilities and their basic skills? This paper reports an independent evaluation of an in-class intervention called ‘ (...) class='Hi'>Philosophy for Children’, after just over one year of schooling. The intervention aims to help children become more willing and able to question, reason, construct arguments and collaborate with others. A group of 48 volunteer schools were randomised to receive P4C or act as a control for one year. This paper reports the CAT results for all pupils in years 4 and 5 initially, and the Key Stage 2 attainment in English and Maths for those starting in year 5. There was no school dropout. Individual attrition from a total of 3,159 pupils was around 11 percent—roughly equal between groups. There were small positive ‘effect’ sizes in favour of the P4C group in progress in reading and maths, and even smaller perhaps negligible improvements in CAT scores and writing. The results for the most disadvantaged pupils were larger for attainment, but not for CATs. Observations and interviews suggest that the intervention was generally enjoyable and thought to be beneficial for pupil confidence. Our conclusion is that, for those wishing to improve attainment outcomes in the short term, an emphasis on developing reasoning is promising, especially for the poorest students, but perhaps not the most effective way forward. However, for those who value reasoning for its own sake, this evaluation demonstrates that using curriculum time in this way does not damage attainment, and so suggests that something like P4C is an appropriate educational approach. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the emergence of two interrelated trends in the arena of cultural politics. First, there has been a call for multiculturalism: for greater diversity in artistic and educational offerings, for a broadening of the spectrum of society's interest beyond the activities and experiences of dead or living white males. Thus, students demand courses in black, Hispanic, and women's studies; children's librarians clamor for more books about Native American and Asian youth; viewers of all races protest if (...) their stories are not told on television's nightly news and prime-time sitcoms. Second, there has been an insistence that those offering representations of previously unrepresented groups be themselves members of the group in question -- that courses in black studies be taught by black faculty, books about Native American youth be written by Native American writers, and reporters covering the Hispanic community be of Hispanic descent. It is this second and more controversial requirement that I wish to submit to examination here. (shrink)

Matthew Lipman is an American philosopher who conceived, in the 1970s, a method to help children think in an autonomous, critical and reasonable way. This method is a global approach which aims to develop the personal as well as the intellectual, the moral and the social aspects of the person; it is an educative project in the broad sense of the term. This holistic project takes the form of a program of philosophy for students from five to fifteen (...) years old. The philosophical content is adapted to the children's interests and needs and is presented in the form of novels which relate semantic, logic, esthetic and ethic experiences of daily life. (shrink)

The Community of Inquiry is a unique discourse model that brings adults and children together in collaborative discussions of philosophical and ethical topics. This paper examines the potential for COI to deepen children’s moral and intellectual understanding through recursive discourse that encourages them to transcend cultural limitations, confront their own moral predispositions, and increase inter-cultural understanding. As children become familiar with normative values couched in ethical dialogue, they are immersed in ideals of reciprocity and empathy. Such dialogues (...) can become effective vehicles for introducing children to discussions of human dignity and rights that also challenge traditional power relationships between adults and children. The uncritical assumption underlying such power differentials often contests the de facto rights and dignity of children. COI is a valuable tool for human rights education as it encourages children’s sensitivity to the rights and dignities of others and, simultaneously, honors children’s own rights and dignities as participating citizens in the global community. (shrink)

Philosophy for children is an educational movement that includes diverse goals that are not always clearly articulated by theorists and practitioners. In order to navigate the multitude of aims found in the philosophy for children literature I propose distinguishing between the following categories of goals: aims of education; educational goals of philosophy for children ; goals of a community of philosophical inquiry ; goals of the facilitator; and goals of the children. The definitions (...) of these various types are given along with some examples of how the distinctions between them can be of aid in understanding the approaches, criticisms, and practice of philosophy for children. (shrink)

Since the late 1960s, philosophy for children has become a global, multi-disciplinary movement involving innovations in curriculum, pedagogy, educational theory, and teacher education; in moral, social and political philosophy; and in discourse and literary theory. And it has generated the new academic field of philosophy of childhood. Gareth B. Matthews (1929-2011) traced contemporary disrespect for children to Aristotle, for whom the child is essentially a pre-intellectual and pre-moral precursor to the fully realized human adult. Matthews (...) Matthews dubbed this the “deficit conception of childhood” and wrote extensive critiques of its perpetuation in Jean Piaget’s stage model of cognitive development and in Lawrence Kholberg’s stage model of moral development. He published the first book (1994) in the field of philosophy of childhood and wrote a column of reviews of philosophically-oriented children’s books. He argued that even academic philosophers can benefit from the freshness and directness of children’s thinking. For Matthew Lipman (1923-2010) and Ann Margaret Sharp (1942-2010), the child is only potentially a philosophical agent and grows into becoming such by means of a philosophical education. Lipman invented the literary genre of children’s philosophical fiction, which systematically reconstructs key philosophical issues and positions in language accessible by children, attempts to help children recognize philosophical dimensions of their own experience, and models philosophical dialogue. Lipman and Sharp developed a protocol for a “community of philosophical inquiry,” in which people with diverse experiences, ideas and concerns dialogue together around a shared philosophical question, with the aim of forming reasonable, meaningful judgments about the matter. The early success of philosophy for children was due in part to its coincidence with the critical thinking movement in education, in which Lipman was an important figure. Its emphasis on ethics has justified its use as a program of ethics, character, and even religious education. It has also been used for civics education, because of how it instantiates democratic deliberation and power-sharing. At the same time, philosophy for children has been criticized by religious and social conservatives, developmental psychologists, and philosophers. Today, the diversity of approaches, aims, materials, and grounding theories of philosophy for children signifies different understandings of philosophy, childhood and education, which have become “essentially contested concepts” within the movement. Philosophy for children is no longer unified by an identifiable theory, purpose, pedagogy, method or curriculum, but is now used to further a number of disparate educational agendas. Shaun Gallagher’s (1992) heuristic of four schools of hermeneutics is helpful in understanding these competing agendas. Conservative hermeneutics is the attempt to devise methods of interpretation that uncover and preserve truth or original meaning without distortion or bias. This is consonant with the use of philosophy for children to help young people appropriate the fundamental questions, ideas and skills of (Western) philosophy as a resource for understanding the world and managing their own experience, and with the understanding critical thinking as a way of avoiding prejudice and approaching truth. Critical hermeneutics approaches interpretation—including teaching and learning—as a method of liberating the interpreter from the racist, sexist, homophobic, capitalist, religiously fanatical, and other kinds of ideologies that commonly distort thinking, feeling and behavior. This is consonant with those who argue that the attributes of mutual criticism, inclusion, solidarity, self-regulation, and distributed power make the community of philosophical inquiry an ideal site for recognizing and overcoming ideology. Others find philosophy for children politically ineffectual due to the limited role of students and teachers in co-constructing the curriculum and its lack of an explicit component of political critique and action. Radical hermeneutics suggests that because every text is open to a plurality of meanings, the purpose of interpretation is not to artificially constrain that plurality but to play with the signs that constitute the text in order to achieve fresh insights. A radical hermeneutical strand is identifiable in the philosophy for children literature when scholars resist the idea that the aim of philosophical dialogue is to find consensus or to narrow down on the most reasonable conclusions. Moderate hermeneutics holds that the work of interpretation is the attempt to reach meaning or shared understanding in a process modeled on dialogue between the familiar and the strange. This is consonant with those who argue that philosophical traditions can still give meaning to (young) people’s lives, but that those traditions must be continually reinterpreted (including by children) in order to survive and flourish. Fifty-odd years since its inception, philosophy for children has deepened and diversified, both theoretically and as a field of practice. Perhaps the only point of agreement among (most) everyone in the movement is that children’s philosophical thinking, variously understood, is necessary for the realization of the intellectual, moral, and political agency the movement attributes to them. (shrink)

In this paper I will explore three major issues that confront the implementation of Philosophy for Children in a developing country, using a recent project that I helped initiate in the Philippines as indicative of the importance of these issues. The three issues are: modification of the curriculum materials to meet cultural conditions ; differences in pedagogical methods, teacher expectations and classroom dynamics; and the affect of nationalism on attitudes towards educational curricula "imported" from the developed world. This (...) third issue is of profound philosophical importance, because it suggests the need to defend the Philosophy for Children program in light of charges that they threaten the cultural integrity of the host culture. (shrink)