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By admin, January 11, 2010 9:52 pm

Philosophy for Kids? What? Are you Kidding?
By: Kimberly Wickham

Children have a natural tendency toward philosophical thought. Have you ever been astounded at the depth involved in answering a child’s simple question like, “What are people?” Imagine a scene where a parent is involved in preparing dinner for the family and the 9 year old budding philosopher asks such a question.

“They are animals,” answers the busy parent.

“Yes, but if humans are animals how come we call them ‘he’ or ‘she’ and not’ it’?” The parent pauses for a moment and answers thoughtfully, “Some people say because humans are ‘somebody’ and animals aren’t. They are ‘something’.”

“Yeah but, an alien wouldn’t see the difference,” the 9 year old states confidently.

“How do you mean?” the parent asks, now truly perplexed.

“They would probably think animals and people are the same because they both have bodies but they aren’t! Animals are animals and people are people.”

“What do you think people are?” the parent asks, prompting the child to think even more deeply. “Well, they are mammals, which sort of makes them animals. But an alien might think they are angry things that pollute the world and kill animals!” the child responds, taking the parent off guard with the unexpected answer. “Is that what you think humans are?” the parent asks, directing the child back to the original question. “No,” the child answers, “Aliens would call a human a ‘thingimabobber’… a ‘squishy thing,’ maybe. I would say a human is a ‘species of creature.’

“And what is that?” the parent prompts one more time.

“You know! Species are just different from each other. But, you know what? Animals in a species are different from each other, too. I’m different from you, and dogs are different from each other,” the child says, pointing at the two family dogs lying on the floor. Doesn’t that make the dogs ‘somebodies’?”

What would the benefit be of including Philosophy in the regular pre-adolescent curriculum?

Beyond discussions like the one above being entertaining, there are some deeper, longer lasting effects when the child regularly participates in philosophical discussions like this, such as developing critical thinking skills, reasoning and cognitive ability. An added benefit is reached when this type of discussion takes place in a group environment, because in this situation the children develop emotional literacy and intellectual maturity.

Mathew Lipman, author and philosophy for children advocate explains ‘critical thinking’ as “thinking that:

·         facilitates judgment because it

·         relies on criteria,

·         is self-correcting, and

·         is sensitive to context.” (Lipman 1991)

Dr. Stephen Law, a senior lecturer in Philosophy at Heathrop College, University of London, explains that emotional literacy and intellectual maturity are characterized by the ability to:

·         “reveal and question underlying assumptions

·         figure out the perhaps unforeseen consequences of a moral decision or point of view

·         spot and diagnose faulty reasoning

·         weigh up evidence fairly and impartially

·         make a point clearly and concisely

·         take turns in a debate, and listen attentively without interrupting

·         argue without personalizing a dispute

·         look at issues from the point of view of others

·         question the appropriateness, or the appropriateness of acting on, one’s own feelings” (Law 2007)

How many adults do you know with these strengths?

Why is Philosophy not included in the regular pre-adolescent curriculum?

There are some schools where it is included and these programs have had tremendous success. Australia might be ahead of the US in this area with the Buranda State School, a small Australian primary school near Brisbane, which in 1997 introduced into all its classes a philosophy program. The ‘community of inquiry’ approach detailed in P4C (Philosophy for Children) model based around philosophical inquiry has also had a great deal of success in select schools in the UK. Teachers find a holistic benefit for the students in that not only are they increasing their critical thinking skills, but they are also showing evidence of higher self-esteem with the new-found ability to communicate effectively with their peers. Having said that, we must take into consideration some specific issues standing in the way of providing courses in philosophical inquiry in the regular curriculum. Sometimes philosophical discussions can be unsettling and difficult to contain and a teacher might feel a lack of confidence in their ability to answer the questions posed. It can be difficult for teachers to recognize that their role as a facilitator is not to be the one who has the answers. They can be open to unexpected exchanges between their students and delight in sharing the discovery process when there isn’t one right answer.

Also adding to the lack of confidence the teacher might feel there is also the pressure he or she is feeling to demonstrate that students are performing satisfactorily on standardized tests. These tests are based on definitive, unambiguous questions and answers and have very little room for philosophical reflection. It behooves a school to have the children perform well on standardized tests because that data is often the basis for school funding. The absolute bottom line is, no matter how a teacher feels about’ teaching to the tests’ it is what is required of them. Until the individual districts can be part of a grass roots movement to make some serious changes within the systems, it is unlikely that philosophical inquiry will be a regular component to curriculums.

Don’t children get this kind of critical thinking in discussions in other disciplines?

While history, sociology, biology, chemistry and math on their own do encourage critical thinking skills they do so out of context with all other subjects. Unless these different disciplines delve into questions about their very basic foundational assumptions and how they relate to each other, a big piece of critical thinking is missing. Philosophy does involve other subjects and questions assumptions constantly. It is, essentially thinking about thinking. Philosophy attempts to understand things comprehensively and make connections. When a child’s education is divided up into self-contained disciplines without the benefit of exploring the nature of those disciplines and how they all connect and intertwine, they are left with a fragmented view and less able to incorporate their learning into their everyday lives.

How could I, as a parent or teacher, lead children in a philosophical conversation?

Given the opportunity, a child will participate in a philosophical conversation fairly readily. Obviously, you won’t have much luck if you sit them down and say, “Now we are going to be philosophical…” Generally the discussion might develop over something they see on TV or a book perhaps. With my students I might pose questions about ethics like, “Do two wrongs make a right?” The children might describe a scenario to illustrate their points of view and then the discussion might develop into a philosophical inquiry about how emotions drive your actions, which are driven by your mind, which is driven by your brain. Before you know it you and the children might be speculating on what the difference is between the mind and the brain, can one live without the other, and without a mind do you still have a personality.

As parents and teachers of young children we should become advocates for including some form of philosophical discussion within the classroom. It is up to us right now to create an opportunity to advance the world’s development by populating it with emotionally intelligent and critically inquisitive minds.

Published 2009/03

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By admin, January 1, 2010 7:51 pm

Although I do not claim to be an expert in child educational psychology, I have spent a great deal of time teaching children and creating courses using alternative strategies. You can ask twenty different teachers the question, “Why isn’t my kid learning?” and you will get twenty different answers. I cannot speak for the other nineteen individuals specifically, but there are a few points on which a lot of us do agree.

The biggest problem is that the systems are designed to be implemented ‘cookie-cutter’ fashion which is fine in theory, but it doesn’t actually take into account that children are quite different. They do not all learn in the same way. I will address this further in a moment, but first allow me to outline some more general issues. The expectations themselves for what a child should learn are not quite working anymore. Here are some real problems:

• Teaching to the Tests. You’ve all heard of this lately. While we struggle with methods to rate and score our children’s performance the focus of our teaching narrows to accommodate the tests rather than to accommodate the child.

• This narrowed focus eliminates whole areas of ‘education’. The overly-burdened, busy parent is expected to fill in the gaps. Is this even a reasonable expectation in modern times with both parents working full-time to make ends meet? Unfortunately the educational systems are even more stressed!

• The expectation that the child should conform to the structured methods and timetable of the school system, no matter what is going on in the child’s life.

• Lack of balance in subject matter and methods. Abandonment of holistic learning models (which, granted, need work) for focus on areas where America is reportedly lagging behind. Not everyone is cut out to excel at math and science. In fact many studies have found that students who have the opportunity to study humanities (art, music, history, literature, philosophy) excel well past those without the opportunity in science and math. One of the main reasons for this is because the more widely educated student has developed higher emotional intelligence and more advanced critical thinking skills.

So where did it all go wrong? The answer to that will also vary depending upon who you ask. I have worked for some districts that believe there is “just too much ‘froo-froo’ these days… too much emphasis on the silly stuff like self-esteem, discussion, character development… After all, it worked in my day… back to basics… the three ‘R’s…’ yada-yada-yada! Again, nice in theory, but what they don’t see is that children themselves have changed! Life is so much more complicated than ‘back in the day’. Technology rules the world and knowledge has increased exponentially over the years. There is, simply-put, more to know! This requires new methods of delivering an education.

How do we cram all this information into these young, malleable minds? By teaching them to learn. You might be thinking, “Well, that’s easier said than done!” Actually, it’s not all that difficult, but first you must identify what kind of thinker they are – how they learn. Obviously, one can begin with some personality classification system like Myers/Briggs http://www.myersbriggs.org/ but even more useful, pay attention to how your child likes to do things.

• Does he/she like to touch? To listen? To draw? To run around and spread things out while learning? Does he/she like to list and organize?

• Ask your school’s guidance department to test and identify what learning strategies work best for him/her. They have access to many different testing models to identify this.

• Do a little of your own research on the internet. You will be amazed at what is available to help your child succeed.

• If they don’t have time to do it at school make sure YOU find the time to have conversations with your children. Besides talking about their day’s events ask them lots of questions about the things they are most interested in, even if you are not at all interested in the subject. Ask them questions like, “what would you do if…?” to encourage critical thinking, but use subjects that interest them!

• If they are having difficulty ‘getting into’ a school subject or subject section, ask the teacher if he/she will accept some extra-credit project to boost the child’s score. In doing a project using the child’s skill and interest he/she will learn without even realize it is happening.

• Try some ‘holistic learning’: watch a video on the subject, read aloud, make a model, write and illustrate, go to a museum, do some internet research, find pictures. You get the idea – anything to expand the process and re-focus away from what the child is NOT learning about the subject to what he is enjoying about the subject.

The most important thing to know is that even though your child may not be learning everything, he/she IS learning something! There is nothing wrong with your child; perhaps it is just that the system doesn’t fit your child. The solution might be to merely adjust the system to allow your child to flourish.

Originally posted 2009/03/22