At different times in their school career and across different subject areas, some pupils may require additional and/or more complex tasks from their teachers, since they find the work set to be insufficiently challenging. Recommendations for coping with these pupils’ needs are varied, but among other responses, it is common, in the field of ‘gifted and talented’ education, to advocate the use of critical thinking programmes. These can be very effective in providing the missing challenge through helping develop pupils’ facilities (...) for building and defending rational argument. However, the exercises can be just that; mental agility tasks that lack relevant context. When children engage in learning philosophy in school, they benefit from the experience of developing logical, rigorous argument; but the subject can offer more than critical skills practice. Since philosophy attends to questions about things that matter in pupils’ lives, discussions can have an ethical and moral dimension and as such can be more than an intellectual exercise. Pupils of all abilities and propensities can become involved in the discussions, but the open nature of the areas of debate lends itself particularly well to providing challenge for pupils who need enriched and extended tasks in order to remain engaged. Some of the well-rehearsed Philosophy with/for Children methods are also designed to help develop mutual respect and understanding and so philosophy not only appeals to the cognitive and intellectual in children, but places this development in a context that fosters positive personal qualities. (shrink)

Philosophy in Schools is a complex educational practice, unfamiliar to most teachers and philosophers, subtly different to similar forms of education, and so easy to misunderstand and mishandle. Because of this, a common worry for practitioners is whether they are doing it properly. Given this slipperiness of Philosophy in Schools, one of my main concerns has been to give an account that would be useful; that could guide practitioners to teach well. I presented my first account in a 2006 article (...) ‘What is Philosophy in Schools?’ which was based on 14 years’ experience as a Philosophy in Schools teacher and teacher educator. Now, by invitation of the editors, I have the privilege to present a re-worked, improved account. This builds on and synthesises my previous publications, but it also significantly refines anything I have previously written, and is the culmination of my work in Philosophy in Schools. (shrink)

Different notions of truth imply and encourage different ideals of thinking, knowledge, meaning, and learning. Thus, these concepts have fundamental importance for educational theory and practice. In this paper, I intend to draw out and clarify the notions of truth, knowledge and meaning that are implied by P4C's pedagogical ideals. There is some disagreement amongst P4C theorists and practitioners about whether the community of inquiry implies either relativism or absolutism. I will argue that both relativism and absolutism are incompatible with (...) P4C, as neither one of them can facilitate all of P4C's ideals of reflective thinking, community, fallibilism, care, open-mindedness, empathy, and meaningfulness. I will argue that P4C incorporates Dewey's middle ground position between relativism and absolutism. (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)

The practice of teaching links long-standing philosophical questions about the building blocks of a good life to daily judgments in the classroom; in the journey to becoming a person who teaches, we must seek different ways of understanding what “good” means in the context of different social practices and communities. This doctoral thesis examines the educational innovation known as Philosophy for Children as a platform for teachers and students to address such questions within a community of philosophical inquiry. Advocates of (...) PFC seek to promote radical change in our understanding of growth, teaching and the relationships formed in educational contexts. In addressing these issues, this thesis contributes to the ongoing conversation about the teacher’s role within the PFC movement. The thesis comprises four interrelated studies that examine the possibilities and limits of PFC ideas by considering them in the light of general educational theorising about pedagogical action. In addition to the PFC literature, the study’s main sources are 1) the Continental tradition of European educational discourse, especially in German-speaking regions, and 2) the writings of the contemporary educational thinker Gert Biesta. The former offers an opposing view to the idea of a symmetrical, communal emergent system that seems to inform second-generation understandings of philosophical dialogue in an educational context. Gert Biesta’s ideas, especially in relation to the purpose and aims of education, help in envisioning CPI as a structuring element in teaching as a whole and all aspects of classroom life. The four studies focus on pedagogical action, the nature and role of authority in CPI and teacher agency. The thesis contends that teaching and, in particular, building a community of classroom inquiry, requires a vision of teaching as a reflective practice, informed by subject-specific and educational judgments as key dimensions of teacher reflection and wisdom. (shrink)

It is generally recognized that any inquiry must be sensitive to context and that facilitation is never simply a matter of following a set of rules. In this paper I list and discuss the particular challenges of facilitating an inquiry with a small group of adolescent boys, all of whom had difficulty in learning despite being of at least average intelligence. I describe some adaptations to the classic P4C model of inquiry that I found helpful and refer briefly to the (...) progress made by the boys. I conclude that, although research suggests that children and young people who learn differently may be those most likely to benefit from P4C, we should not underestimate the facilitation challenges they present or the time it takes for cognitive and social gains to influence performance in school. The inclusive education movement, with its emphasis on accommodating diversity, implies that such children are increasingly present in regular classrooms. It is important that trainers are aware of this and ensure that teachers who are eager to create classroom communities of inquiry have sufficient quality training and support. My final comment is that, if facilitation is an art, we should not expect all teachers to become, or to wish to become, highly effective facilitators of philosophical inquiry after a brief training. (shrink)

O Programa de Filosofia para Crianças de Matthew Lipman e Ann Margaret Sharp tem pouco mais de 40 anos e à sua criação de imediato se sucederam a difusão e a adaptação em diversos contextos geográficos e culturais. Quer isto dizer que a história da Filosofia para Crianças, sobretudo nas últimas décadas, tem consistido numa marcha, mais ou menos vertiginosa, de inovação e renovação. E nem sempre este ritmo de rápida disseminação se tem mostrado compatível com a sedimentação de reflexões (...) apuradas sobre as diferentes dimensões e problemáticas que a prática coloca. A formação dos facilitadores de sessões de Filosofia para Crianças, de acordo com o modelo da comunidade de investigação filosófica de Lipman e Sharp, é uma das dimensões deste projeto pioneiro que aguardam um debate de maior desenvolvimento. A presente reflexão pretende contribuir para essa discussão, apresentando de forma concisa algumas posições que consideramos relevantes para a compreensão do que está em causa. Não temos a pretensão de assumir a forma acabada de um cânone, mas de justificar opções que nos parecem decisivas no presente contexto de implementação da Filosofia para Crianças em Portugal. Esperamos, assim, contribuir para que se possa gerar uma comunidade alargada de diálogo sobre este tópico. (shrink)