Philosophy 4 Children: creating a community of enquiry

Philosophy for Children

Philosophy for Children aims to encourage young people to think critically, caringly, creatively and collaboratively.

It helps teachers to build a 'community of enquiry' where participants create and enquire into their own questions, and 'learn how to learn' in the process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh28kEL23q0

Philosophy for ChildrenCreating a Community of Enquiry

Students asking open, genuine questions

Exploring what makes a question philosophical?

Democratically choosing a question to explore

Creating a “community of enquiry”

Developing reasoning skills

Encouraging interaction and reflection

Teacher becomes facilitator

Valuing of student voice, creating environment for dialogue

What does progress mean in thinking and dialogue?

There are many ways to show progress in thinking and dialogue skills, but here are 5 indicators to define development. The process starts with a question, and the outcome could be one of the following.

The students now:

have lots more questions

have totally changed their minds

still think what they originally thought, but with better understanding

have many different perspectives

are confused, but enriched (a good confusion)

Philosophy for ChildrenCreating a Community of Enquiry

Developing good skills and attitudes

Sit in a circle

This emphasises equality and democracy

Agree that listening is a vital skill

Be prepared to offer your views

Respect other people’s viewpoints …

… but be prepared to challenge them

Let your teacher become the “guide on the side”, not “the sage on the stage”

Developing listening skills

Ask students to sit back to back

Give one member of the pair a picture or diagram

They then have to describe it to their partner

The partner has to draw it for themselves, from the description (no looking!)

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Developing the question

Creating a Community of Enquiry

•Look at the picture

• Describe what you see

• What questions does it raise?

• Share and record the questions

• The questions need to be philosophical

• They need to make sense even if the picture where not there• When you have listed all the questions, you vote

• Choose the one you want to debate as a class

Discussion tips

In your discussion, play netball with ideas, not ping-pong!

Don’t practice “rubble-thinking”; try to make every point move on, constructing new ideas

To speak, open your hand on your knee

The speaker chooses who will respond to her/him

Before speaking, state your aim:

“I’m going to agree with …., because …”“I’m going to move the debate on, by ….”