Philosophy for Children, sometimes abbreviated to P4C, is a movement that aims to teach reasoning and argumentative skills to children. There are also related methods sometimes called "Philosophy for Young People" or "Philosophy for Kids". Often, the hope is that this will be a key influential move towards a more democratic form of democracy.Laurence Splitter and Ann M. Sharp, Teaching for Better Thinking, ACER: Melbourne. However, there is also a long tradition within higher education of developing alternative methods for teaching philosophy both in schools and colleges.
Although the noted developmental psychologist Jean Piaget was of the impression that children were not capable of critical thinking until age 11 or 12, the experience of many philosophers and teachers with young children gives reason to believe that children benefit from philosophical inquiry even in early primary school. Furthermore, there is empirical evidence that teaching children reasoning skills early in life greatly improves other cognitive and academic skills and greatly assists learning in general.k.J. Topping and S. Trickey (2007) "Collaborative Philosophical Inquiry for School Children", British Journal of Educational Psychology, Dec 77(4).
Method and practice of philosophy for children The pedagogy of philosophy for children is diverse. However, many practitioners, including those working in the tradition of Matthew Lipman and the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children, emphasize the use of a community of inquiry method, which has roots in the work of philosopher John Dewey.Jennifer Bleazby (2013) Social Reconstruction Learning: Dualism, Dewey and Philosophy in Schools, Routledge: New York and London. The term "inquiry" is preferred to "lesson" because the emphasis is on the group inquiring together into questions with the teacher as a facilitator rather than the authoritative source of information.
Questions and pictures as stimuli for conversation
As a basis for discussing philosophy with children, the questions used (such as "What is friendship?", "Do animals have feelings?", and "What is happiness?") are of crucial importance. The German educational scientist Michael Siegmund recommends asking children a philosophical question along with an inspiring picture. Together, the image and question create an opening for discussing philosophy. Among other things, natural landscapes, pictures of animals and people, certain social situations, or even fantasy pictures can be used. This dual method can be used as early as daycare for children ages 4 and up, as well as at school or with family.Siegmund, Michael (2019), Philosophy for Children and Teenagers: The best 123 questions: Including many pictures that will encourage the joint thinking process, BoD, Norderstedt.
Stories as stimuli for conversation
Along with pictures, stories can also lead to discussions of philosophy with children. A story can thus be an occasion to start a philosophical conversation with children. Adults can ask children philosophical questions while reading aloud as well. Stories, combined with profound questions, can inspire children and promote their creativity and imagination. Adults can either add "philosophical questions" to "classic" stories and fairy tales, or use special children's books for discussing philosophy with children. Michael Siegmund recommends stories in which animals are the main characters and child-friendly questions are asked. Possible topics may include poverty and wealth, friendship and family, happiness, freedom, environmental pollution, justice, and more.Siegmund, Michael (2020) Philosophy for Children. Grandpa Carl the Owl and his Grandson Nils the Owl, BoD, Norderstedt.
Diversity in the United Kingdom There is particular diversity in the UK, owing to the large number of competing and collaborating freelance trainers, each emphasizing different strands of the pedagogy. Roger Sutcliffe's practice includes the use of news stories; Steve Williams has emphasised the importance of dialogues that model argument as well as raising philosophical issues; Will Ord emphasises the use of striking photos, often containing contrasts that suggest opposing concepts; Jason Buckley advocates a more physical, game-based approach and "Philosophy in Role", in which children philosophize within a story as characters confronted with a variety of problems.
SAPERE is the UK's leading provider of P4C training. Registered in 1994, the charity has trained over 27,000 teachers and other individuals in the use of P4C. SAPERE's mission is to advance the educational, personal, and social development of young people, especially those facing disadvantage, by promoting P4C. The organization's work gained national prominence in 2015 when Durham University School of Education published results of a randomized control trial of P4C with over 3,000 primary school students. The study was sponsored by the Education Endowment Foundation. The limited studyEEF evaluation found that P4C advanced attainment for all students and had a powerful impact on children from disadvantaged backgrounds. A larger, later study showed little attainment advancement in the classroom context.
Co-founded by Peter Worley and Emma Worley, The Philosophy Foundation's specialist philosophy teachers (all philosophy graduates) specifically use philosophical material, including thought-experiments and stories or activities that lead to questions from the philosophical canon. They make use of carefully structured questioning strategies and also the introduction of thinking skills in order to develop good thinking habits from a young age. The questioning strategies are used to introduce dialectic along Platonic lines and to maintain philosophical focus. Uniquely, they have a methodology that introduces writing and meta-analysis with older primary and secondary students.
UK-based Thinking Space is philosopher Grace Robinson and a network of associated philosophers and educators whose work is characterised by playful and experimental collaborations. This work with a range of practitioners, among them artists, scientists, and academics, aims to bring philosophical issues alive for children and young people. Thinking Space's most notable collaboration is with the University of Leeds on "Leeds Philosophy Exchange", an accredited undergraduate course in which philosophy students facilitate philosophical inquiry in local primary schools, alongside teachers trained by Thinking Space in P4C.
West-coast United States A particular way of doing philosophy with children is illustrated by the work of Chris Phillips with the Philosophers Club at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in the Mission District, San Francisco, California.
Professor William Barry of Notre Dame de Namur University is pioneering a new approach to P4C called Philosophy for Children and Community (P4C2) in the San Francisco Bay Area. His contribution to evolving the idea of P4C involves young people becoming novice critical theory action researchers and meaningful members of communities of inquiry focused on human flourishing for every person. Another key component of Barry's P4C2 is the importance of children gaining ontological weight from participation in their communities of inquiry by understanding the meaning of quality in praxis in a transformational way through TQ Theory. The Institute of P4C2 has recently been developed by Living Leadership Today, LLC, founder Maria Rachelle in Silicon Valley, California, and resulted in the creation of the online international scholarly journal, the International Journal of Transformative Research.
Leading contributors One of the salient differences between proponents of philosophy for children is in their choice of stimuli—starting points for discussions. Matthew Lipman, called "the most influential figure" in helping young students develop philosophical thinking by Gareth Matthews, is credited with starting the Philosophy for Children movement in the 1970s. After witnessing political upheaval taking place on University campuses nationwide in the 1960s, Lipman realized that philosophical and critical thinking should be encouraged much earlier in the academic setting. He founded the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC) at Montclair State University (then Montclair State College) in 1974. Lipman's method involves reading philosophically stimulating narratives to children and encouraging them to come up with philosophical questions in response. The questions set the agenda for a collaborative inquiry where the teacher acts as both facilitator and co-inquirer. The lessons are dialogue-based, with students usually sitting in a circle and taking turns at suggesting solutions, expressing opinions, putting forth arguments and counter arguments, providing examples, constructing criteria, and building on each other's ideas with the aim of coming to a settlement regarding the initial philosophical questions that stimulated the dialogue. Lipman's ideas about learning, pedagogy and curriculum are heavily influenced by the educational and philosophical ideas of the American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey.Bleazby, Jennifer (2013) Social Reconstruction Learning: Dualism, Dewey and Philosophy in Schools. Routledge: New York and London. Many of the materials used by the IAPC are philosophical children's novels that were published by Lipman, including Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery, which he published in 1969. Others have built on Lipman's ideas and developed further teaching resources and learning activities that complement his original Philosophy for Children novels and pedagogical approach, such as Phil Cam's popular teaching resources.Cam, Phil (2012) Teaching Ethics in Schools. ACER: MelbourneCam, Phil (1993-97) Thinking Stories, Hale and Iremonger. Lipman wrote the world's first systematic pre-college philosophy curriculum and created both master's and doctoral programs in the field of Philosophy for Children. He also founded Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children. Gareth Matthews worked with a variety of students, but primarily with students in late primary school (5th grade and thereabouts). Matthews's method was to get the students to actively create philosophical settings, to "make the philosophical problem their own". One of his best-known techniques was to provide the beginning of a philosophically provocative story. He then recorded/transcribes student comments, put them in the mouths of characters in the story, and brought the story continuation to the next class session for further discussion. Such interactions are compiled in his book Dialogues With Children. Karin Murris of Witwatersrand University, South Africa, and Joanna Haynes of Plymouth University, England, have popularised the use of children's picture books as an alternative to purpose-written materials. Tom Wartenberg of Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts, has also written a large number of discussion plans for philosophizing with picture books. Jana Mohr Lone has written about children's philosophical thinking and the benefits of encouraging children to engage in philosophical inquiry. Ellen Duthie, together with her team based in Spain, researches and develops the possibilities of Visual Philosophy for Children (and adults), exploring different ways of engaging and stimulating philosophical dialogue through visuals in her Wonder Ponder series of books.
P4C organisations International organisations IAPC