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Philosophy for Children |
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Aims and objectives
The main beneficiaries This ultimately has the potential to benefit other members of the class and teaching staff by improving motivation levels and helping to reduce behavioural problems. In the long term it is hoped that the skills learned in the philosophy classes might have a positive impact on all aspects of school life, e.g. resolving problems, making decisions in School Council, etc. The initiative
The philosophy classes are generally an hour in length and consist of 10 min stimulus, 10 mins thinking of questions (linked to the stimulus) in small groups, 10 mins voting / deciding which questions to debate and 30 min debating in large groups. The stimulus is normally a story or fable which the teacher reads to the class. It can alternatively be a song or a picture. The more thought provoking the better. The children split into pairs and spend 5-10 minutes discussing the story, poem, song, picture etc. They have to come up with a question. It could be quite specific: "what does this word mean?" or, "why did this character do that?" or more general: "do people always do such and such?" or "why are changes so difficult to manage?" etc. As the project has developed the children have gained insight into what makes an interesting question. 'Philosophy is about thinking because you have to think of the questions you want to ask'. John (age 9) 'I like coming to philosophy because it's nice to talk about questions.' Adanan (age 10) When each pair has a question that they are satisfied with, the teacher writes the questions on the board. The whole list of questions is then read to the class. Children consider which question they would like to discuss. A vote is taken and one question is discussed in depth for about 30 minutes. "There are various ways of running a discussion. I like to take quite an active role, trying to restate the children's contributions and draw out further questions". (Ben Raikes, Philosophy class teacher) The outcome "One week I read an adapted version of the opening chapter of Kafka's Metamorphosis. The main character wakes up to find he has turned into a beetle. A fascinating discussion developed about what makes you you. Children listened to each other, disagreed and gave reasons; changing their minds. It was animated and intelligent. They feel engaged, as though they have a stake in it." (Ben Raikes, Philosophy class teacher) "Philosophy is different from history and maths because you can make your own ideas up." Claudia (age 9) "I like coming to philosophy because I want to see what other people's ideas are." Casia (age 8) Philospohy for Children has also resulted in the techniques being applied to other subjects like science. In studying light for example children formed pairs and thought of questions. These were written onto pieces of paper, stuck on the board and some were discussed. In subsequent lessons a collection of science books from the library were used to research the questions. The children were also asked to think up experiments that might help them answer the question. "It was a bit chaotic, but I think a lot more learning went on than in my old style science lessons." (Ben Raikes, Philosophy class teacher) Evaluation and assessment opportunities Challenges encountered Cross curricular links Links with other schools, community groups and organisations,
locally, nationally and internationally SAPRE is... There are SAPERE affiliated group world-wide who can be contacted through the SAPERE website: www.SAPERE.net Supporting resources Ben Raikes: benedickraikes@yahoo.com www.SAPERE.net Key Stage 2 Citizenship Pupils should be taught:
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