Abstract
In this paper we start by discussing how Philosophy for Children (P4C) was launched by Matthew Lipman (1922-2010) in the 1970s in order to establish philosophy as a fully-fledged school programme in the US, and has since become a movement which evolved through the last four decades, adopting different epistemological and pedagogical discourses (Vansieleghem & Kennedy, 2011). From philosophy for children we arrive at philosophy with children, swapping the fixed method for the modelling and coaching by communal reflection, contemplation and communication, thus giving a greater emphasis to dialogue, while opening up different approaches, methods, techniques and strategies. This is precisely the line of work we personally prefer, when it is articulated with Gareth Matthews' assumption that children can ask the same questions as philosophers do, and sometimes even better ones. Along the lines of Storme and Vlieghe (2001), we think that P4C can allow the child to be philosophical and philosophy childish, an understanding that perhaps can free us from the dominant one dimensional unproblematized realm of the ideology of productivity that envisages education as a process exclusively preparing persons for labour markets, understood as the set of positions gained in an operative and ruthlessly competitive battle. This offers a context where constructing existential meaning, by and for each individual, is excluded from education. Keywords: Philosophy for children, song, tales, cinema.
Highlights
Philosophy for Children (P4C) was launched by Matthew Lipman (1922–2010) in the 1970s in order to establish philosophy as a fully-fledged school programme in the US, and has since become a movement which has evolved through the last four decades, adopting different epistemological and pedagogical discourses (Vansieleghem & Kennedy, 2011)
The first phase of the movement was strongly shaped by the intention to developing critical thinking as the ability to think reflectively about the consequences of ceaseless interaction with the environment, in order to enable pupils to become aware of the implications of their actions: ‘critical thinking means being able to determine the facts or issues that cause a problem in order to make hypotheses about how to solve it
We can use a large range of materials collected from traditional or contemporary sources, ranging from fairy tales to popular songs and films that are very well suited to engaging children in a community of inquiry
Summary
Philosophy for Children (P4C) was launched by Matthew Lipman (1922–2010) in the 1970s in order to establish philosophy as a fully-fledged school programme in the US, and has since become a movement which has evolved through the last four decades, adopting different epistemological and pedagogical discourses (Vansieleghem & Kennedy, 2011). One must give some acknowledgement to Gareth Matthews’ contribution to P4C; Matthews problematised the notion of childhood conceived merely as a prelude to adulthood, and criticised the traditional conception of education focused on the transfer of knowledge, which could underrate children’s voices Such an orientation strove for a symmetrical relation between adult and child, as equal companions in thought, abandoning the conception of philosophy for or with children, and assuming instead that children can ask the same questions as philosophers do, and sometimes even more interesting ones, when we give them the chance by entering dialogue with them. In such a point of view, even adults have a lot to learn from children, as does philosophy itself, if it wants to escape obliteration within the landscape of the performative ideology that, as Lyotard (1979) prognosticated, would become dominant in our times
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