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Philosophy

Are children philosophers?

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Some of my best experiences with children have been when doing philosophy with them. With a small group of a maximum of twenty students, there was never a time when I questioned whether children can do philosophy or whether we, as humans, care about questions that do not have one answer. What I often thought about was how we have cleverly convinced ourselves of the lie that philosophical thinking is irrelevant to us.

Through my experiences, I learnt that there is not one way to be philosophical. Importantly, part of the process of doing philosophy with children is acknowledging that, besides different perspectives, there are many ways of coming to know those perspectives. As children come from a variety of home environments, how can we equitably encourage children who have not been given the space to wonder, ponder, reflect and voice their thoughts and realise their philosophical selves?

I also understood more about the difficulties experienced when engaging philosophically. Sometimes, students were tone deaf to other's feelings. On the other hand, there were also moments when views were reconsidered.

We usually sat in a circle and had lots to share. At first, we had to introduce the concept of a ‘talking stick’ to be more aware of all the voices in the class and to not talk over each other. The ‘talking stick’ is any material that can be passed around. The person with the ‘talking stick’ has the chance to speak. Once children became more respectful of each other’s presence, there was no need for the stick.

Imagined Dialogue

To share more insights on various aspects of doing philosophy with children, I share an imagined dialogue with Jana Mohr lone (1) as Jane, Michael D. Burroughs (2) as Michael, Anil Gomes (3) as Anil, Gareth Mathews (4) as Gareth, John Holt (5) as John, Alison Gopnik (6) as Alison, Terry Eagleton as Terry & Sharon Todd as Sharon.

Q: Why is it important for children to ‘do’ philosophy?

Jana & Michael: We pay attention to a child’s physical self, intellectual self, moral self, social and emotional self, but there is little attention to the philosophical self.

Q: Why is there an emphasis on ‘doing’ philosophy rather than ‘teaching’ philosophy?

Jana & Michael: Doing philosophy with children is about being co-inquirers about the fundamental open-ended questions that are part of all our lives. It is focused on the children and the questions that are shaping their lives in the moment.

In the dialogical method, knowledge is no longer a static, pre-established product that must be given from teacher to student. Rather, learning is an ongoing process that occurs between class members in dialogue. At its core, the practice of philosophy involves asking questions and engaging in dialogue.

Q: What would philosophising with a child look like?

Anil: More interesting would be a philosophy that started with children, not as a liminal concern but as objects of philosophical inquiry in their own right. Yet it’s hard to know what this would look like. It lies deep in our ordinary thinking that children represent a temporary stage in the development of a life form whose natural endpoint is the reason-endowed mature human adult. And that tempts us to think of the goods of childhood as comprehensible only in light of the goods that are found in the life of a fully functioning adult. We think of adulthood as the point of childhood and the role of education to equip children with the skills and knowledge required to live as an adult. This is why those of us who are homeschooling reach so desperately for phonics and maths apps, wanting our children to be prepared for what is to come. What would it be to reject this way of thinking? It would force us to value childhood on its own terms, not as a route to something more valuable, but as important in and of itself.

Q: If we value childhood on its own terms, what would we begin to observe?

Gareth: Tim (about six years), while busily engaged in licking a pot, asked, "Papa, how can we be sure that everything is not a dream?" Somewhat abashed, Tim's father said that he didn't know and asked how Tim thought that we could tell. After a few more licks of the pot, Tim answered, "Well, I don't think everything is a dream, 'cause in a dream people wouldn't go around asking if it was a dream." Some question of fact arose between James and his father and James said, "I know it is!" His father replied, "But perhaps you might be wrong!" Denis (four years, seven months) then joined in, saying, "But if he knows, he can't be wrong! Thinking is sometimes wrong, but knowing is always right!" Ian (six years) found to his chagrin that the three children of his parents' friends monopolized the television; they kept him from watching his favorite program. "Mother," he asked in frustration, "why is it better for three people to be selfish than for one?" John (six years), reflecting on the fact that in addition to books, toys, and clothes he has two arms, two legs, and a head and that these are his toys, his arms, his head, and so on, asked, "Which part of me is really me?"

John: As Dr. Gareth Mathews makes clear from many of his conversations with young children, many of their surprising and naive remarks and questions, which we adults are too liable to dismiss as ignorant and silly, are questions that some of the greatest philosophers in our history have been struggling with since philosophy began.

Alison: The fact that children ask questions spontaneously from such a young age and across so many cultures also suggests that this way of getting information about the world, like imitation, is biologically very deeply rooted. It’s something children need to be allowed to do, not taught to do.

Terry: Children make the best theorists, since they have not yet been educated into accepting our routine social practices as “natural”, and so insist on posing to those practices the most embarrassingly general and fundamental questions, regarding them with a wondering estrangement which we adults have long forgotten. Since they do not yet grasp our social practices as inevitable, they do not see why we might not do things differently. (7)

Q: So, children can ask complex questions. However, this does not mean that they can undertake complex thinking, right?

Anil: So what was I doing with those children while we waited for the schools to close? We were certainly playing, with ideas, with stories, with words. And if serious intellectual work requires attention and dedication, then we were not thinking. For we were too distractible, too easily amused by the world and each other. But our playing was not unconnected with the kind of reflection that Descartes undertakes, just as the egg-and-spoon race is not unconnected with the 800m sprint. In neither case should we think of the adult activity as the perfection of something that is engaged in badly by the child. But nor should we think of them as only mimicking the form of the adult enterprise, as if they were pretend weddings. Talking philosophy with children is its own activity but it can change into disciplined reflection, not by becoming more perfect but in the way that spring turns into summer, giving rise to something different but no more, or less, valuable for all that.

Q: How can talking philosophy, become more disciplined and give rise to something different?

Jana: We need to be sensitive to philosophical perspectives of our students in order to challenge them in a way that affirms them and we need to be sensitive to the philosophical implications of their ideas in order to challenge them in a way that pushes them to live an examined life.

The community of inquiry is one that is not in a rush, safe, promotes wonderment, reflection and evaluation.

Thinking in the community of inquiry is critical, creative, collaborative and caring. Discussion in the community of inquiry is not just a process of swapping opinions.

Philosophy encourages students to question the assumptions that underlie our thinking and behaviour. It supports the development of strong critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills. Facilitating an appreciation of a variety of perspectives.

In this context, *reasonable* means that the judgment is well-reasoned, well-informed and personally meaningful. Philosophical judgments must be justified in part by their reliance on sound arguments and good evidence. For a judgment to be well-informed means both that it has been informed by diverse perspectives and that it has been made accountable to the community of one’s peers. That it be personally meaningful means that the person making the judgment has found her own way to it—that it is genuinely felt and constitutes an occasion of self-correction, rather than external correction (i.e., accepted on the basis of the teacher’s authority or peer pressure).

Q: What complicates the idea of a ‘safe’ space with people in having a ‘dialogue’?

Sharon: Focusing on listening and on the contingent aspects of listening means reconsidering how listening participates in forms of communication that do not conform to a simplified version of dialogue. The notion of dialogue is no stranger to education, and, in particular, social justice education is concerned with the dialogic possibilities for creating meaningful interaction across differences. Classroom strategies often invoke the notion of a “safe” space in which to speak, where everyone can participate equally. This frequently has been seen as an issue of bringing marginalized people to “voice,” of giving them space and time to articulate their own desires, needs, and perspectives. And although there is a tacit agreement that it is important to hear what this voice has to say, dialogue very often implies that the ethical point of listening is to come to understand so we may speak better in return. What often gets left out of a conventional rendering of dialogue is the immanent risk of speaking (a risk that too often is consoled with appeals to safety), as well as the specific place of the listener as someone distinct and unique in relation to the speaker. (8)

Q: What all does a philosophical self help us with?

Jana: Engaging in speculative thinking at young ages encourages children to acquire a habit of questioning their own beliefs, ideas and also fosters independent thinking.

Deep questioning cultivates children’s curiosity about life. It also allows them to recognize that there are many different perspectives, not just their own. And finally, it helps them analyze complex questions and think critically about new information.

A study conducted at the University of Montreal, which tracked young people over a 10-year period, suggests that philosophy training at an early age helps children to avoid dogmatic or radicalized stances later in life.
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Citations

(1). Philosophy in Education: Questioning and Dialogue in Schools by Jana Mohr Lone and Michael D. Burroughs

(2). Philosophy in Education: Questioning and Dialogue in Schools by Jana Mohr Lone and Michael D. Burroughs
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(3). The privilege of boredom by Anil Gomes

(4). Philosophy and the young child by Gareth Mathews

(5). How children learn by John Holt

(6). The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children by Alison Gopnik

(7). From the significance of theory, quoted from Bell Hooks' teaching to transgress

(8). Learning from the other, Levinas, psychoanalysis and ethical possibilities in education by Sharon Todd

Thinking Rhizomatically

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