Philosophy in Schools

Felicity Haynes

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138641105
• eBook ISBN: 9781317247791
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In 1972, Matthew Lipman founded the Institute of Advancement for Philosophy for Children (IAPC), producing a series of novels and teaching manuals promoting philosophical inquiry at all levels of schooling. The programme consisted of stories about children discussing traditional topics of ethics, values, logic, reality, perception, and politics, as they related to their own daily experiences. Philosophy for Children has been adapted beyond the IAPC texts, but the process remains one of an open community of inquiry in which teachers promote respect, conceptual clarity, critical judgement, and active listening without imposing their own ideas.

Philosophy in Schools describes the successes and difficulties in implementing this community of inquiry model. The book covers topics including the formation of non-didactic courses in ethics, the difficulties of fitting a post-compulsory philosophy course into a standard curriculum framework, and the political assumptions of adopting this model in a low socio-economic school. The contributions also ask deeper questions about how a genuine community of inquiry model is incompatible with conventional models of schooling, with their positioning of the discipline of philosophy in the curriculum. This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory.

Philosophy for Children, Values Education and the Inquiring Society

PHILIP CAM

School of Humanities, University of New South Wales

Abstract

How can school education best bring about moral improvement? Socrates believed that the unexamined life was not worth living and that the philosophical examination of life required a collaborative inquiry. Today, our society relegates responsibility for values to the personal sphere rather than the social one. I will argue that, overall, we need to give more emphasis to collaboration and inquiry rather than pitting students against each other and focusing too much attention on ‘teaching that’ instead of ‘teaching how’. I will argue that we need to include philosophy in the curriculum throughout the school years, and teach it through a collaborative inquiry which enables children to participate in an open society subject to reason. Such collaborative inquiry integrates personal responsibility with social values more effectively than sectarian and didactic religious education.

Introduction¹

As Socrates would have it, the philosophical examination of life is a collaborative inquiry. The social nature of the enterprise goes with its spirit of inquiry to form his bifocal vision of the examined life. These days, insofar as our society teaches us to think about values, it tends to inculcate a private rather than a public conception of them. This makes reflection a personal and inward journey rather than a social and collaborative one, and a person’s values a matter of parental guidance in childhood and individual decision in maturity. The relegation of responsibility for values to the personal sphere also militates against societal self-examination.

On the other hand, the traditional pontifical alternative is equally presumptive and debilitating in ignoring the possibility of personal judgement. How can education steer a course between the tyranny of unquestionable moral codes and the bankruptcy of individualistic moral relativism? It remains to be seen whether there is a way in which education could teach children to engage productively across their differences rather than responding to difference with suspicion or prejudice.

Gilbert Ryle (in Cahn, 1970) made a clear distinction between ‘teaching how’ and ‘teaching that’, arguing from a behaviourist perspective that teaching how had a much more lasting impact than simply teaching the facts. However, too much emphasis on ‘teaching how’ can result in conditioning, training, teaching to conform to habit, teaching obedience with the threat of hellfire if the rules are broken. There is a third way, the way of philosophy espoused by Matthew Lipman (2002) in his Philosophy for Children, which involves giving more emphasis to collaboration and inquiry rather than pitting students against each other and focusing too much attention on ‘teaching that’ instead of ‘teaching how’. Philosophy as it is traditionally taught may well involve teaching how to follow the rules of formal logic correctly, or learning facts about the life and death of Socrates, but it also requires a capacity for critical reflection, consideration of alternative possibilities, and a genuine concern for truth and clarity.

I argue that we need to include philosophy in the curriculum throughout the school years, but it needs to be a philosophy taught in the spirit of Socrates which balances individual and social values. Religious instruction tends to inculcate values through adult imposition and denies space to critical judgement.

Ryle’s distinction between ‘learning that’ and ‘learning how’ implied that these were discrete and exclusive ways of learning. However, learning how to do things is more than a matter of memorizing facts or following procedural instructions. Being able to cook is more than being able to follow a recipe book. Again, while some instruction is useful in learning to ride a bike, it is mostly a matter of trying to ride, and then, under guidance, trying again. It is a case of learning by doing, and doing it under different circumstances, in order to apply it in different circumstances. This is working out for oneself how to exercise individual judgement, rather than first learning a set of instructions and then carrying them out (Ryle, in Cahn, 1970, pp. 413–424). Whatever the rules are, they are heuristic and strategic, depending on different contexts, rather than algorithmic and learnable by rote.

‘Learning how’ can be important in many areas of the curriculum where training in skills is an important feature, especially in physical education and the arts, However, learning the art of inquiry requires a slightly different type of ‘learning how’ from training, rehearsal, repetition. A curriculum that is based on inquiry is one that is centred on thinking. There is a world of difference in the outcome to be expected from an education that treats knowledge as material with which to think and one that emphasizes memorization of knowledge. It is the difference between an inquiring society and one in which those few who have developed an inquiring mind have done so in spite of their education rather than because of it (Dewey, 1916/1966, chap. 12; Lipman, 2002). The concept of a community of inquiry owes much to Dewey who, in Democracy and education (1916/1966), described the healthy relation between an individual and his or her environment as functional. Dewey insisted that because the relationship between the individual and his or her environment must be based on mutual adjustment, fitting into society might well involve radically changing it.

Dewey believed in the importance of preparing students for democratic citizenship. He stressed that consciously guided education aimed at developing the ‘mental equipment’ and moral character of students was essential to the development of civic character. Is this not what religious instruction tries to do? The relationship between the individual and society was far more important for Dewey than the child’s relationship with an abstract God. It was organic and continually evolving in mutual adaptation. It differs from religious instruction in that its aim is to develop a model of free inquiry, which requires tolerance of alternative viewpoints, and free communication. He also believed that children’s capacity for the exercise of deliberative, practical reason in moral situations could be cultivated not by ready-made knowledge but by ‘a mode of associated living’ characteristic of democracy. Lipman (1988) was to elaborate on this idea of schools as a model of a participatory democracy and his classroom community of inquiry provided close analogies with the democratic school, a microcosm of the wider society.

Thinking Together

When we move away from the traditional classroom to the inquiring one and the teacher becomes less occupied with conveying information—with teaching ‘that’— it becomes educationally desirable for students to engage with one another. When human conduct stimulates moral inquiry it is usually because that conduct is controversial, which is to say that there are different points of view as to how it should be judged. If you and I have different opinions in regard to someone’s character or conduct, then we are both in need of justification and our views are subject to each other’s objections. When we make a proposal to solve a practical problem of any complexity, we rely upon others who are reasonably well placed for constructive criticism or a better suggestion.

If we want students to grow out of the habit of going with their own first thoughts, to become used to considering a range of possibilities, and to be on the lookout for better alternatives, then we could not do better than to have them learn by exploring issues, problems and ideas together. If we want them to become used to giving reasons for what they think, to expect the same of others, and to make productive use of criticism, then we could not go past giving them plenty of practice with their peers. And if we want them to grow up so that they consider other people’s points of view, and not to be so closed minded as to think that those who disagree with them must be either ignorant or vicious, then the combination of intellectual and social engagement to be found in collaborative inquiry is just the thing. These are all good reasons for having our students learn to inquire together.

Philosophy for Children

More than any other discipline, philosophy is an inquiry into fundamental human problems and issues, where all the general conceptions that animate society come under scrutiny. Philosophy as a formal discipline played an important part in its place as a matriculation subject in some Australian states, because there were rigorous rules by which its standards could be maintained. This would involve, say, learning that ignoratio elenchi was an informal fallacy, or that modus tollens is an illegitimate move in deductive logic, or learning how to mount a reasoned argument in defence of a position.

When, however, we are talking abut philosophy for children, its subject matter needs to be adapted to the interests and experience of students of various ages and its tools and procedures adjusted to their stage of development. There are models to work from, particularly the series of novels and manuals from Matthew Lipman, and in recent years we have begun to find our way forward.² If part of the difficulty is also that some philosophers think of philosophy as being above all that, it is salutary to remember that other disciplines have long since discovered how to recast themselves in educational form.

Just as mathematics was forced to become more practical and relevant to the growing range of children who were staying on at school through the New Maths, so philosophy has been forced to become more real and relevant to children. The move towards an integrated curriculum away from discrete learning areas also required philosophy to make the connections across and through disciplines, raising the larger questions of epistemology, ontology, aesthetics and, for the purpose of this article, the important area of axiology or values. For philosophy to have a formative influence, and thereby to significantly affect both the way people think and the character of their concerns, it needs to be part of the regular fare throughout the school years. Only by this means can it effectively supply its nutrients to the developing roots of thought or knowing that and action or knowing how.

We need to counter the view that philosophy is an advanced discipline, suitable only for the academically gifted and intellectually mature. Jerome Bruner made famous the startling claim that ‘the foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form’ (1960, p. 12), and he suggested that the prevailing view of certain disciplines being too difficult for younger students results in our missing important educational opportunities. Bruner called this structure a spiral curriculum: one that begins with the child’s intuitive understanding of the fundamentals, and then returns to the same basic concepts, themes, issues and problems at increasingly elaborate and more abstract or formal levels over the years. A spiral curriculum is vital for developing the kind of deep understanding that belongs to philosophy and the humanities.

What else is to be gained from building philosophy into the curriculum throughout the school years? It seems to me that an education in philosophical inquiry will assist students to achieve a rich understanding of a wide array of issues and ideas that inform life and society through an increasingly deep inquiry into them. It will help students to think more carefully about issues and problems that do not have a unique solution or a settled decision procedure, but where judgements and decisions can be better or worse in all kinds of ways. Since most of the problems that we face in life and in our society are of that character, the general-purpose tools that students acquire through philosophy will ensure that they are better prepared to face those problems. If philosophy is carried out in the collaborative style envisaged above, then its recipients will also be more likely to tackle such problems collaboratively, and thereby to be more constructive and accommodating with one another. Let me spell all this out a little under the headings of ‘thinking’, ‘understanding’ and ‘community’.

Thinking

Philosophy is a discipline with a particular focus on thinking. It involves thinkers in the cognitive surveillance of their own thought. It is a reflective practice, in the sense that it involves not only careful thinking about some subject matter, but thinking about that thinking, in an effort to guide and improve it. Since philosophical thinking tends to keep one eye on the thinking process, philosophy can supply the tools that assist the thinker in such tasks as asking probing questions, making needful distinctions, constructing fruitful connections, reasoning about complex problems, evaluating propositions, elaborating concepts, and honing the criteria that are used to make judgements and decisions. Dewey’s (2010) five-step model of identifying the problem and placing it in context, making creative and testable hypotheses that move towards a possible solution, analysing the hypotheses in terms of past experience, considering alternative hypotheses that may be more suitable, and checking possible solutions against actual experiences was picked up as a model of individual thinking, especially in science and design work. But in a community of inquiry each of these steps is done from the multiple perspectives of the group at any age, allowing not only the falsifiability of any conservative position to truth but also their complete contingency.

The skills, abilities and habits of skills, abilities and habits of thinking—acquiring the habit of reflecting carefully upon your own thoughts, as well as what others think; developing the ability to imagine and evaluate new possibilities; developing the habit of changing your mind on the basis of good reasons; and acquiring skill in the establishment and use of appropriate criteria to form sound judgements—provide the methodology of Lipman’s community of inquiry.

Understanding

Philosophy deals with ethical questions about how we should behave, social questions about the good community, epistemological questions about the justification of people’s opinions, metaphysical questions about our spiritual lives, or logical questions about what we may reasonably infer, and is therefore a rich source of our cultural heritage and of contemporary thought and debate. In terms of both its history and ways of thinking, philosophy also helps to deepen our understanding of the big ideas and key concepts that have helped to shape civilization and continue to inform the way we live. Our conceptions of what makes something right or wrong, of justice, freedom and responsibility, of our personal, cultural and national identity, of sources of knowledge, of the nature of truth, beauty and goodness, are all central to what we value and how we conduct our affairs. Since such concepts so deeply inform life and society, it is important for students to develop their understanding of them. While we may attempt to deal with these matters elsewhere in the curriculum, philosophical inquiry gives students the tools that they need in order to explore these ideas in depth.

Community

With regard to cooperative thinking and the importance of community, I would stress the virtues of dialogue. As we work to resolve differences in our understandings, or to subject our reasons to each other’s judgement, or try to follow an argument where it leads, we are like detectives whose clues are the experience, inferences, judgements and other intellectual considerations that each thinker brings into the dialogue with others. On this view, philosophical inquiry provides a model of the inquiring community: one that is engaged in thoughtful deliberation and decision making, is driven by a desire to make advance through cooperation and dialogue, and values the kinds of regard and reciprocity that grow under its influence. Just because it has these characteristics, philosophical inquiry can provide a training-ground for people who are being brought up to live together in such a community. Dewey’s five steps require the philosophical disposition to give reasons when that is appropriate; and, generally, to cooperate with others and respect different points of view.

Values Education

The vital significance of educating for judgement in regard to values is nowhere more clearly recognized than in the writings of John Dewey: ‘The formation of a culti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• 1. Philosophy for Children, Values Education and the Inquiring Society
• 2. Philosophy and Ethics in Western Australian Secondary Schools
• 3. That’s Not For Our Kids: The strange death of philosophy and ethics in a low socioeconomic secondary school
• 4. Identifying a K-10 Developmental Framework for Teaching Philosophy
• 5. Developing Democratic Dispositions and Enabling Crap Detection: Claims for classroom philosophy with special reference to Western Australia and New Zealand
• 6. Philosophy, Art or Pedagogy? How should children experience education?
• 7. Kaupapa Māori, Philosophy and Schools
• 8. School and the Limits of Philosophy
• 9. Opening Teachers’ Minds to Philosophy: The crucial role of teacher education
• 10. What is Philosophy for Children? From an educational experiment to experimental education
• Index