Over the winter, I had the wonderful privilege of taking three primary school classes on an adventure into the world of philosophy. An opportunity that had been funded by the Royal Institue of Philosophy. I had two Year-6 classes at Robins Wood Academy in Gloucester, and a Year 5/6 blend at Brampton Abbotts CofE in Ross-on-Wye. Each class had 10 sessions, once a week, starting around October last year and ending in January this year. Both I and my trusty ‘talking stick’, Simba, are still relishing the experience.
Using Peter Worley’s ‘the if machine’ as my trusty guide I shared some of my favorite stories and questions with the children.
‘The Ship of Theseus’ – the ship changes over time, but does it stay the same ship?
‘The Little Old Shop of Curiosities’ – is our life predetermined, or do we have free will?
'The Frog and the Scorpion' – should the foolish frog or the violent scorpion be blamed for their deaths?
'The Happy Prisoner' – a man is happy but trapped, is he free?
And with so much space and enthusiasm to play with I also was also pleased to try out some new enquires with some great results:
'The Meaning of Ant Life' - what is the meaning of an ant’s life? What is the meaning of human life?
'Ceebie Stories: Friendship' – can a robot be a friend even if it isn’t human?
'The Ring of Gyges' – what would be the right thing to do if you could turn invisible?
On our last session, I ran an exercise and had the children answer this question: What is Philosophy?’ They shared their thoughts and wrote them down.
Some of the responses are very smart and on point:
- ‘Dedication to information’ (very close to the original meaning of Philosophy which is ‘love of knowledge/wisdom’)
-‘talking about ways of thinking’
-‘dig deep with thinking’
-figure what is good and what is bad
-‘to think about what you normally don’t’ think about’
-‘think outside the box’
Whereas others we just as on point but also very funny to the ears of people like myself who have been indulged in the subject for a while:
-‘it has endless arguments’
-'philosophy is just philosophy’
-‘it’s about stuff nobody knows about’
-‘its hard to understand what philosophy is’
But my favorites were the ones that also picked up on the nature of what I really try to promote in these discussions. I want to show that philosophy is a topic that enriches our curiosity, but also one that facilitates our ability to deeply communicate with one another and share our ideas with an open heart and an open mind:
-‘share ideas/mind’
- ‘to help with your mind and to help learn there are different opinions’
-‘the ability to share your understanding of stuff’
-‘conversations and arguments where there aren't any wrong answers’
- ‘talking, explaining, discussing, telling, listening’
By the time we finished, I was incredibly sad to leave and wish I could have stayed longer. All my classes had picked up on the point of the structure and rules very quickly and (barring the occasional behavioral issue) were starting to hold great philosophical discussion with less and less guidance from me, freely throwing Simba across the room themselves in order to hear from the next child who had their hand up. They were learning to respond to each other directly and saw the value in not fighting over who was right, but in listening to each other’s opinions in order to make further discoveries about the question they were exploring together. And to think they are all only about 10 years old and some as young as 8.
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