Welcome to THE PHILOSOPHY FOR SCHOOLS website. 

Hopefully you’ll find the answer to everything you need to know in here but if not, you’ll at least be able to get hold of me through my contact page.
 

Philosophy for Schools is all about encouraging young people to think, through the approach of Philosophy for Children (P4C).  But then, we’re all thinking all the time, surely? 

Just try this experiment. Find a really quiet place, make yourself comfortable, close your eyes, count to ten and try not to think for a whole minute.  Did you manage it?  Or did you find yourself thinking all kinds of things? 

 
So – is there ever a time when you’re not thinking? 

What about when you sleep – do you stop thinking then?  And if you do think you stop thinking when you’re asleep, then what are dreams?  Ah, I hear you say, you don’t dream all night, so maybe you’re not thinking in the in-between bits.  But our brain is still working, surely?  So does this ‘working’ that our brain does count as thinking?  Or is ‘thinking’ something different, and if so, in what way?

I guess, if you’ve got this far, that you’re thinking about thinking, which is just what Philosophy for Schools encourages children to do.  When we really think about something, we’re trying to make sense of it, and isn’t that really what education should be all about?  We have a big, wide world that’s changing faster than ever, so how can we possibly give our children all the knowledge they’ll need by the time they’ve left education?  What we can do, though, is give them the tools to think better when they’re faced with new and possibly challenging situations.

Thankfully, this has well-documented benefits across the whole curriculum.  Children who engage in regular philosophical enquiry, for example, often do better generally.  When it’s done within subject areas however, it becomes a very powerful way to promote understanding. 

This approach also encourages quieter children to engage, as the class develops as a community of enquiry.  Those identified as less able find that they can hold their own with even the brightest of their peers; the ‘quiet coasters’ come out of their shell; high quality dialogue facilitated in a caring and collaborative atmosphere challenges everyone appropriately and relationships improve as children listen to each other and agree and disagree respectfully.

This isn’t only the confine of older children either - I’ve had great times using P4C with children from Nursery right through to Secondary.

Check out the link at the top of the page for ‘Socrates for Six Year Olds’, especially the part that shows the young children after 5 months of regular philosophical enquiry – incredible!

 Contact me if you’d like to find out more about the transformational potential of Philosophy for Children.’

KIDS’ THOUGHTS ABOUT P4C

It helps you look deeper into stories and ask better questions. 
Finn
It makes you understand more and helps you socially.
Sefton

When you read a book in philosophy class you realise there’s more in the book than you thought.
Beth

It helps you become less shy and gets you talking to those you might not talk to.
Ben (a new boy in the class)

 
It helps you think about things you wouldn’t normally think about in life. You realise in philosophy that there are more things to think about.
Grace

 
It reveals your opinions to others.
Conor 

Socrates  for  6  Year  Olds

Check out the wonderful BBC documentary ‘Socrates for 6 Year Olds’  here for a glimpse into why Matthew Lipman came about to develop P4C and to see some 6 year olds in action – quite amazing!

PAWS  FOR  THOUGHT  

Here’s Django and Eric.  Now, Django is a llama, and Eric is a cat, but how do we know that?  I’m sure you knew Eric was a cat before I told you, but how did you know that?  Is it because you’ve experienced other, similar animals to Eric and you’re associating the qualities of all the other cats you’ve seen to him, thereby concluding that he’s a cat?  If so, what is it about a cat that makes it a cat?  And is there anything exclusively cat-specific about all cats that differentiates them from any other kind of animal?  For example, if I showed you a picture of a cat and a dog, could you tell me the difference between them?  Or doesn’t it matter, so long as you just know there’s a difference?

What about Django?  Did you know he was a llama before I told you?  Have you ever met a llama in real life?  Or are you just trusting me to tell you the truth?  (He is a llama, by the way – honest!).

We’re dealing here primarily with the question of ‘how do we know what we know?’ which is one of the fundamental areas of philosophy – epistemology.  Thankfully, even the combined force of every great thinker since Plato hasn’t given us a definitive answer, which makes me feel better about my feeble mental fumblings, but it does serve to show that there are some things that are central to our lives that aren’t so clear cut when we think about them. Exploration of concepts such as this provide us with wonderful opportunities to get our children working
together to make more sense of the world they live in. 

And what do you think Django thinks Eric is?  A cat?  Or a different kind of llama?  Maybe I’ll ask him one day…