Wondering Aloud: Philosophy With Young People

An Extraordinary Egg

2012-02-01T08:44:00.000-08:00

Leo Lionni's picture books are wonderful for thinking with children about philosophical questions. I'm working on a paper about Lionni and philosophy for children, and last night I read his An Extraordinary Egg.

In the story, Jessica. a frog, lives with two other frogs. Jessica is "full of wonder," and frequently ventures out on long walks and returns shouting with excitement about what she's found, even if it's "nothing but an ordinary little pebble." One day, she finds what she thinks is a perfect white stone, almost as big as she is. She brings it home, and the other frogs point out that it is not a pebble, but a chicken egg. "How do you know that?" Jessica asks. "There are some things you just know," one of the frogs replies.

Pretty soon, the egg cracks open and a "long, scaly creature that walked on four legs" emerges. The three frogs all shout, "A chicken!" They spend days playing with the "chicken," and the chicken and Jessica become great friends. One day a bird tells the chicken that her mother has been searching for her, and Jessica and the chicken follow the bird to find the enormous alligator that is the chicken's mother. When Jessica returns home, she tells the other frogs that the mother chicken called her baby, "My sweet little alligator." "What a silly thing to say," one of the frogs comments, and they all can't stop laughing.

Like all Lionni's books, the illustrations are marvelous and can themselves raise many aesthetic questions: How do the words and drawings together tell the story? What feelings do the drawings create? How do drawings create feelings? Would the story be the same without the drawings? The words? Etc.

But the story also provokes questions about knowledge and how we know what we know. Why does Jessica believe her fellow frog when told the alligator is a chicken? Why does she continue to believe it even when she meets the mother alligator? Often we believe we have knowledge because of testimony from other people - can such information be knowledge? Do the words of other people give us a basis for believing something? How do we determine which testimony to trust? Does it depend on how the people speaking to us know what they think they know? How often do we hold onto our beliefs even in the face of evidence that they are not true?

Duck, Death and the Tulip

2012-01-18T19:32:00.000-08:00

My friend Deb Tollefsen at University of Memphis recommended Duck, Death and the Tulip, by Wolf Erlbruch, which tells the story of Duck and her meeting with Death, who informs Duck that "I've been close by all your life." The two spend some time together, and they talk about death. In many of the frames, Death is carrying a tulip. At the end of the story, Duck dies and Death carries her to a river and lays her in the water, placing the tulip on her body. "When she was lost to sight, he was almost a little moved. But that's life, thought Death."

I used the story this fall in discussions with undergraduate students. I also read it with my fourteen-year-old son and it led to a conversation about whether we would live forever if we could choose to do so. He said that he thought if we didn't have death we'd have "no incentive to do anything" and that it would be hard to get older and weaker and never die. I asked him what he would do if he could choose to live forever at a certain age and stay that age always. We agreed that without change life would seem lifeless. We then talked about what happens when you die, whether the body's death means the end of all consciousness and whether it's possible that there are planes of existence beyond our ability to imagine. All this from a 30-page picture book!

Why?

2011-12-15T14:36:00.000-08:00

The picture book Why, written by Lindsay Camp and illustrated by Tony Ross, is one of those books that illuminates in many ways the whole point of doing philosophy with children. The story is about Lily, who, in response to virtually anything that happens, asks the question, "Why?" Her dad tries to respond to her questioning, but sometimes, "when he was a bit tired or too busy," he'd say only, "It just does, Lily. It just does."

One day a giant spaceship lands and the aliens that emerge from the ship announce that their mission is to destroy the planet. Terrified, no one responds, except Lily, who asks, of course, "Why?" After a series of "why" questions, the aliens realize that they don't know why, and they leave.

Can questions save the planet? Asking "why" all the time can be really irritating, but not asking it can be dangerous.

Happy holidays!

Music or food?

2011-12-05T14:27:00.000-08:00

Last week fourth grade students at John Muir Elementary and I talked about the story Frederick by Leo Lionni. (I have written about this story in a previous post.) We began talking about why it's important to Frederick to collect words and colors, as opposed to foraging for the food the family will need for the winter. What is important to Frederick about poetry?

One student suggested that to Frederick, "poems are like keys to the universe." "Maybe," the student reflected, "Frederick thinks that he wouldn't survive without poems, the same way his family is worried they won't survive without food."

Several students wanted to know why Frederick couldn't gather food as well as work on his poems, and most wanted to say that if Frederick didn't help collect food he wasn't entitled to an equal share of the food. Others disagreed.

"Okay," I said. "Let's say you were on a desert island with a couple of family members, and you were really worried about having enough food to make it through the winter. All of you went about looking for and storing food, except one of your cousins, who was working on a story that she would be able to tell you when you were holed up for the winter. Would that be okay with you?"

"No," one student said, "because food makes me happier than a story."

"I'd say fine," responded another student. "But she wouldn't be entitled to any of the food."

Most students seemed to agree with this.

"What if your cousin was J.K. Rowling, and was writing a new Harry Potter story?" I asked. "Would that make a difference?"

Many of the students contended that then the contribution of writing a story would be more valuable and perhaps as valuable a contribution as collecting food, although, as one student put it, "You wouldn't know for sure that the story was going to be good, in the way you would know that the food would be."

We discussed the way in which Frederick’s poetry helps the family when they are cold and hungry. I asked the students whether they read much poetry, and most of them said they never did. I told them that I guessed they all knew a lot of poetry, and asked them to recite some of their favorite song lyrics. There were of course immediate responses from many of the students, reciting lyric after lyric. We then talked about what music meant to them and why they liked it. Was it as important as food?

This led to a robust conversation about what you would choose if you had to give up either music or food (but not water) for a couple of days. The students were quite divided about what they could more easily do without, and we talked about the different ways we are nourished in our lives. Are emotional, aesthetic and intellectual forms of nourishment as important as physical nourishment?

Fourth Graders and the Story Double Trouble

2011-11-28T13:50:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting experience recently with the fourth grade students I'm teaching this year at John Muir Elementary. I read them the story "Double Trouble" by Philip Cam. A kind of retelling of the "Ship of Theseus," the story is about a robot whose parts have been replaced, one after another, until he no longer has any of his original parts, and a new robot has been built using all of the old parts. Which one is the "real" Algernon (the robot's name)?

I have used this story for years and it has virtually always inspired a discussion about the standard questions of personal identity and persistence over time. (I wrote about such a conversation last year in this post.) In this session, however, the students took the discussion in an entirely different direction. They voted to start with one of their questions about whether in this story robots were only owned by rich people or whether everyone had robots. This led to the question about whether robots were things, and a couple of students asserted that robots (or at least the ones in the story) were people. How do we know what makes someone a person? The students suggested that having names, or being able to talk and move independently, were possible criteria. Then several students noted that while the robots seemed to have feelings, they were probably programmed to have them, and that this is what made them different from people.

Several of my undergraduate students were present that day, and one commented, "Sometimes I feel things I would like to choose not to feel, but I feel them anyway. Is it possible that I'm programmed?"

One of the most interesting features of the conversation that ensued in that fourth grade classroom was how closely it resembled a similar conversation I had with college students not too long ago. The students went from being sure they were not programmed to speculating about the possibility that, as one child put it, "there are beings out there somewhere who are a lot bigger than us and they are totally controlling what we do."

"That could be," another student responded. "But at the same time, I feel like what goes on inside me is really me, that it can't be controlled by anyone else. Maybe someone could be controlling what I do, but I don't think they could be controlling what I feel."

The discussion went on for over an hour and at the end we talked about how complex these questions were, and how sometimes in philosophy the questions seemed even more puzzling after talking about them than they had originally.

The Lorax

2011-11-18T17:25:00.000-08:00

This morning I talked about Dr. Suess' The Lorax with a class of fourth grade students at John Stanford International School in Seattle. They have been having discussions about environmental issues, and we had a lovely conversation about the destruction of the truffula trees and the loss of Bar-ba-loots, Swomee-Swans and Humming-Fish in the story.

We began by talking about the Once-ler and his decision to chop down truffula trees and build a business of selling thneeds made from truffula tree tufts. Was he responsible for the environmental destruction that ensued as a result of his decisions? Does the fact that he ultimately regrets his actions make him a better person? We talked about the other members of the Once-ler family who worked in the business, and about all the people who bought thneeds. Were they all responsible for the destruction of the truffula trees and surrounding habitat? When we purchase something, are we obligated to ask how it was made? Were the thneeds "useful?" What is the balance between creating things that make human life easier or more enjoyable, and caring for the environment in which we live? What is our responsibility to the environment and to other species affected by human decisions?

Harold and the Purple Crayon

2011-11-07T14:27:00.000-08:00

What can we know about the nature of reality? A wonderful story for motivating conversations about this question is Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. First published in 1955, the story begins with Harold deciding, “after thinking it over for some time,” to take a walk in the moonlight. No moon is out, so Harold takes his purple crayon and draws one, and then he draws something to walk on. Harold goes on to draw a forest in which he wanders, a dragon that ends up frightening him, an ocean in which he almost drowns and a boat which saves him, a beach, a lunch to eat, etc.

This story was a favorite of my children when they were younger, and I have read it with children in classrooms from first grade through middle school. It raises such questions as: Is Harold pretending? Is what he draws real? How can what he draws scare him? Is the moon we see more real than Harold’s moon – and, if so, why? Is Harold dreaming? Can we create our own reality?

Anno's Counting Book

2011-10-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

Anno’s Counting Book by Mitsumasa Anno is one of those books that my kids and I looked at constantly when they were in elementary school. Starting with 0 and ending with 12, it’s the most complex and interesting counting book I’ve ever encountered.

The first page is an empty landscape, corresponding to 0. The wordless book adds objects to each consecutive page, corresponding to each number and reflecting the seasons, time of day, and other events in nature and human life. The number of objects in the landscape grows exponentially and symmetrically, and the detailed watercolor illustrations inspire careful examination.

Anno’s Counting Book is a helpful book for developing mathematical understanding of basic and, later, more complex concepts, but what makes it extraordinary is its evocation of the beauty of numbers. It inspires questions about beauty and what makes something beautiful, about whether beauty can tell us anything about truth, and about the relationship between mathematics and aesthetics.

Seeing ish-ly: what makes someone an artist?

2011-10-10T12:24:00.000-07:00

Peter Reynolds' picture book ish tells the story of Ramon, who loves to draw and draws all the time. Then one day his older brother laughs at one of his drawings, and Ramon becomes preoccupied with making his drawings "look right." Finally he decides to stop drawing. His younger sister picks up one of his crumpled drawings and Ramon follows her into her room to retrieve it, where he sees many of his crumpled-up drawings hanging on her walls. She points out a drawing of a vase of flowers, which she declares is one of her favorites. Ramon tells her that the drawing was supposed to be a vase of flowers but he doesn't think it looks like one. "It looks vase-ISH!" she replies.

Looking at the world "ish-ly" opens up for Ramon his own way of seeing and gives him confidence that he can express what he feels and perceives, even if the finished products don't conform to a conventional view of the way things are supposed to look.

What makes someone an artist? How do we judge what is a work of art? What is creativity? Where does artistic expression come from? Is art worth creating even if it is not judged to be very good? I think this book can be used with students from elementary school on to ponder these questions. I'm going to try it this fall with fourth grade students as well as college undergraduates.

I Want To Paint My Bathroom Blue

2011-09-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

I Want to Paint My Bathroom Blue by Ruth Krauss (illustrations by Maurice Sendak) tells the story of a young boy who dreams of painting his bathroom blue, kitchen yellow, ceilings green, etc. He imagines what his ideal home would look like, all in the context of being informed by his father that he can't paint his bathroom blue.

The story provokes thinking about the relationship between color and our perceptions and moods, and the role color can play in imagination. What do certain colors allow us to imagine that we couldn't imagine otherwise? Why are colors so important to us? We often identify things by their colors, but are the colors really in the objects, or just in us? Do different colors have different emotional effects on us?

In the story the boy comments that he will "make a house the kind I dream about not the kind I see." He uses colors to construct the world in which he would like to live, noting that he'd have a "house like a rainbow" and someday make an ocean. How does color help him to dream about things he had not actually perceived?

A new school year

2011-09-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

So far it's been a beautiful September here in the Pacific Northwest. School has started, and I'll be back in both an elementary school and a university classroom next week.

I've been working away on my book this summer, and hope to have it finished this year and published in 2012. The past few weeks I've been writing chapter 6, which is about talking about art and beauty with children. At the PLATO Institute in June, there were several provocative presentations on aesthetics with children about which I've been thinking since. In particular, the presentations reminded me of the wide range of questions included in aesthetics and the ways in which many of those questions are profoundly important to human experience.

Aesthetics is often seen as a marginal field in philosophy, both by philosophers and those outside philosophy. (Arthur Danto, prominent philosopher of art, once noted that aesthetics is "about as low on the scale of philosophical undertakings as bugs are in the chain of being.") Questions of aesthetics are often seen as not among the central questions of philosophy (ethics, epistemology, etc.). And it's not just philosophers who hold that attitude. Often when I'm asked to speak about my experiences introducing philosophy to children and I mention aesthetics, people will say things like, "Doesn't that really just come down to personal taste?"

Yet in the classroom, I find that discussions about art and beauty elicit great enthusiasm and interest. Many children express themselves through art - drawing, dance, playing an instrument - and thinking about what makes something art and what makes someone an artist means something to them. Moreover, aesthetic questions go beyond an inquiry about the various art forms, to encompass all of the forms of human experience that involve awareness of beauty, ugliness, elegance, garishness, etc. A walk in the woods, eating a well-prepared meal, and shopping for clothes can all be aesthetic experiences. Reflecting about questions such as the nature of beauty and ugliness and the relationship between our aesthetic experiences and our emotions, can bring to light facets of our everyday lives in a way that deepens our experiences and heightens our awareness of their richness.

The Universe and Dr. Einstein

2011-06-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

I've been re-reading the short book The Universe and Dr. Einstein, originally written in 1948 by Lincoln Barnett. I first read and was inspired by this book when I was 17. An engrossing account, written for the general public, of the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, this is an accessible and effective resource for introducing to high school students some of the philosophical questions raised by Einstein's and other related work in physics.

Einstein wrote in the book's foreword that much popular scientific writing either is too superficial or too inaccessible, but that this work presents the main scientific concepts well and ties them to questions about knowledge. To me the book reads almost like a thriller, describing carefully and with excitement the developments in physics that have resulted in a gulf between our commonsense view of the world, based on our perceptual experiences, and scientific understanding. The book discusses the relationship between developments in cosmology and philosophical problems about the relationship between appearance and reality, the reliability of sense perception, causation, the relationship between the observer and what is observed, and the nature of scientific knowledge. Highly recommended!

This will be my last post for the academic year, as I am again planning to spend much of the summer working on my book, on which I have made substantial progress - hoping to have it finished in 2011. I'll be back to this blog in September!

The Rainbow Fish

2011-05-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister is a picture book that parents seem either to love or to hate. It is the story of a fish, described as "the most beautiful fish in the entire ocean," with rainbow-colored, iridescent scales. The other fish call him "Rainbow Fish," and invite him to play with them, but he remains uninterested and aloof. A small blue fish follows him one day, asking for one of his scales, and is rebuffed. The rainbow fish ends up ostracized by all the other fish, and his scales begin to mean less to him with "no one to admire them." Taking the advice of an octopus whose suggestions he seeks, the rainbow fish gives all his scales away, one by one, until he is left with only one. Surrounded by many fish, each with one iridescent scale, the rainbow fish now no longer looked different, and he "at last felt at home among the other fish."

The story raises questions about being different versus one of the crowd, identity and self-worth, selfishness and generosity, the nature of beauty, and the meaning of friendship. Some people read it as promoting the message that we all should be the same, others as advocating for recognition of the value of inner beauty and generosity. To my mind, the story can be read as endorsing several contradictory ideas, which makes it quite philosophically interesting. I have found that it's very appealing to children, and easily sparks conversations about independence and conformity, being unique versus fitting in, and what friendship requires.

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge

2011-05-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

Mem Fox's picture book Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge is the story of a young boy, Wilfrid Gordon, whose "house was next door to an old people's home and [who] knew all the people who lived there." His favorite person at the home is Miss Nancy, and Wilfrid Gordon's father tells him that, at 96, she has lost her memory.

Wilfrid Gordon sets out to understand what memory is and asks several of the people in the home about it. He then collects some of his things that bring back his own memories and gives them to Miss Nancy, who begins then to recollect some of her own memories.

The story is a lovely one, with appealing, colorful illustrations, and it raises such issues as: What is memory? Are we still ourselves if we lose our memories? Can you lose a memory and then find it again? Can we rely on our memories to give us accurate accounts of the past? What is the role of relationships in memory?

What is most important in life?

2011-05-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

On Thursday I read a chapter of E.B. White's Stuart Littlewith the 4th grade students at John Muir Elementary. The chapter describes Stuart's one-day experience acting as a substitute teacher. One of the first things Stuart asks his students is whether they know what's important. The students in the story give various responses, including "a shaft of sunlight at the end of a dark afternoon, a note in music, and the way the back of a baby's neck smells if its mother keeps it tidy."

After the reading, I asked the John Muir students to write down five things in their lives that they thought were the most important. We put about 30 of them up on the board, and many of the students' choices seemed to me close to what most people would say, pointing to what we think of as fundamental aspects of life - family, friends, food, health. Their responses also included things like playing video games, seasons, dance, sports, reading, etc. I then asked them what would remain on the list if they knew they only had a month left to live. The students thought seriously about this question and we pared the list down to much fewer items, including family, friends, food, medicine, and dance.

We then talked about what made these things important. The students mentioned having fun, being happy, and receiving comfort as the basis for what is important to them. One student then said that she would spend a lot of time planning her funeral and writing out invitations to the people in her life, because it would matter to her to spend her time doing something that felt productive. Another student commented that she would spend her last days reflecting about her life, thinking about the mistakes she'd made and the positive things she'd done, and kind of making sense of her life for herself. A third student agreed, remarking that he would take these reflections and put them in a journal and put them outside his door for his family to find, lock the door "and then die in a way that would feel peaceful." Several students agreed with this and talked about how important it would be to them to say goodbye to the people they loved and to have their lives feel as if they'd had some purpose. We discussed whether what is important to you changes as you age and get closer to death, and whether death is in some respects the defining feature of life.

I thought about this conversation after it ended. Many of the reflections offered by the children were the kinds of things people often assume ten-year-old children aren't thinking about and/or capable of contemplating. There was a thoughtfulness and seriousness to our conversation that reminded me of how vibrant philosophical thinking can be in children and how important it is to nurture that part of them.

The experience of childhood

2011-04-14T14:56:00.000-07:00

Last week I had a conversation with fourth grade students at John Muir Elementary about the story Albert's Toothache by Barbara Williams, one of my favorite picture books. In the story, Albert, a turtle, complains that he has a toothache. His family points out that he has no teeth, and so he cannot have a toothache. "You never believe me," Albert protests, and he takes to his bed. His parents and siblings lament that Albert is not telling the truth. Finally, his grandmother arrives, and asks Albert, "Where is your toothache?" Albert tells her that it is in his toe, where a gopher bit him.

I read the story to the students and then, as is our practice, we took a minute to reflect before the students articulated the questions the story raised for them. They chose to begin our discussion with the question, "Why did Albert say he had a toothache when the pain was in his foot?"

The students commented that perhaps Albert was confused or misunderstood what a tooth is. One student suggested that what Albert might have meant was that his pain came from the gopher's tooth, so that's why he called it a toothache.

We moved from that question to another student's question, "Why didn't Albert's family believe him, and why was his grandmother the only one who tried to figure out what he meant?" The students observed that the family seemed to have a "story about Albert," in which Albert was the family member who often made things up. One student remarked that often children aren't believed.

"Do you think the family would have reacted differently if it was Albert's mom who was complaining of a toothache?" I asked. Unanimously, the class said yes, it would have been a completely different situation. "Why is that?" I inquired.

"Adults are believed when kids aren't," one student asserted. "People think adults are more trustworthy than kids."

"Are they?" I asked.

"Not always," responded another student. "Adults sometimes lie about things. Like when children are being abused. Adults will lie about it to protect themselves, and often people believe the adults instead of the kids."

"I think," put in a student, "that people think of kids as becoming adults, and so they expect kids to make all kinds of mistakes that they don't think adults will make."

"So is childhood an experience about becoming an adult, or is there more to it than that?" I asked.

"I think," ventured a student who had not yet spoken, "that children are deeper than adults."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that childhood is not just about becoming an adult. It's a time of its own. What happens to kids affects us our whole lives. That's mostly not true for adults. I think what we experience we feel more deeply, and it stays with us."

You Can't Say You Can't Play

2011-03-28T09:29:00.000-07:00

I've been re-reading Vivian Paley's book You Can't Say You Can't Play. The book describes Paley's observation of what she calls the "habit of rejection" year after year in her kindergarten class, in which certain children (the "ruling class," as she calls them) decide which children will be accepted and which will be excluded, setting the stage for years of children being rejected and a social hierarchy dominating. Paley, tired of it, posts a sign one morning in her class that reads "You Can't Say You Can't Play."

Many of the children are aghast. "But then what's the whole point of playing?" one child remonstrates. Is it acceptable for the teacher to exercise control over what the children are doing in their private social activities?

Paley's new rule inspires at the school a months-long inquiry about whether this new rule is fair and can work. The kindergarten students accept the new rule relatively quickly, and Paley speculates that this kind of intervention has to take place at very early ages. Working with older elementary students, she observes that the social hierarchies are already firmly in place. The book considers whether this kind of moral issue can and should be legislated. Do the children have the right to choose their companions? Does such a right include an entitlement to reject certain people? Paley weaves a thoughtful examination of the moral and policy issues involved with an engaging description of the children's reactions.

Inception

2011-03-18T17:59:00.000-07:00

The 2010 film Inception is a philosophically provocative film that's been very popular with teenagers. The film is about an "extractor," Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), someone who is able to take ideas out of people's minds when they are dreaming and at their most vulnerable. On the run from the authorities, Cobb is hired by a business magnate to perform "inception," in which an idea is planted in someone's mind instead of extracted from it. This is done by creating a dream world and bringing the subject of the inception into that world, who then fills it with his or her subconscious. Along with a team he has assembled, Cobb creates a multi-layered dream to carry out the contracted inception.

Action-packed, Inception would be a wonderful film to show in a high school or undergraduate philosophy class. It raises many philosophical questions, including:

How do we know that our sensory experiences are real?
How do we distinguish dreams from waking life?
Can ideas cause physical events?
What is the relationship between memory and dreams?
Can we imagine things we haven't experienced?

PLATO and a national movement for philosophy in the schools

2011-03-08T15:54:00.000-08:00

For most of the 15 years that I've been involved in this field, there have been an isolated few of us around the country working to introduce philosophy to pre-college students. But in the last few years, over a dozen new pre-college philosophy programs have begun, and I now hear regularly about additional new efforts taking place. Many of these projects have been initiated by philosophy graduate students, just as we founders of the Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children started it as grad students in 1996. My hope is that this groundswell of support for bringing philosophy into the lives of young people will result in more and more children and teenagers around the US having access to philosophical thinking and discussions.

This growing movement inspired a group of us to start PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization), a national organization affiliated with the American Philosophical Association. PLATO will advocate for pre-college philosophy and provide a point of connection for the education and philosophy communities. We are in the process of developing a more detailed vision and structure for PLATO.

Our inaugural event, the first PLATO Institute, will take place at Columbia University this June. Over 25 speakers from more than 15 colleges and universities will be speaking about both conceptual and practical issues involved in teaching pre-college philosophy. The institute will be organized as a community of philosophical inquiry, in which the focus will be on constructing an ongoing dialogue among the participants. I expect it will be a really energizing and meaningful two days!

Moral Relativism or Mutual Respect?

2011-02-23T17:45:00.000-08:00

I had a lively conversation yesterday with a group of fifth graders about how we can understand, respect and evaluate cultures other than our own. The conversation took off when one student asked, "Why do we have so many different cultures in the world?" The students pointed out the ways in which the diversity of cultures gives rise to conflicts, but also observed that a world without a variety of cultures would be pretty uninteresting.

One student then asserted that we aren't really justified in making judgments about cultures other than our own, because we're not understanding them "from the inside" and so are evaluating their practices without really understanding why the people in that culture are doing what they do. This led to a thoughtful dialogue among the students about when, and if ever, people or groups outside of a culture are justified in criticizing, or intervening in, a cultural practice.

We talked about the different standards for disciplining children around the world. Several students articulated a distinction between coming to another country and practicing, for example, a form of corporal punishment unacceptable here, and doing so in your own country. The students tended to claim that it is one thing to insist that someone from another culture change their practice when they enter a different culture (or country), but that it is another thing to criticize the way people are disciplining their children when they are acting on the basis of a different set of rules and standards within that culture.

Still, some students argued, the way the harsh discipline feels to the children is the same. And can't cultures be mistaken? We talked about the fact that in the US, for example, slavery was an acceptable part of the culture for a long period of time, and we would now want to say that this was wrong, that the institutions that supported that practice were in error. And if it's true that cultures can make mistakes in sanctioning acts that ultimately the culture concludes were wrong, how do we decide when intervention is appropriate?

Several students raised the example of the Nazi regime, asserting that there intervention to stop what the German culture was allowing would have been justified. One student suggested that perhaps the standard should be whether human beings were being harmed in serious ways, and we noted that this standard also led to interpretation problems (What constitutes harm? When is it serious? etc.). We discussed the practice of young people marrying at young ages, 12 or 13, in some cultures, a practice that clearly horrified the children. Yet, we pointed out, inside those cultures, that is an accepted and perhaps welcome practice.

How do we know what it feels like from the inside? Can we? And if we can't, does that mean we never are justified in judging or intervening to stop a cultural practice that seems deeply at odds with the ways our culture believes people should be treated? Are there some moral rules that apply to everyone, no matter where and how they live? The students saw clearly what challenging issues these questions raise.

The Dragon who liked to spit Fire

2011-02-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

This delightful picture book by Judy Varga, written in 1961, tells the story of Darius, a little dragon, and the friendship he develops with young prince Frederic. Can Darius be himself, a dragon who likes nothing more than to spit fire (in many colors), and still be friends with Frederic?

Darius decides to move to Frederic's castle with Frederic. Darius makes this choice because he has been lonely and he wants to be close to Frederic, although he is wary that he will not be able to spit fire at the castle. As Darius tells Frederic, "[L]ife without spitting fire wouldn't be much of a life for a dragon." Frederic tells Darius that he will be able to spit fire when they are alone. Darius is made to feel very at home in the castle, but he finds that he can't ever spit fire, because he and Frederic are never alone.

The story, with its marvelous illustrations, makes me think about friendship, and whether compromises are essential to human relationships. If so, are there compromises that demand too much of us? How would we know? Is Darius being asked to give up something that is too important to him for a friendship to require its absence? Is being a dragon essential to Darius' identity, and is spitting fire necessary for his well-being? I am putting this one on my list to try out with my fourth grade students!

Questions and the Philosophical Self

2011-02-04T17:27:00.000-08:00

For the past month I've been working on the chapter of my book that examines what I'm calling the "philosophical self." This part of us, that is naturally inclined to ponder the deeper questions raised by the strangeness of finding ourselves alive in the world, fails to develop for many (most?) young people because cultivating the philosophical self is not something that is nurtured and supported by most (or any) of the adults in their lives.

I've been thinking this week about the central role of questions, and in particular the acquisition of confidence and skill in asking questions, in the development of the philosophical self. We are not a society that is particularly comfortable with questions. Many adults have grown up absorbing the idea that asking questions serves to broadcast to the world what they don't know, and this has the potential to be somewhat shameful, or at least embarrassing. But philosophy is all about questions. Questions are the key to recognizing the philosophically puzzling aspects of our lives, and to making it possible to examine these puzzles with others.

Mat Lipman, in his book Thinking in Education, emphasized the importance, when having philosophical discussions with children, of ensuring that the questions being discussed emerge from the children. I've realized over years of working with young people how profound an idea this was.

Ultimately, whether we are parents or teachers or other adults talking with children, this enterprise is not about teaching children philosophy, but about doing philosophy with them by engaging them in questions they are already exploring. We initiate philosophical conversations with children not to bestow our philosophical insights on children, but to facilitate the ability of children to inquire themselves about the peculiarity of human existence and the most ordinary experiences of our lives. It is crucial, then, that the conversations begin by eliciting from young people the questions they are interested in discussing.

When I lead a philosophy session in a classroom, often a good part of the session will be spent listing the children's questions and helping them to decide which question to discuss. It can be easy, sometimes, in the goal-driven society in which we live, to see this part of the session as a precursor to the real work, the philosophy discussion itself. But I've come to understand that the time spent helping students to formulate their own questions and ensuring that the discussion starts with those questions is in the end as valuable as the time spent actually talking about philosophical questions.

Mat Lipman died in December 2010 at the age of 87. He was an inspiration to me when I first began thinking about the possibilities of introducing philosophy to children, and as I've thought about him over the past month I've realized how much his work, and especially his commitment to the authenticity of philosophical discussions with children, has guided and helped me over the years.

Frindle

2011-01-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

The young adult novel Frindle by Andrew Clements is the story of a clever fifth grade student, Nick Allen, who decides to invent a new word, and the consequences of what he does and the way he does it. It is a wonderful, engaging novel that captivated all three of my sons in elementary school. The story touches on many philosophical issues, including the nature of language, the meaning of words, the social and political justifications for educating young people, and the nature of creativity. It's a perfect story to read aloud to your children or to a class, or to read along with your reader child(ren), and discuss along the way. An illustrative passage, in which Nick's teacher is speaking to him:

" 'Who says dog means dog? You do, Nicholas. You and me and everyone else in this class and this school and this town and this state and this country. We all agree. . . . But if all of us in this room decided to call that creature something else, and if everyone else did, too, then that's what it would be called, and one day it would be written in the dictionary that way. We decide what goes in that book.' And she pointed at the giant dictionary."

The Big Orange Splot

2011-01-18T10:06:00.000-08:00

The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater is a picture book that tells the story of Mr. Plumbean, who lives on a street where the houses are all the same, painted red with olive-colored roofs and windows with green trim. He and his neighbors all like this, characterizing their street as a "neat street."

One day, a seagull drops a can of bright orange paint on Mr. Plumbean's house, leaving a big orange splot on the house. Everyone on the street sympathizes with Mr. Plumbean, who will have to paint his house again, and that's what Mr. Plumbean plans to do. But, instead, he looks at the house for a long time. Finally, in response to his neighbors' urging, Mr. Plumbean takes out some paint and paints his house. But instead of using the house's original colors, he paints it a rainbow of colors. Over the next couple of days, he adds to his house a clock tower, palm trees, a hammock and an alligator.

Horrified, one by one the neighbors stop in to see Mr. Plumbean to talk with him about their dissatisfaction with what he's done to his home and remind him that all the houses have to be the same for their street to continue to be a "neat street." And, one by one, after each neighbor visits with Mr. Plumbean, sitting under the palm trees, drinking lemonade and talking, each neighbor repaints his or her own house to "fit his dreams."

This is a wonderful story for inspiring conversations about conformity and independence and our obligations to our communities. I talked about this story this fall with my fourth grade students from John Muir Elementary. We had a lively discussion about whether Mr. Plumbean was right to paint his house in a way different from his neighbors, when part of the community agreement was that they would keep their houses looking the same. The students were really curious about what it was that made Mr. Plumbean's decision to paint his house to "fit his dreams" so compelling to his neighbors, so that after spending time with him they all changed their minds about how their street should appear. And what if the neighbors had continued to want all the houses to look the same? The students were strongly supportive of Mr. Plumbean's right to have his house look the way he wanted it to look, even if it offended his neighbors. What if, though, he painted words expressing his hate for an ethnic group? Would that be okay? At what point does his right to make an independent choice give way to his obligations to his neighbors?

The Ugly Duckling

2011-01-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

The classic nineteenth century fairy tale The Ugly Duckling tells the story of a duckling who, when hatched along with his brothers and sisters, is ridiculed and ostracized because they perceive him as ugly. He wanders alone through the fall and winter, and suffers from fear, loneliness, and sadness. In the spring he flies away from the marsh and meets up with a group of swans, and realizes that he too has become a beautiful swan.

The story is familiar to most students and nicely raises philosophical questions about identity and the nature of the self, the meaning of beauty and ugliness, perception, and the experience of solitude. You can read the story with your child or students and ask them questions like whether the "ugly duckling" really was ugly and, if so, what made him ugly? Did he then stop being ugly at the end of the story? What does ugly mean? Would the "ugly duckling" still be ugly if someone thought he was beautiful? How do we decide what is beautiful and what is not? Did the duckling change over the course of the story? Was he still the same duckling? Do our identities change over time? Etc.

Philosophy Talk Show on Pre-College Philosophy

2011-01-03T18:12:00.000-08:00

You can now listen to the Philosophy Talk radio show on pre-college philosophy, taped at the University of Washington in November: http://depts.washington.edu/nwcenter/resourcestalkradio.html

The Thief

2010-11-29T09:10:00.000-08:00

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner is 1996 novel for young adults, the first of the series The Queen's Thief. The story's main character, Gen, is a thief who boasts about being able to steal anything, ends up in jail, and is recruited to steal a mythic spiritual object by the king. The novel tells the story of Gen and the people who accompany him on this journey to find and take this mysterious object.

This adventure novel is a philosophically rich page turner. It raises questions about loyalty, identity, political and social philosophy, heroism, and the obligation to tell the truth. Gen is a complex character whose identity is multi-layered and whose ethical code is slowly illuminated as the story unfolds. The novel can inspire young people to think and talk about what makes people who they are, whether we can ever really know another person, and what makes actions right or wrong.

Philosophy Talk and Fourth Grade Philosophers

2010-11-18T09:23:00.000-08:00

Recently the fourth grade students at John Muir with whom I've been doing philosophy and I taped a segment for the radio show Philosophy Talk. We talked about personal identity, the mind-body problem, and the nature of happiness.

The students were so impressive! We all had a great time. Here is a recent University of Washington article about the event: http://www.artsci.washington.edu/newsletter/Nov10/PhilosophyTalk.asp

The Cricket in Times Square

2010-11-09T10:56:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite works of children's literature, The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden, first published in 1960, is moving, funny and philosophically suggestive. In particular, the book can inspire discussion about a variety of ethical questions.

The story involves Chester, a cricket, who arrives in Times Square in an accidental way from his country home in Connecticut and is befriended by Mario Bellini, whose family owns a newsstand in the Times Square subway station. Chester's relationship with the Bellini family, his musical talent, his friendships with city-savvy Tucker Mouse and Harry the Cat, and his desire to help others are woven into a story that asks questions about happiness, our obligations to the people in our lives, talent and its cultivation, justice, and fairness.

For example, Chester's musical ability becomes a sensation and brings people to the newsstand, which helps the struggling Bellini family and provides pleasure to all of the people who hear Chester's music around the city. Chester, however, is uncomfortable with his growing fame and misses the rural life he knew in Connecticut. He wants to return there. Tucker Mouse, Harry the Cat and Chester have a conversation about whether this would be the right decision for Chester to make, weighing Chester's happiness and his right to choose the course of his life against the possible negative consequences of this choice (the potentially negative effect on the Bellini newsstand, Mario's sadness when Chester leaves, the loss of the opportunity to listen to Chester's music for thousands of listeners, etc.).

Throughout the story, there are several junctures at which Chester and other characters must make moral decisions -- whether to help someone else, tell the truth, abandon a difficult situation -- and the characters' discussions and reflections can motivate interesting discussions with children about these situations. Charmingly illustrated by Garth Williams, the story, in my experience, is completely engaging for children ages 5 to 12, and captivates older readers and listeners as well.

Double Trouble

2010-11-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

On Friday the 4th graders at John Muir and I had a long conversation about personal identity. We also had some visitors from Nova High School, as well as one of the graduate students at UW working with us this year.

We read Philip Cam's story, "Double Trouble," about a robot, Algernon, who, one by one, has all of his parts replaced until none of his original parts are left. The robot company creates a new robot using all of the original parts, and a puzzle ensues. Which of the two robots is the real Algernon?

The students had lots of questions about which robot constitutes the real Algernon, and about the ethics of the company's actions. They voted to begin our conversation with the question about whether the "real" Algernon is the robot who has gradually had his parts replaced, or the one who was created from all of the original parts. We had a really spirited discussion about this topic for over an hour, with students raising many issues about what makes the robot that particular robot (thoughts? memories? the same body?) and whether any of us really maintains the same identity over time. I told them the famous "Ship of Theseus" puzzle, and the students were quite divided over whether the ship that had had all of its planks replaced was still Theseus' ship. And if it wasn't, at what point did it cease to be Theseus' ship? When one plank was replaced? Ten planks? Half of the planks? Three-quarters?

Eventually we ended up in a long discussion about whether, if I exchanged brains with one of the students, I would still be "Dr. Jana" or the student would have become Dr. Jana. Most of the students seemed to conclude that the student would have become Dr. Jana and I would have become the student, but several wanted to say that I would not be Dr. Jana or the student, but would become some third identity, with Dr. Jana's body (minus the brain) and the student's brain, because, as one student put it, "you would still have some physical instincts and ways of moving that were really Dr. Jana's and not [the student's]." What is it, then, that makes us the people we are? The students recognized that this is a really difficult and complex question.

It was a fascinating and really animated discussion, with many of the students in the class participating. The question about what makes us who we are and whether we remain that person despite significant changes seems always to inspire a meaningful and thoughtful conversation.

Happiness at 10

2010-10-25T12:29:00.000-07:00

On Friday I talked about happiness with the fourth grade students with whom I've been working at John Muir Elementary in Seattle. One of the things that's always so interesting to me about discussing philosophy with children is that the conversations frequently parallel in many aspects the discussions I have with college students. They unfold at different levels in terms of language and sophistication, but the issues tend to emerge in very similar ways.

We talked about what's important for happiness, and many of the students expressed the view that central to thinking about what you need for happiness is being aware of what creates unhappiness. That is, many of the children thought that happiness involves avoiding experiences like loneliness, isolation, pain and feelings of meaninglessness.

The students then broached the question, "What exactly is happiness?" In this conversation, they raised many issues about happiness, noting, for example, that you can be happy and unhappy at the same time, that you can have a happy life and still feel unhappy at any particular moment, that happiness seems to be more than a feeling and that, although we talk about feeling happy, happiness is really more like an evaluation of the state of your life. One student suggested that happiness is attainable to everyone, and another pointed out that your attitude toward your life is what's most essential for happiness. We ended by observing that we often talk as though happiness and feeling happy are the same thing, but that upon reflection happiness, though we still might not know precisely how to define or attain it, is more complex and multifaceted than the experience of feeling happy.

Meaning in Education

2010-10-11T20:55:00.000-07:00

Since our seminar session at UW last Thursday, I've been thinking about meaning in education. We spent the first part of the session talking about Plato's Allegory of the Cave and enlightenment, the relationship between appearance and reality, knowledge, and human development, and then moved into examining the nature of thinking and thoughts. It was a rich couple of discussions and made me think about my own undergraduate (and secondary) education, and the rare opportunities I experienced for this kind of classroom dialogue.

It is so clear to me that there is a hunger for meaningful, deep conversations about these kinds of questions. Creating a community of philosophical inquiry in a classroom, a space within which fundamental philosophical questions are explored, makes a space for students to gain experience questioning and analyzing their own experiences and perceptions. I believe that the deepest and most authentic kind of learning occurs when students participate in thinking about a subject (and are not just passive recipients of what is being taught), and a new clarity emerges for them personally. Helping them to engage in collaborative inquiry that is aimed at acquiring meaning and deeper understanding enables these kinds of experiences.

Plato with Fourth Graders

2010-10-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

I taught my first couple of elementary school classes in the last week, both with fourth grade students in Seattle. It is always amazing to me the level of philosophical interest and understanding shown by children. Yesterday I had a discussion with about 30 fourth graders about Plato's "Ring of Gyges." In our conversation, the children pointed out the dangers of the ring (thinking you might have more control over it than you do, the risks of it falling into the wrong hands, etc.). They also expressed their sense that you could think now that you know how you would behave if you had an invisibility ring, but really the way you would act if you were actually in this situation could turn out to be quite different than your predictions. We talked about the view that people behave morally only in order to avoid negative consequences if they do not, and the children generally asserted that they often behave in ways that seem morally good not because of the potential consequences if they don't, but because they see themselves as certain kinds of people and being those kinds of people (trustworthy, loyal, kind, helpful, etc.) is important to them.

We also taught our first Philosophy for Children class at the University of Washington this week, and several undergraduates expressed their views that most children do start thinking early in their lives about the larger questions that underlie human existence, but there is typically no vehicle for exploring philosophical questions and along the way that part of many children's selves fails to develop. We talked about how meaningful it can be to talk about questions like the meaning of life, what makes a life worth living, what success means, how we can know what's right and wrong, who we are, etc., and the difference it can make in young people's lives to examine these questions in an ongoing, collective way. We read Jon Muth's story The Three Questions (which I've talked about in an earlier post), and each of the students wrote down the three questions that they think are the most important questions to which they would like answers.

Here are my three:
Why are we here?
Is time just a feature of human minds, and what is the objective relationship (if any) between past, present and future?
What happens when we die?

Philosophical Sensitivity

2010-09-22T10:34:00.000-07:00

The first day of fall and it's a beautiful clear day in northeast Washington State. I am returning to this blog after spending much of the summer working on the book I am writing for parents about ways to inspire philosophical conversations with one's children.

One of the ideas on which I've been spending a lot of time recently is what I'm calling "philosophical sensitivity," by which I mean an awareness of and attentiveness to the philosophical dimension of life. I've been developing this concept as part of my thinking about what it takes to be a competent philosophy teacher and/or to be able to inspire and facilitate philosophical dialogue in general. I thought I'd offer a brief sketch of this concept here and see what people think.

I'm conceiving philosophical sensitivity as a kind of perceptual capacity, in the Aristotelian sense of an ability that can be cultivated through education, experience and interest. There are three aspects to this capacity: the ability to identify a philosophical question, the skills necessary for inspiring a philosophical conversation, and a facility for paying attention to and shaping the progress of a philosophical discussion.

Identifying a philosophical question requires an ability to recognize the more fundamental, deeper issues underlying much of what we think, do and say, as well as skill at uncovering the assumptions embedded in our ordinary views about the world. Philosophers notoriously disagree about what makes a question philosophical. One basic way to identify in at least a rough way when something is not a question of philosophy is to ask if it can be settled by empirical facts. If so, it is not a philosophical question. Philosophical questions examine the meaning of a concept or idea, and aim at helping us understand better what we think we already know. They are generally abstract questions that are not likely to be answered in any final way. I often tell my students to keep asking more and more abstract questions about the subject under examination (for example, friendship: Why is she your friend? What makes someone a friend? What is friendship?); this can often lead you to an interesting philosophical question.

The second aspect of philosophical sensitivity is the ability to inspire or motivate a philosophical conversation. What makes a conversation philosophical? Three things, I think: (1) an examination of an abstract, general question that cannot be answered empirically; (2) arguments given to support the views offered; and (3) a progression or development of either the meaning of the idea(s) being explored or the participants’ understanding of a concept or concepts. To be able to inspire a philosophical conversation, the facilitator must be familiar with at least some of the most fundamental questions of philosophy (in epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, etc.), and have two primary abilities, I think: the ability to listen carefully to what is being said (and to recognizing some of the assumptions behind the participants' statements) and the ability to articulate both connections and distinctions between the views offered by the conversation's participants.

The final element of philosophical sensitivity is an awareness of the development of a philosophical conversation. The conversation should ultimately proceed in a forward movement. This doesn’t mean that the discussion won’t loop back and forth, touching several conceptual issues and coming back to earlier questions, rather than developing in a straight line. However, there should be some progress – at the very least, a better understanding of what the participants in the conversation think, greater conceptual clarity, the identification of key assumptions, and/or the construction of an alternative way of understanding the subject. Part of philosophical sensitivity is the ability to help shape the conversation so that it does proceed in a forward movement, by, for example, pointing out unidentified issues, recognizing when the discussion is going in circles and not moving forward in any meaningful way, or recounting the conversation's path and asking for ideas about what's next.

It seems to me that philosophical sensitivity is an essential bedrock skill for being a competent philosophy teacher, or being able to inspire philosophical conversations. One obvious question, of course, is how is philosophical sensitivity cultivated? I'm working on that one!

Why do we go to school?

2010-06-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

In my last class of the school year with the 5th grade public school students with whom I've been doing philosophy this year, we held a "Philosophy Cafe" with juice, cookies and conversation. I'm going to miss this class.

The students had requested last time that we spend some time discussing whether homework is a good thing. We started the discussion more broadly by reading a chapter of Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery that raises questions about the purposes of education generally. I asked the students why they believed they were expected to go to school, and they responded that they thought it was "to learn," "so that we can have a better life," "so that we learn what we need to know in life" and "to get a job." They also mentioned that they want to be in school to spend time with their friends.

I asked the students what a school that they could create would be like.

One student replied, "I think this school is as good as it gets. If you made it any more fun, we wouldn't learn as much. But if it was less fun, we wouldn't want to be here. It's actually perfect because we have fun and it's interesting and we learn a lot."

"Yeah, we're actually really lucky because school is much more interesting than it used to be when my parents went to school. We have time to read and do projects and teachers really try to make it interesting."

"School isn't meant to be joyous and fun. It's meant to teach us what we need to know for life."

"I disagree with that. I think that school does have to be fun, because if kids aren't having fun they don't pay attention and don't learn as much."

We talked for a little while about the connections between having fun and learning, and then the discussion moved into the purpose of homework, about which the students felt quite strongly.

"The purpose of homework is to keep us thinking about what we've learned so that the teachers doesn't have to teach it over and over."

"I agree. It kind of gets everyone to be on the same level, so if you didn't understand something so well in class, the homework helps you learn it better. If one person doesn't do the homework they get behind and it wastes everyone else's time."

"I don't agree with that. I don't think we'd forget what we've learned in one day. I think homework makes learning harder, because you never want to do the homework and you start not wanting to learn at all."

"Homework should be done at school. We have 7½ hours of school every day. We come home and we don't want any more school for the day."

"You know, we actually have a lot less homework than many kids in schools in other countries."

"But it does get in the way. After school you want to do fun stuff with your friends or at home, or play sports, and then you think, 'Oh yeah, I still have to do my homework.' "

"And you're distracted because you want to do fun things. So you sit there and look at the homework and think about what else you could be doing, and so it takes a long time to do the homework, and you have even less time for what you want to do."

"Learning in school is fun because we all do it together. At home it isn't any fun to do work by yourself."

"But I think you learn things in school and then homework is so you can practice what you've learned over and over."

"I don't think that really works. I mean, we don't forget what we've learned in a day. And having to practice it after a long day in school just makes us less interested in learning."

"Well, I think that homework does get in the way of other things you want to do after school, but the idea is that you do sometimes forget what you've learned or you haven't learned it totally, and you look at the homework and you figure out how to do it and then you really learn it. No one likes it every day, and when you're doing it sometimes you hate it, but you know there's a good reason for it."

"Maybe if we didn't have it every day it would be better."

This nice exchange among a dozen students (which involved me almost not at all) then led to an exploration of some practical solutions. Should there be time at the end of the school day (say, the last 20 minutes) for the students to do their homework if they chose? Should it be every other night instead of every night? Should it be handed out in advance for the week so that the students could manage when to do it?

One student noted that he would like to do his homework at recess (if the homework isn't done the class rule is that the students must stay in at recess to do it), but his mom wouldn't let him. Another student responded that he was allowed to do homework whenever he wanted and to figure out how to make it work for himself. The school day was about to end, but we did have a brief interesting discussion about the responsibilities of parents to let their children figure things out for themselves, and how to make good judgments as a parent about when and how to do that.

As I was leaving several girls told me that they wanted to be philosophers when they grew up. A side-benefit of this work, perhaps? More women in philosophy? That would be a great thing!

This will be my last blog post until the fall, to allow me to work on some other writing projects over the summer. Happy summer!

When You Reach Me

2010-06-01T21:18:00.000-07:00

When You Reach Me, a young adult novel that was a winner of the 2010 Newbery Medal, was written by Rebecca Stead. Set in New York City in the late 1970s, it's an engrossing story about a young girl, her relationships with her friends, her single mother and her mother's boyfriend, and a mystery.

Miranda is in the sixth grade when she begins to receive a series of notes that indicate knowledge about Miranda's life that is seemingly impossible for anyone to have. Miranda's attempts to understand why she is receiving these notes and what they mean are beautifully illustrated through Miranda's interior monologues about growing up on the upper west side of Manhattan in 1979 and the trials and joys of sixth grade.

The story raises philosophical questions about the nature of time, the nature of friendship, courage and trust, and the meaning of life and death. It would be a marvelous book to read along with a middle-school-aged child (I read it along with my twelve-year-old son) or to read to a class of upper elementary school students. I couldn't put it down!

Frederick

2010-05-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

Leo Lionni wrote, who died in 1999, wrote and illustrated many classic children's books. I've used several of his books to inspire pre-college philosophy discussions. One that is particularly helpful for introducing questions of political and social philosophy is Frederick, the story of a family of five field mice who are gathering food for the winter.

Everyone is working hard to bring in as much food as they can, except Frederick. Frederick seems to spend his time staring at the meadow and half-asleep, dreaming. When the other mice ask him what he is doing, Frederick replies that he is gathering "sun rays for the cold dark winter days," "colors . . . [f]or winter is gray," and "words . . . [f]or the winter days are long and many, and we'll run out of things to say."

The story makes no mention of the reaction of the other mice to Frederick's behavior and explanations, except at one point to describe as "reproachful" the tone in which they ask him if he is dreaming. Once winter sets in, the five mice hide away in an old stone wall, and have plenty to eat and stories to tell. Lionni describes them as a "happy family." As winter continues, however, there is less food and more cold, and much less chatting among the family members. Then they remember Frederick's fall activities and they ask him about his supplies. Frederick proceeds to describe the rays of the sun and colors, and begins reciting poetry. The family realizes that he is a poet.

The story raises in a wonderfully subtle way questions about what is valuable work in a society. In a family of five, one member failing to gather food means much less food for the family. Is Frederick's work of gathering ideas and words and images as important as gathering food? What are the responsibilities of family members to each other? Is Frederick meeting his responsibilities? If Frederick doesn't gather food but instead spends his time thinking in preparation for giving to his family in a different way, is he entitled to an equal share of the food? Is what Frederick is doing work? What is work? Are some forms of work more important than others?

The story provides an opening to discussing with children questions about the nature of the social contract, the role of the individual in a community, and the relative value of different kinds of contributions to communities. And it's a lovely story with delightful illustrations!

How much philosophy does a pre-college philosophy teacher need to know?

2010-05-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a review article for the journal Teaching Philosophy, writing about five books that have been written in the past few years about pre-college philosophy. In the course of reading these books, it's been interesting to me to observe the range of views about the level of training necessary for a competent pre-college philosophy teacher.

This is a real issue, as most K-12 teachers in the US have had little exposure to philosophy. Some philosophers and educators with experience in pre-college philosophy think that there are only a few rules for conducting philosophical discussions and that even teachers with little background in philosophy can successfully introduce philosophy to their students. Others argue that extensive preparation in how to teach philosophy and a solid familiarity with the history of philosophy is necessary.

I come out somewhere in the middle, I think. I think there is a significant difference between introducing philosophy to elementary school students and teaching a philosophy class for high school juniors or seniors. For teaching younger students, I think that what is essential to leading a philosophy session is a philosophical ear. By a philosophical ear, I mean the ability to recognize when a philosophical issue is being raised (by a student, a story or film, etc.). Certainly, extensive exposure to philosophy texts and discussions is useful to the development of a philosophical ear, but I don't believe that this kind of background is essential. I think that teachers who have had even a little experience with philosophy discussions can, with strong skills in facilitating student discussions and a good curriculum, facilitate philosophy discussions among elementary school-age children.

This is not to say, however, that any teacher can pick up a pre-college philosophy curriculum and lead productive philosophy sessions with children. Many teachers, in my experience, are too much invested in the "teacher as repository of wisdom and students as vessels to be taught" model to be able, without a great deal of training and commitment, to introduce philosophy to their students.

As students get closer to upper-level high school age, I think the requirements for successful philosophy teachers grow, for two reasons. First, in my experience, high school students (and particularly those who have not had any exposure to philosophy in earlier years) are more reticent about engaging in classroom philosophy sessions than are younger children. The philosophy teacher who has had strong preparation for how to teach philosophy and at least some exposure to philosophical texts is more likely to be successful at involving students in high school philosophy discussions. Second, students at this level are capable of analyzing much more complex philosophy questions, and teachers familiar with these questions will be able to facilitate fuller, more sophisticated discussions. I am hoping that, with the growing interest among philosophy departments around the country in high school philosophy classes, there will be greater opportunities for high quality instruction for potential high school philosophy teachers in the future.

What is a child?

2010-05-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting article this week by Tamar Schapiro on "What Is a Child?" In a discussion about the possible justifications for what we generally believe are adults' special obligations to children, for "treating someone like a child," Schapiro (looking to Kant) suggests an understanding of the word 'child' as a status concept. The idea is that someone counts as a child when that person lacks the independence necessary (in the ethical realm) for governing himself in accordance with his capacity for reflective choice.

Schapiro suggests that childhood is in some respects analogous to Kant's notion of a state of nature in the political realm, where we need certain normative concepts (like rightful ownership and justice) that are lacking because there is no common political authority in which to ground such concepts. This makes a state of nature inherently unstable and requires that people in that state "pull themselves together" into a unified political state. In a similar way, Schapiro contends, children are like a state of nature in that they need normative principles to be able to make moral choices, but do not yet have a developed will on which to base these principles. An individual becomes an adult when she has "pulled herself together" into a unified reflective agent able to make choices about her desires.

An adult, Schapiro claims, "is one who is in a position to speak in her own voice, the voice of one who stands in a determinate, authoritative relation to the various motivational forces within her." In order to be considered a fully developed agent, one does not have to have worked out principles for any conceivable practical issue but must have a "plan of life." This basic structure, which Schapiro calls character, determines the relation between the pursuit of one's desires and the impulse to relate to others in mutually acceptable ways. Children lack this structure, and so, the argument goes, the distinction between adults and children is one of kind: adults have characters and children do not.

Childhood, therefore, is a "normative predicament" because children need adult help to govern themselves until they develop character, the unified perspective that allows them to exercise effective authority over themselves. Part of the way children develop this, proposes Schapiro, is through play, in which children “try on” selves to develop what is like to speak in their own voices and control their own worlds. As adults, we are obligated to help children escape their predicament by doing what we can to help them "work their way out of childhood."

This is a complex argument for which I am only providing a sketch, but I wonder about it. First, I question the definition of an adult as someone who has constituted herself as a unified reflective agent and can thus speak "in her own voice." It seems to me that the development of this normative structure does not occur in ways consistent with our ordinary judgments about who is a child and who is an adult (which in general depend solely on age). There are people we would characterize as adults (they are over 21) who do not have this kind of developed structure, and there are people we would characterize as children (they are under 17) who do.

Second, while the notion of play as “trying on selves,” has much to offer, it does not apply to many people characterized as children (most people over age 10, for example). Schapiro acknowledges this and notes that we think of adolescents “as people who are characteristically ‘in search of themselves’ . . . [who] carry out this search by identifying themselves in a rather intense but provisional way with peer groups, celebrities . . . and the like.” But being "in search of oneself” and "identifying with peer groups, celebrities, etc." is applicable to many adults as well. Does a person who falls within this description lack a “plan of life?" If so, would we have to hold that they should be "treated like a child?" And doesn't in some respects the process of "trying on selves" and developing a "plan of life" last a lifetime?

Finally, I'm reluctant to characterize childhood as a predicament out of which adults have an obligation to help children find their way. While I don't romanticize childhood as a time of innocent bliss or something, I do think that there is a special quality about the life of children that is positive, that as adults we remember with fondness and even wistfulness (see Proust, for example). For example, in my experience doing philosophy with children, I have observed that children often have particular access to creative ways of understanding the world because of their openness to the mysteriousness of human existence. Likewise, I'm hesitant to grant Schapiro's idea that children are different in kind from adults because they lack character. In my work with children, I have found them reliably capable of reflective deliberation and often quite clear and consistent about the internal principles by which they make choices among their desires. I think that children are often capable of "speaking in their own voices." I am just not convinced that all children lack character, or that all adults have it.

Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children Grant and Summer Workshop

2010-04-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children just received a three-year grant from the Squire Family Foundation! The grant funds a summer workshop for teachers that will take place this June, and also provides money for graduate student involvement in the program, materials and website support, and three years of transportation for UW students to get to and from local schools. We are very excited about the possibilities for the growth of our program that have been created by receiving this grant.

The summer workshop will take place at the University of Washington June 28-29 and is open to teachers and others interested in exploring how introducing philosophy in K-12 classrooms can enrich and enhance student learning. Participants will learn about the history and methods of philosophy for children, and will engage in philosophical discussions on topics such as: “What can we know? What makes something right or wrong? Are we free? What is a mind? How can we define happiness?”

The workshop is free of charge, including 11 clock hours, materials, refreshments, lunch on the second day, and parking. Anyone interested should contact me at info@philosophyforchildren.org by June 1.

New York Times article on doing philosophy with children

2010-04-23T03:39:00.000-07:00

I am living it up in Italy at the moment, but thought I would write this post to note that the New York Times published an article last week about philosophy in elementary school classrooms: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/education/edlife/18philosophy-t.html

Developing a philosophical self

2010-04-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

As part of the book I'm working on, I've been thinking a lot about the development of our philosophical selves. In my experience, most children begin to exhibit a "philosophical self" around age 5, when all of the questions that demonstrate "wonder at the world" often start to emerge. This curiosity about and exploration of some of the basic facets of human life -- why we're alive, what it means to be good, what obligations we have to others and why, identity, the nature of reality -- seem to me fundamental aspects of what it means to be human. Yet, for many (most?) people, this development gets cut off at some point between age 5 and graduation from high school.

Recognized as important are the development of children's physical selves, intellectual selves, moral selves, and social and emotional selves, but there is little attention paid to the development of our philosophical selves: the part of us that recognizes and ponders the intense strangeness of the human experience, that thinks deeply about the concepts that underlie our collective understanding of the world. For me what has always been most important about engaging in philosophical discussions with children -- my own, and students in pre-college classrooms -- has been helping children to think more clearly about questions they are already thinking about. I remember my first class in philosophy, which I was lucky enough to have in a public high school, and how thrilling it was to be able to talk about these questions I'd thought about since I was little and that I imagined no one else ever considered very much.

I think that the development of children's philosophical selves is of crucial importance to learning how to evaluate the difficult questions of life thoughtfully and imaginatively. Encouraging children to cultivate their natural inclinations to wonder about life's perennially unsettled questions and to think about these questions carefully and coherently helps them become effective independent thinkers. Our philosophical selves are central, I think, to the uniqueness of human consciousness, to our awareness that we are experiencing whatever we are experiencing. Development of this part of us can profoundly enrich and deepen our lives.

PLATO

2010-04-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

After almost two years of work, the new national organization for pre-college philosophy in the US, PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization), has been born! PLATO is a national support, advocacy and resource-sharing organization for teachers, parents, philosophers and others involved in teaching philosophy to pre-college students. Launched by the Committee on Pre-College Instruction in Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association, PLATO’s goal is to attain a visible, national presence, and to advocate in both the philosophical and educational communities for more pre-college philosophy instruction. Check out the website -- it is full of resources to use for introducing philosophy to young people!

Time, nothingness and imagination

2010-03-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

Another marvelous conversation last week with the 5th grade students with whom I've been working all year. At the beginning of the school year, one of the questions in which the students were interested was, "What is time?" We began this session with that question.

One student suggested that time is the way "we measure how long different units in the day are, so that we know exactly at what point in the day we are."

"Would time would still exist if we weren't around to measure it?" I asked.

"Maybe time is nothing," one student suggested.

"There's no such thing as nothing," responded another student.

"I think that's right," a third student agreed. "I say, 'I have nothing in may hand,' but of course it's not true. There's air in my hand, for example. Everything is something, so there is no such thing as nothing."

"That's right. We just say there's nothing in our hands because that's the only word we can come up with to describe it."

"We think of 'something' as being solid. And air isn't solid, so we think of it as nothing. But it is something."

"If nothing is something, it's not nothing. So if we're asking what nothing is, there can't really be an answer."

We talked about trying to imagine "nothing." We tried to imagine the absence space, and couldn't.

"It's not possible. There's nothing we can refer to."

"When there's a totally new idea like that, like a new color we've never seen, we have no way to think of it. Everything we can think of is based on something we've seen, heard or know about. Our imagination is not based on some magical thing, but on what we've experienced."

"Actually, we wouldn't experience anything without our imaginations."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, everything we do is because of our imaginations. We wouldn't even be able to move without imagination."

"Yeah, humans would probably have died out a long time ago without imagination. We wouldn't have survived if we couldn't imagine how to build things and do all kinds of things."

We talked about the nature of imagination, and one student said that really, then, all we experience in the world is through our minds. So how do we know that anything else exists? I explained a little about Berkeley's view that we are able only to know sensations and ideas. In the course of our conversation, I told the students about Johnson's attempt to refute Berkeley's view by kicking the rock.

"That doesn't prove anything!" one student protested. "All he showed was that he felt that he was kicking a rock, which was all in his mind."

"Everything we experience is because of our thoughts. So whether the rock is there or not, the pain I feel when I kick it is just in my mind."

"Hmmm," a student replied. "Think about the lyrics to 'Row Row Row Your Boat.' What do you think?"

"Is life just a dream?"

"I think that's really scary."

"When I was little, my brother told me that life was just being characters in a book someone else wrote. Maybe we are just characters in a book."

"If we are, I wouldn't want to know about it."

We talked a little about whether it would make any difference, if the world felt exactly the same as it now does to us, if it turned out that we were characters in a book. The conversation ended just before the bell, with us reflecting that our thoughts are the lens through which we experience the world, and that we can control how our experiences feel to us by thinking about them in certain ways.

Hotel Rwanda

2010-03-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

Hotel Rwanda

As part of the "Moral Philosophy and Genocide" unit I am doing with eighth grade students, last week we watched the film Hotel Rwanda and then discussed it. We talked about the reasons the international community did not intervene in Rwanda, and what obligations the Western countries had to Rwanda during this period. We also discussed the spectrum of moral obligations. At the beginning of the film, Paul Rusesabagina (the hotel manager and main character) contends that "family is all that matters." As the genocide in Rwanda unfolds, however, he develops a deep sense of obligation to neighbors and fellow Rwandans, to the extent that at one point he attempts to send his family out of the country to safety while staying behind with the refugees he is sheltering at the hotel. We talked about whether this was the right decision.

We explored the role of the United Nations as "peacekeepers," and analyzed whether it was right for the UN troops to refuse to fire on the men committing genocide. The students seemed to feel strongly that the UN troops should not have obeyed their orders not to fire, as they would have been able to save more lives had they used their weapons other than in self-defense. Did the larger role of the UN in the country, and in Africa in general, however, require this more restrained role? We analyzed what obligations the UN peacekeepers had toward the Rwandans being attacked and murdered.

We spent a little time talking about whether Paul Rusesabagina was a hero. Most of the students agreed that he was a hero. What makes someone a hero? Someone who puts his or her life at risk for someone else, a student suggested, is certainly a hero.

We'll continue our discussion this week and explore why the people who did not help others during the genocide became bystanders, examining the nature of indifference and its moral status.

Really, Really BIG Questions

2010-03-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

The picture book Really, Really BIG Questions by British philosophy professor Stephen Law is an engaging introduction to philosophy for anyone from elementary school age through middle school. With drawings and information about science, history, literature and the history of philosophy, the book explores questions such as: How can something come from nothing? What is nothing? What is the meaning of life? What is it like to be a bat? How important is happiness? Can I always believe my eyes?

Written in question-and-answer format, the book's conversational tone makes the complex questions examined in each chapter accessible and absorbing. A great book to read with your own children or with students in a classroom!

When does morality begin?

2010-03-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

I read a review of cognitive psychologist Alison Gopnik's book The Philosophical Baby in the New York Review of Books recently. Gopnik suggests that the relationship between an infant and his or her caregiver constitutes the beginning of morality for us, the first ethical relationship.

Carol Gilligan and others have emphasized the role of relationships as central to moral development, and the close connection between empathy and morality. Gopnik argues that our imaginative capacity, which allows us to envision the perspectives of other people, develops out of our early attachments. The attachment we have to our first caregivers is the seed from which our ethical lives develop, as we learn, to put it in simple terms, that other people have feelings too.

Gopnik explores the first five years of life, contending that this period involves states of consciousness, memory and mental life vastly different from those we experience after age 5. Our consciousness of time as involving past, present and future, and of ourselves as unified beings, remaining more or less intact from moment to moment, does not appear to form until after those early years. So our lives stem from this mysterious beginning, a time we barely remember that nevertheless played a central role in forming who we are.

This made me think about the role of ethics in children's lives once they reach elementary school age. At this stage, most children have experienced reciprocal love with their caregivers, providing an emotional foundation for their ethical lives. Moreover, they have started to establish a sense of personal memory and consecutive time, allowing them to develop conceptions of themselves as continuous and separate beings, all essential to moral reasoning.

At this point, then, it seems to me, a more structured introduction of ethics can help children, at a crucial age, to expand their capacities for moral reasoning. My own experience facilitating ethics discussions with elementary school students convinces me that these early years are a prime period in the development of our ethical lives. Open and carefully organized discussions about moral issues with their peers reinforces, at an early stage in their ethical growth, children’s development of empathy and moral imagination.

The Ethics of Stealing

2010-02-24T17:32:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been starting my philosophy sessions in the 5th grade with the students raising questions they want to discuss that have come up since I've last visited. This afternoon, the students mentioned that they wanted to discuss an event that had happened in the classroom.

One boy's iPod touch was stolen this week and, after a long class meeting, the boy from whom it was stolen stated that if the person just put it back in his backpack by the end of the day, there would be no questions asked. At the end of the day, the iPod touch had been returned to the boy's backpack. The students were still feeling unsettled about the event and wanted to explore it.

"Why did the person steal it?" one student asked.

"Because they wanted it," a second student responded.

"Or maybe they wanted to get back at me for something," ventured the child who owned the i-touch.

I explained the principle of Occam's Razor to the students, which states that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. We concluded that while it was possible that someone was plotting an act of revenge, it was more likely that someone saw the i-touch and just wanted it. We talked about the income disparity in the community, where some children come from families who can afford to buy lots of things and others live with families who have trouble paying for food, and the way in which this created temptations for someone to take something they wanted and couldn't afford to buy.

"We all make mistakes," declared a student. "Here the person made a mistake and then thought the better of it."

Does it change how we see an act if it is later regretted?

“Well the person still stole it and that was wrong,” asserted a student.

What makes stealing wrong?

“It hurts other people. It takes something from them that belongs to them.”

“It can also hurt their feelings. You could have something you really cared about and then someone takes it away from you, and it affects you emotionally.”

“Stealing hurts the thief too. You can become someone who steals all the time, and all of a sudden you’re not the kind of person you want to be.”

We talked about what it means to be the kind of person you want to be, and the way in which your whole view of yourself can change based on something you’ve done. We also talked about the effects on the classroom community of this event.

“I felt like this was such a great class and all of a sudden it wasn’t anymore.”

The students talked about suspecting other students of being the thief, and the way in which the classroom environment changed during this time. We discussed whether, one the item was returned, it mattered who had stolen it.

“We’re talking about this person, who is probably in the room,” reflected a student. “I think it’s harsh for us to keep talking about this because even though the person did steal it, they returned it. If I was the person who stole it, and there was all this talk about how horrible it was, I would feel really shriveled inside.”

“If you regret stealing something and give it back, you should be forgiven,” agreed another student.

We talked about forgiveness and who has the power to forgive the person who stole the i-touch. Could the fact that the student regretted his or her act and returned the item actually be a sign of the strength of the classroom community? Perhaps upon reflection this event was an ethical plus, in that someone made a mistake, thought the better of it, and decided and was able to fix it.

We spent the entire 45 minutes talking about this, and so the planned discussion about the nature of time will have to wait for our next session!

The Phantom Tollbooth

2010-02-15T11:04:00.000-08:00

I recently reread The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, one of my favorite books in elementary school. Published in 1961, with marvelous line drawings by Jules Feiffer, the book tells the story of Milo, a bored young boy who sees thinks that everything is a waste of time. He is given a gift of a magic tollbooth that allows him to explore new places and teaches him that the world is fascinating and beautiful.

Full of puns, logic puzzles and philosophical jokes, the novel is a great one to read and discuss with your child or with a class of children. It raises questions about perception (can you see sounds?), the nature of reality (what is infinity?), the meaning of life, knowledge and the mind, the power of words and numbers, nothingness, and the ways in which our perspectives construct the reality we think we know. Funny and exciting, the book is great fun and a philosophical treasure chest for young people.

The Experience Machine

2010-02-09T10:10:00.001-08:00

In a conversation about Plato's Allegory of the Cave with eighth grade students last week, we spent a lot of time talking about Descartes' dream argument and whether we can know whether we're dreaming or not at any particular moment. A couple of students contended that even if our whole lives are a dream, it wouldn't make any difference, as it would feel exactly the same to us as our lives do right now.

I described for them Robert Nozick's thought experiment. Suppose there was an "Experience Machine, " which could give you any experience you desired. Your brain would be stimulated when hooked up to the machine so that you would think and feel that you were doing anything you wanted to do: playing on a major league baseball team, being a famous actress, skiing on a fabulous mountain, part of a rock band, writing a great novel, etc. You won't be aware of it when you’re hooked up to the machine – you’ll think that it’s all actually happening. Would you map out the rest of your life and then hook up to the machine for life?

Some of the students had no problem with the idea of hooking up to the machine. Others, though, raised some of the same reasons that Nozick gives for refusing to hook up to the machine: that we want actually to do certain things, and not just think we are doing them, and that they wanted to be people who did these things, not just thought they were doing them. One student contended it was the choice that made the difference.

"If I were born into the machine, or into living a life that is really a dream, or whatever, it would be one thing. Maybe I it wouldn't really matter if it was a real life or just in my mind, because it would feel the same either way. But choosing to plug into the experience machine is a different thing, because you're making a choice to live a fake life, even if it will feel good."

"I think it's really a moral problem," another student commented.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, you're making a choice to leave your real life behind when you plug into the machine, to live a life that's all in your head, and to abandon all of the people who are part of your life now."

We talked about this idea for a while. This was the first time in all of the years that I've taught this topic that anyone raised this point. Examining the moral dimension of the choice to plug into the Experience Machine, the fact that it is not just as individuals that we make this decision but as members of a community, produced a thoughtful discussion about the choices we make and the way we make them.

What is normal?

2010-02-02T11:22:00.000-08:00

When I was in a fifth grade classroom last week, the students told me that they had been puzzling a little together about the meaning of "normal," and wanted to ask me about it. What is normal?

The dictionary says being normal is being "an average person," the students told me.

"But no one is the same," one student said.

"Well, what does it mean to be an average person?" I asked.

"Well, an example of not normal would be pouring gasoline on your cereal," offered a student.

"But what if there was a city the size of Washington DC whose population all poured gasoline on their cereal every morning? It would be normal for them," countered another.

"And what would make that normal?" I asked.

"The fact that most people do it," answered the student.

"So then is the meaning of normal what most people are or do?" I asked.

"Perhaps normal is whatever your tradition or culture thinks you should do," suggested a student. "Something might be normal to other people, but not within your tradition."

"I think that normal is just something that we think," mused another student. "Like nothing is really normal. Normal is just something people round things off to. It's normal to open a door to go to school, so it's usually true, but sometimes it's not like that. Normal is just a thought people use to round off how we understand things."

"Kind of like a shorthand, to describe how we ordinarily do things?" I asked.

"Yes, exactly," he replied.

"But it's a shorthand for what most people think," responded a student.

"Sometimes it's good to be what people call 'not normal,' " another student broke in. "It would be really boring if everyone was normal, whatever normal is."

Happiness

2010-01-26T19:43:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting discussion today about happiness with the fifth grade students with whom I've been doing philosophy this year. We started with an exercise I adapted from David White's book Philosophy for Kids. I gave the students a list of 8 activities -- having fun with a friend, reading a book, sitting in a dentist's chair, eating your favorite foods, etc. -- and asked them to rank them according to how important they were as elements of happiness.

Most of the students ranked activities like having fun with a friend, helping a classmate, and eating your favorite foods as the most important for happiness. Sitting in a dentist's chair was by far the activity ranked by the students as the least important for happiness.

When I asked the students why the things that made the top of the list were important for happiness, most agreed that these things were fun and/or made them feel good. "So are happiness and pleasure the same thing?" I asked them.

"I think they're two different things," one student responded. "You could have happiness without having fun."

I asked if anyone could think of an example where something was pleasurable but didn't lead to happiness.

"Playing video games is pleasurable, but it isn't important to happiness," replied a student.

“I think having fun is part of happiness, but you can be happy without having fun,” another child offered. “Sometimes I feel happy but I’m not having fun.”

We began talking about the activity of sitting in the dentist’s chair, which most of the students ranked as an 8, not very important for happiness. Some students thought it was important for happiness, and the reasons they gave included having fun playing in the chair and enjoying laughing gas. “Are there any other reasons sitting in a dentist’s chair might be important for happiness?” I asked.

“I didn’t put it as an 8 because it’s just something you have to do to keep your teeth in shape and your mouth healthy. It’s not pleasurable, I don’t enjoy it, but it’s important for happiness to have your mouth be healthy. Really sitting in a dentist’s chair is essential.”

“So is happiness a feeling?” I asked.

Most of the students thought so. One student mused, “I think happiness is both a thought and a feeling. How you think about what’s going on is part of happiness. It’s a feeling and a thought.”

“What I want to know is,” a student remarked, “is there any real happiness? Or is it just satisfaction? What really is happiness?”

We then talked about eudamonia, the classical Greek word for happiness, and the idea that perhaps happiness is not a feeling but refers to the state of your life. I explained to the students Aristotle's conception of happiness as self-actualization, as living the best life you can live, being the best person you can be.

“So if you’re a king and you’ve been a great king, doing really good things for your kingdom, for you that would be happiness,” imagined a student.

And another student reflected, “And for me laughter is important to happiness. So it could be that laughter is an important part of living the best life I can.”

My Friend the Monster

2010-01-18T16:50:00.000-08:00

The short novel My Friend the Monster by Clyde Roberta Bulla is about the young Prince Hal, whose parents, the king and queen, think he is "ordinary" and have no time for him. They will not let him spend time with the children he sees playing in the courtyard because these children are the children of servants and, his parents tell him, are "far beneath" him.

Hal becomes friends with one of these children nevertheless, and learns through her about the "monsters" who live in their land. Eventually Hal ends up getting to know one of these monsters, who thinks of Hal as a "Small-Eyes," an enemy who will try to kill him. The two end up becoming friends, despite the efforts of those around them to keep them from doing so.

The story explores in a moving and gripping way questions about what it means to be ordinary, the nature of freedom, what it means to be a good person, friendship, and the value of truth. I have read this story with elementary school students of a wide range of ages, and it never fails to captivate them.

January

2010-01-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

Just Now

In the morning as the storm begins to blow away
the clear sky appears for a moment and it seems to me
that there has been something simpler than I could ever believe
simpler than I could have begun to find words for
not patient not even waiting no more hidden
than the air itself that became part of me for a while
with every breath and remained with me unnoticed
something that was here unnamed unknown in the days
and the nights not separate from them
not separate from them as they came and were gone
it must have been here neither early nor late then
by what name can I address it now holding out my thanks

W.S. Merwin

January Birthdays

See January 2008 post

Questions: Philosophy for Young People

2010-01-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

I was involved in founding the journal Questions: Philosophy for Young People ten years ago. The journal began as a project of the American Philosophical Association's Committee on Pre-College Instruction in Philosophy. We conceived it as a way to illustrate the philosophical work that young people are capable of doing.

The mission of Questions is to further on a national scale the work that is being done to bring philosophy into young people's lives, and to draw attention to the value of philosophy and philosophical thinking for young students. Each issue contains philosophical stories, essays, poems, photographs and drawings. The journal also publishes articles offering advice and ideas for teachers and parents interested in facilitating philosophical discussions with young people.

Past issues have explored a variety of philosophical issues, including human rights with students in elementary, middle, and high schools, and have included transcripts of K-12 discussions about human rights perspectives and an examination of children's rights with teachers, students, and philosophers from the U.S., Brazil, and Israel. The journal publishes all of the winning entries from the Kids Philosophy Slam contest each year. The ninth issue will be out this winter.

Here is the current request for submissions for Questions:

Questions publishes philosophical work by and for young people, including stories, essays, poems, photographs and drawings, etc. In addition, articles related to doing philosophy with young people, reviews of books and materials useful for doing the same, lesson plans (include description or transcripts of student responses), classic thought experiments redefined/modified for modern audience interests and demographics, transcripts of philosophy discussions, photographs of classroom discussions, and more are sought.

Images, whether photographs, drawings, paintings, et al. should be sent as uncompressed TIFF files (with at least 300 dpi resolution.) Written submissions should be sent in Word, WordPerfect, or Rich Text File formats (as .doc, .wpd, or .rtf). Scholarly articles should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style for textual and citation manners; please use endnotes rather than footnotes.

Be sure to include contact information with your submissions. A copyright release is needed for publication. All submissions should go to QuestionsJournal@gmail.com

Submissions for the next issue should be received by March 31, 2010. After initial review and editing, they will be blindly reviewed and selected by the larger editorial board.

The Galilean Library

2009-12-23T10:20:00.000-08:00

I found a wonderful website this week: The Galilean Library. The site is a resource for people interested in the sciences and humanities, and in particular philosophy, history, literature, and history and philosophy of science. It includes a library of essays and interviews aimed at all levels, along with a discussion forum on such subjects as free will and the nature of courage. The philosophy section has an ongoing series of essays about philosophy, beginning with the question of what philosophy is and what it means to do philosophy, and moving on to specific areas of philosophy. Great material here for high school classes!

Philosophy and The Purloined Boy

2009-12-18T12:25:00.000-08:00

I recently had a conversation with Christopher Wiley, whose num de plume is Mortimus Clay, the author of the young adult fantasy novel The Purloined Boy. The novel was a finalist in the Young Adult Fiction category of the National Best Books 2009 Awards from USA Book News. The plot of the book utlizes themes and ideas from Plato and Aristotle to explore issues about metaphysics, epistemology, and social and political philosophy. The author is a Presbyterian minister who for about a decade taught philosophy part-time to undergraduates at Eastern Nazarene College.

What led you from philosophy to writing young adult fantasy?

For me there wasn’t a direct road from philosophy to fantasy. Both have been part of my life since I started reading seriously as a teenager. I didn’t begin to write young adult fantasy so that I could encode philosophy in order to slip it past the unsuspecting reader. Instead – I’m a philosopher who loves fantasy and got an idea for a story stuck in his head and used philosophy to help get it out.

Do you think that fantasy novels are a particularly good way to facilitate young people’s exploration of philosophy?

Fantasy is a great place to explore philosophical themes. You can even have fun with characters – basing them on philosophers or schools of philosophy. The easiest thing to do is to work with symbolism and foreshadowing. But I think the most fruitful use of philosophy in writing fiction is allowing philosophical problems to arise for the characters to address within the context of the plot. I’d say that philosophy, when practiced well, helps us identify the fundamental issues to respond to in any situation we find ourselves in. Since it is helpful in that way in our lives – it certainly can work that way in a narrative.

You mentioned in our mail exchange that the books are “an attempt to live philosophy from the inside.” What do you mean by that?

Each of us has a life to examine and we examine it from the inside. What makes literature an art that can’t be replaced by any other medium is that it allows the artist to speak within the mind of the reader. All other forms address us from the outside. Even music must be audible to be received. Only the written word enters silently, paradoxically from without and from within at the same moment. As such it enables the writer to propose ideas, images, judgments, etc. with the inner voice of the reader. At the same time the reader is taken out of himself or herself and enters the mind of the author – through the narrator or a character.

Now literally there is no such person as the character one reads about in a book. Even accounts based on real events are not literally true. They’re representations. But they can tell us something true. (Here is where I think Plato was inconsistent. His philosophy of art and his method for teaching philosophy stand in contradiction.) When good fiction does its work disbelief is suspended for a time and the reader can envision the world from another’s perspective. I can’t imagine a better way to introduce metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical questions to someone. One might say propositions do that. But they don’t, really. A proposition is something a thinker holds before himself or herself and considers. One doesn’t enter into it unless he or she has an unusually sympathetic disposition and a powerful imagination. Through fiction I can help readers entertain questions they may not entertain in any other way.

December

2009-12-14T09:26:00.000-08:00

Winter Solitude

Winter solitude—
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.

Matsuo Basho
Translated from the Japanese by Robert Hass

December Birthdays

See December 2008 post

Philosophy Cafe

2009-12-11T13:08:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday afternoon we had a "philosophy cafe" in the 5th grade. I brought cider and cookies, and told the students that in parts of the world adults went to cafes and had something to eat and drink and talked about philosophy. It created a really different kind of environment for our conversation, very relaxed and more intimate.

We talked about how for most of the year so far, we've been talking about questions of metaphysics and epistemology, about the nature of reality and about knowledge, as well as examining some aesthetics issues. I suggested that we now move into talking about ethics, and we spent a little time talking about what that is.

I like to begin a series of ethics sessions with Plato's story of the "Ring of Gyges," as it raises many fundamental ethics issues in an accessible way. I told the students the story, and then asked them what they would do if they found a ring that allowed them to become invisible. Some of their answers were:

Use it like a toy
Play tricks on people
Fight crime
Play hide and seek
Sell it on eBay
Disappear when my sisters annoy me
Put it on my dog
Sneak out of class
I would hope I wouldn’t find it, because I don’t need it & I don’t want it

I noted that none of them had suggested doing the kind of bad things that Gyges did. Why?

“I think some people do good things because they want to, not just because they’re scared of getting caught if they do the wrong thing,” suggested another student.

“But we might not do what we think we’ll do,” argued another. “We don’t really know what we’d do with the ring because we don’t know how we’ll feel once we have it. Most people get greedy eventually.”

“I think that’s right,” another student agreed. “At some time or other, if you keep the ring, you’re going to get a little greedy and want to use it.”

“I would feel wrong doing those kinds of things,” one girl volunteered. “I feel happier when I do the right thing. Like I feel better when I clean up my room and do extra things around the house.”

We talked a little about the idea that doing the right thing makes you happy, and how you know what the right thing to do is. I described for the students the following dilemma : you have plans to get together with a friend of yours who isn’t very popular. You run into another more popular friend, who invites you to go to a movie with a group of people, a film you really want to see and it’s the last day it’s in the theater, but they say that your unpopular friend can’t come. What's the right thing to do, and why?

Most of the students said they would keep their plan with the first friend, because that was their first commitment and because the more popular friend wasn’t being very nice. We talked about the nature of promises and what it is that makes keeping them seem important. Many of the students seemed to think that we would have special obligations to the friend who had few other friends, and that we somehow owe less to our more popular friend.

“I’d say, ‘Uh uh dude,’” one student declared, “’you already have enough friends.’”

We talked about the idea a student voiced that the people with the most friends do not tend to be the truest friends. Can you have many friends and still be a good friend?

One student proposed that she would ask the first friend if it was okay with her if she went to the movies and they rescheduled their plans. “But I’d make sure to tell her that she didn’t have to say yes, and if she really wanted to be with me I wouldn’t go to the movies.”

“I know!” a student exclaimed. “Let’s make a skit of this.”

The students liked the idea and we divided up into groups of four, and each group acted out the scenario. Some of the students playing the more popular friend tried hard to talk the student facing the dilemma into coming to the movies and were offended at a refusal, and some of the students facing the dilemma tried to convince their less popular friends that it was okay for them to break their plans and go. It was interesting to see the varied ways the scenario played out, and quite fun to observe the students’ dramatic skills!

The Real Thief

2009-12-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

William Steig's The Real Thief is an appealing story for talking about ethics with young people. It's a short chapter book, which can be read to a child over several nights or along with a child who is already a reader. I’ve also used this story to talk about ethics with middle and high school students.

The story is about Gawain, a goose who is the Chief Guard of the Royal Treasury. When jewels from the Royal Treasury go missing, Gawain is blamed. The Prime Minister, Adrian the cat, makes the argument that because (1) the only way to get into the Royal Treasury is through the door, (2) no locks were broken, (3) only Gawain and the King have keys, (4) the King has no reason to rob his own treasury, and (5) “it is unthinkable” for the King to be wrong about any earthly thing, then Gawain must have done it. Gawain escapes after he is sentenced, and the story shifts to the perspective of Gawain's friend Derek the mouse, the real thief.

The story inspires questions about trust, forgiveness, friendship and loyalty. What should Derek have done? Why did he stay silent? Was his plan to keep stealing once Gawain fled and only the King had keys to the treasury a good plan? Was Derek a good friend to Gawain? Was Derek punished for what he did? What about the King? Did he have any obligations to Gawain? What were they? Did the King and the Court act unjustly? Should Gawain have forgiven the King and the rest of the community?

Teenagers

2009-12-01T09:24:00.000-08:00

Recently I've begun working on a book for parents and other adults about ways to inspire conversations about philosophy with young people. As part of this work, I've been thinking about the ways in which all of the philosophy discussions I've had over the years with my three children have contributed to creating an open and inquiring give-and-take with them, which really comes in handy (along with a sense of humor) now that they’re teenagers (well, the youngest is 12, but he's really a young teenager!).

From the time they were pretty young (four or five), we've explored together questions like the meaning of life, dreams, knowledge, the nature of thinking, whether something can come from nothing, friendship and time. Much of the time when the boys were young we began talking about these issues as a result of stories we read together, though as they've gotten older the conversations more often than not begin in the car on the way to some activity in which they are involved.

One thing I’ve observed is how comfortable the kids are raising any kind of question, from “How do you think the first word came to be? to “Can a fiction book be true?” I always try to pay attention to when a question is aimed at a larger philosophical issue, and to help it along with some questions of my own. It seems to me that as a result of years of doing this together, the boys are able to talk with my husband Ron and me about issues that come up with teenagers (drugs and alcohol, curfews, driving, college preparation, etc.) in a more calm and thoughtful way (well, at least some of the time!) than would have happened otherwise.

There is an easiness about our conversations that, I think, is in part due to the environment created by being attentive to exploring larger philosophical questions with them. These philosophical questions are unlikely ever to be settled in any final way, and I believe that having talked about them so often has helped us to communicate more straightforwardly about the almost equally difficult issues that arise in the teenage years.

What is music?

2009-11-25T10:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had a session with two fifth grade classes (about 40 or so students), in which a local pianist/composer came in and performed John Cage's 4' 33" to inspire a conversation about the nature of music and art. In each of these classes, I had facilitated a session within the last couple of weeks in which we talked about the nature of art, including questions about whether art must always express emotion, how we know what emotion art expresses and whether that emotion is in the work itself, in the artist, and/or in us, and what makes something a work of art.

“Can art be emotionless?” one student asked in one of the classes. All of the students who responded wanted to claim that art must express emotion.

“All art expresses some emotion,” one student argued, “even if it’s just boredom.”

“But how do we know what emotion art is expressing?” another student asked. “It could be that we see a painting and think it’s sad, but really the artist and the person in the painting were happy.”

Several students maintained that expression, color, a subject’s body language, etc. all suggest certain emotions. Some of us might see the painting as expressing an emotion that is different from the one the artist intended, which led some students to assert that really the emotion is in us, and not in the art.

“Art just triggers emotion,” one student declared, “but the emotion it triggers is in us and not in the art.”

This led us to a discussion about what makes something art. I wadded up a piece of paper and threw it onto a table. “What if I said this was a new work of art I’d just created?”

“Well,” one student responded, “that could be art if you were intending to express something.”

“Okay,” I answered, “so if I said this was my expression of how pointless life seemed, that would make this crumpled-up paper art?”

“Yes,” another student put in. “If you intended to express that, it could be art. But if I was doing my homework and crumpled up the paper I was working on because it was wrong and planned to throw it in the garbage, that wouldn’t be art.”

“So can anything be art?” I asked.

In both classes, most students seemed to think that yes, anything can be art, though some of it is “bad art.” What really matters, most suggested, is the intention of the artist.

When we came into the band room for the performance of John Cage’s piece, the students were, of course, expecting to hear a performance of a traditional music piece. They were, just as students with whom I did this last year were, completely respectful and quiet during the performance of the piece. When it ended, they applauded, and when I asked them what they had experienced, the students observed that the effect of the piece was very relaxing and peaceful. One student commented that they had all been kind of “noisy and jittery” when we all came into the room, and noted how calm and quiet the room had become. Others commented on the way that the piece had allowed them to listen to all the sounds in the room in a way they wouldn’t have otherwise. We talked about Cage’s intention that the piece be a “listening experience.” Is 4’ 33” music?

Some of the ideas that came out of this conversation included the claim that for something to be music, there must be a listener, that even one note can be music, and that silence can be a kind of music. We referred back to our earlier conversation about the centrality of the artist’s intention. Cage’s intention in creating 4’ 33”, to generate in listeners a greater openness to listening to all the sounds in the world, was decisive for most students in their conclusion that the piece counts as music. I wonder if this discussion leads the students to notice more the sounds in their lives, and to explore whether all or some of these sounds are music and what makes them so.

November

2009-11-22T13:54:00.000-08:00

During Wind and Rain

They sing their dearest songs--
He, she, all of them--yea,
Treble and tenor and bass.
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face....
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!

They clear the creeping moss--
Elders and juniors--aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white stormbirds wing across!

They are blithely breakfasting all--
Men and maidens--yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee....
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ripped from the wall.

They change to a high new house,
He, she, all of them--aye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the raindrop plows.

-- Thomas Hardy

November Birthdays

See November 2008 post

World Philosophy Day

2009-11-19T08:14:00.000-08:00

Introduced in 2002, World Philosophy Day, the third Thursday of November each year, is a celebration of philosophy that seeks to bring philosophy into the lives of people everywhere. The day is an initiative by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) that honors philosophical reflection internationally by bringing together people from around the world to explore a wide variety of issues.

This year the global celebration is taking place in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The theme is “Philosophy in the Dialogue of Cultures,” and the day is devoted to exploring issues related to dialogue between cultures. Many countries around the world actively promote and are engaged in this worldwide observance. World Philosophy Day is a recognition of the role of philosophy in establishing the conceptual foundation for the principles of justice, democracy, human rights and equality. People all around the world are encouraged to engage in philosophical reflection and dialogue. What a great day!

Women in Philosophy

2009-11-16T09:20:00.000-08:00

There has been an ongoing discussion on the Leiter Reports blog about the under-representation of women in academic philosophy. The speculations about the reasons for the dearth of female philosophers include the following possibilities: (1) that the way in which philosophers talk about our profession (using language about arguments, defending our positions, attacking our opponents’ assumptions, etc.) puts off women who tend to be less aggressive and competitive; (2) the perceived impracticability of philosophy and the lack of a clear path to a non-academic job; (3) the lack of female role models; and (4) the lack of a serious effort by the profession to reach out to women.

It continues to puzzle me why more women don’t study philosophy, though I tend to believe that the final two reasons above offer far more promising explanations than the first two. I’ve been thinking, though, about my own experience teaching pre-college students. Over the past ten years I’ve probably had a dozen or so experiences in which a student (anywhere from age 10-17) has told me, “I think I’d like to be a philosopher when I grow up.” And they have all, 100% of them, been girls. I’m not sure what that experience adds to this discussion, but it does at least give some weight to the idea that female role models make a difference.

Listening to Our Children

2009-11-11T13:05:00.000-08:00

Somewhat frequently I receive email messages or other communications from parents asking me about how to introduce philosophy into their conversations with their children. The main advice I give people is to listen for the philosophical questions kids ask. I don't believe that bringing philosophical dialogue into your relationships with your children is about teaching them philosophy and looking for opportunities to do so (as we do with, say, teaching kids to read or learn math facts). It is really much more about listening and developing an ear for recognizing kids' philosophical questions.

As parents, we are often quick to answer our kids' questions. (That's a big part of the job of parenting, after all!) And I think that really that’s the most significant impediment to talking about philosophy with our children. Parents are often uncomfortable having conversations with our kids in which we don’t have the answers, and not very skilled at picking up on those questions for which an answer from us is not really what is sought.

You don’t need to have taken any philosophy classes to start these conversations with your children. We all have philosophical questions. Who am I? Why is there something rather than nothing? What does it mean to live a good life? Why am I alive? What is time? And kids have these questions too. In my experience, when you open the door to a discussion about questions like this with your child, he will be eager to explore them with you.

Your child might ask, for example, “Why are people so mean?” Instead of talking about the reasons you think people can be mean, whatever they are, you might instead respond by saying, “What were you thinking about when you asked that?” or “Why do you think people are mean?” or “Do you think some people are mean people, or do they just do mean things? Why?” Now it might be that in this case, what your child really does want is an explanation from you about why some of the kids at school are picking on her. But maybe not.

Being open to picking up on when a question might be philosophical creates the possibility of talking about these larger, fundamental questions. It can add a new dimension to your relationship with your child to examine together questions for which neither of you have the answers, questions that continue to be profoundly mysterious. In these kinds of conversations you can inquire together in a way that allows for a kind of equal give-and-take that is not present in most aspects of the parent-child relationship, deepening your relationships with your children. I have found that years of these kinds of discussions with my own children, now all teenagers, have really helped to develop a strong foundation for what these days are often more personally challenging conversations.

Dreams and sleep

2009-11-03T08:37:00.000-08:00

This week the fifth grade students and I talked about dreams and sleep and the mysterious world of non-waking life. Our conversation, excerpted below, ranged from an exploration of dreams and nightmares and why they occur the way they do, to wondering about whether all of life is a dream or illusory in some way. We started by talking about the ways in which sleeping is different from being awake.

One student suggested that perhaps sleep is closer to death than being awake.

“Well,” another student responded, “I think that sleeping is more like unconsciousness than death. Sleeping is really not close to death. I mean, you have to sleep to live. If you don’t sleep, then you will be dead.”

“When you’re sleeping you dream, and when you’re unconscious you dream, but when you die you don’t dream,” offered a third student.

“How do we know that?” asked another. “Nobody knows unless they’re dead whether dead people dream or not. No one comes back after they’re dead and tells us that they dream or they don’t.”

“Whenever I have dreams,” one girl described, “my parents ask me what happened. They tell me that when you dream, your subconscious mind is telling you things that when you’re awake you don’t consider. I don’t think that when you sleep you’re close to being dead. Sleep is part of being alive.”

“I think that a part of your mind takes notes on everything you do, and these come out in your dreams. Dreams get you to deal with things in your life that maybe you are trying not to deal with.”

“So then you have to be thinking when you dream because your mind is working. Without thinking there would be no dreams,” declared a student.

We talked about whether the mind stops working at death, and whether you can ever stop your mind from working when you’re alive. We discussed why we dream, and why some dreams are nightmares, and whether we can ever control our dreams.

“I have a dream about Voldemort from Harry Potter,” one student said. “He’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and he rides a bike. He tries to get into our house. He climbs up the outside of the house and starts slamming on the doors, trying to find a way in. I’ve had this dream a few times. It scares me.”

“You can think about things during the day and keep yourself from dreaming about them at night,” suggested another student.

“I wonder if we are really a dream right now,” a boy asked.

“Sometimes,” a girl responded, “I think that maybe we’re all dolls being played with, like my sister playing with dolls. Like maybe there are people much bigger than us just playing with us, like we’re their dolls.”

Comments from Memphis High School Students

2009-10-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation recently with a colleague about the difference it makes, in his view, when students who have had philosophy in high school enroll in his undergraduate philosophy classes. He said that he almost always recognizes students who have studied philosophy in high school -- he observes deeper thinking about the questions explored in the class and an enhanced ability to write and reason well. We talked about the relative invisibility of philosophy in the United States, and the difference it would make if philosophy were a subject (like history) that all high school students studied, the way they do in many European and Latin American countries.

Soon after this discussion, students in a philosophy class taught by Michael Burroughs at Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis sent the following comments on to me, reminding me again of the value of philosophy from the students' points of view.

Aysahn Roach: "What is philosophy? To me philosophy is a class to have group discussions on different philosophers such as Aristotle and Socrates. Not only does this class cause debates, but it also helps us really get into the subjects that we are talking about, such as forgiveness. I would offer this class to anyone who is willing to learn or likes to debate about different subjects."

Robert Coats: "We discuss key points about life that I would never have thought of. This class allows me to think outside the box. Some topics we have discussed are: the good life, forgiveness, and destiny. We have discussed more but these topics really stick out to me. Other classmates seem to be really interested in these topics and engage in conversation on them. Listening to the thoughts of others and how they perceive a question really gets me thinking. I believe philosophy is not only beneficial to me, but also to the whole class."

October

2009-10-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats

October Birthdays

See October 2008 post

College Students in Seattle Schools

2009-10-19T09:48:00.001-07:00

We began our Philosophy for Children seminar at the University of Washington earlier this month, and this quarter we have 10 students going into 8 different classrooms, from 1st to 12th grade, in six different Seattle public schools. The students are facilitating philosophy sessions in our seminar to help them to get ready to do pre-college philosophy. This past week two students led our discussions of Arnold Lobel's story, "Dragons and Giants" (in Frog and Toad Together), and Plato's Ring of Gyges. Topics in our seminar range from ethics to aesthetics to philosophy of mind and language.

One of the things we talked about last week is the importance of letting the classroom discussions flow organically, and not trying to push an agenda. Our seminar discussion of the Ring of Gyges ranged widely, and was a good example of letting a philosophy conversation take its course in its own way. One of the most challenging aspects of doing pre-college philosophy, in my view, is letting go and not trying to control where the students take the discussion. Helping to keep it philosophically focused and making connections between what the students say is crucial, but it is equally crucial to allow the questions and topics of inquiry emerge from the students and not be imposed upon them.

Fifth Grade Questions

2009-10-06T08:38:00.000-07:00

I had a marvelous class with some fifth grade students yesterday. The first class of the year, we began by talking about what philosophy is and why anyone might be interested in it. I had planned that we would read part of chapter three of Mat Lipman's Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery and probably talk about thoughts and thinking, but this was one of those classes where flexibility was key! As we talked about philosophy generally, one student raised her hand and declared: "I have a question. Why do we work hard and worry about money and what we're going to do for work and food and shelter, when one day we're going to die? What's the point?" This set off a wealth of questions from the students, which included:

Why do we need money? Why don't we barter anymore?
What is time? Why do we measure it?
How did everything begin?
How is the earth so perfect for humans?
Why do we communicate by writing?
How did all these words get invented? Where did names come from?

I suggested that we vote on which question to begin discussing, and the far majority of votes went to, "How did everything begin?" We decided to start by reading part of chapter 13 of Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery, which raises this question and related issues nicely. After we read a few pages, the students started wondering about whether something can come from nothing. If the world began, there had to be nothing at some point, and so how could something have come from nothing? And yet, as several students noted, imagining it not beginning is really hard. Although, as one student pointed out, numbers don’t begin and end. Some students suggested that God created the world, but we observed that this still doesn’t solve the problem, because where did God come from?

We then circled back when another student commented, “I have two questions that I have thought about my whole life. What happens when you die? And what’s the point of living when one day you’re going to die?” One student responded that she thought that you live in order to have memories after you’re dead, in whatever place and form that occurs after death. Then a student who had been quiet raised his hand and said, “I think that we are an experiment for God. That God created humans to see what we would do, if we end up destroying the planet and ourselves or not. And if we do, God will create some other beings in some other place and see if they can do better.”

At this point we were out of time, and we agreed that we would begin next time with the question, “If all we know is that we live and then die, what’s the point?”

Justice at Harvard

2009-09-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

What's the right thing to do? Harvard professor Michael Sandel has been teaching a moral philosophy course at Harvard for almost 30 years, with 1,000 students at a time often taking his popular class. This class is now online and is also airing on many PBS stations for 12 weeks this fall. Taped in Harvard's Sanders Theater, using several cameras to include the student discussions that are central to Sandel's classes, the course explores questions about justice and the good life, as well as many difficult contemporary ethical issues.

Each hour-long segment includes two 30-minute classes. I think the classes would be helpful resources for talking about these questions with middle and high school students. Topics include "The Moral Side of Murder," "How to Measure Pleasure," "For Sale: Motherhood," and "A Lesson in Lying." The website devoted to the course offers episode summaries and discussion guides, as well as related readings for some of the episodes: http://justiceharvard.org/

A Wrinkle in Time

2009-09-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

I love this book. A science fiction young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time was first published in 1962 and has won all kinds of awards. In the engrossing story, packed with philosophical questions, three children travel through the universe by means of "tesseract," a fifth-dimensional phenomenon explained as being the square of the fourth dimension (like a space warp).

The novel provokes questions about the nature of space and time, the relationship between appearance and reality, essential versus contingent properties, the meanings of words, the relationship between equality and conformity, and the meaning of courage. It would be a marvelous book to read over a month or so with middle school students, with weekly discussion groups examining the philosophical issues raised in the book.

September

2009-09-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

The Railway Children

When we climbed the slopes of the cutting
We were eye-level with the white cups
Of the telegraph poles and the sizzling wires.

Like lovely freehand they curved for miles
East and miles west beyond us, sagging
Under their burden of swallows.

We were small and thought we knew nothing
Worth knowing. We thought words travelled the wires
In the shiny pouches of raindrops,

Each one seeded full with the light
Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, and ourselves
So infinitesimally scaled

We could stream through the eye of a needle.

Seamus Heaney

September Birthdays

September 5 Tommaso Campanella (Italian, born 1568)

September 8 Marin Mersenne (French, born 1588)

September 10 Charles Sanders Peirce (American, born 1839)

September 11 Theodor Adorno (German, born 1903)

September 13 Alain Locke (American, born 1886)

September 16 Henry St. John Bolingbroke (British, born 1678) and Pietro Pomponazzi (Italian, born 1462)

September 17 Marquis de Condorcet (French, born 1743)

September 26 Hans Reichenbach (German/American, born 1891) and Martin Heidegger (German, born 1889)

September 29 Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (Spanish, born 1864)

September 30 Ettiene Bonnot de Condillac (French, born 1715)

Philosophy and Learning

2009-09-14T08:35:00.000-07:00

Why do I do what I do? I've been doing philosophy in schools for almost 14 years now. At a conference in Memphis this past weekend about doing philosophy with young people, the participants suggested varied justifications for doing what we do. And I've been thinking since about the central reasons that I believe that philosophical inquiry with young people is important.

For me the heart of the issue is all about learning. I reflect back on my pre-college years, and I remember very little of what I "learned" in classrooms. For the most part, basic skills acquisition aside, I learned to memorize whatever it was I was required to know, and then rapidly forget it after the test.

What I do remember are the moments of new understanding, when something that was puzzling or interesting to me suddenly became clearer. Those moments emerged in the (what I remember as rare) instances in which I was actively participating in thinking about whatever was being taught. When what we were doing in the classroom was examining some event or idea or concept, and not just being told what it meant. That moment of clarity, when learning comes alive, when a new connection is made or a new way of thinking illuminated. For me that is what doing pre-college philosophy is all about. Because by definition philosophy involves exploring the meaning of unsettled questions and concepts, philosophical inquiry is especially capable of generating such transformative moments. And it is in those moments, I think, that real and deep learning really happens.

High School Philosophy Classes

2009-09-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

There is lots of exciting work in philosophy going on in high school classrooms around the country! Here are two public high school philosophy classes about which I’ve recently learned:

In Memphis, Michael Burroughs, a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Memphis, is teaching a philosophy class at Booker T. Washington High School. So far the class has been exploring questions concerning what constitutes the good life and questions about the nature of justice. The class has organized a blog about their work -- http://www.blogphilos.blogspot.com/.

And in San Diego, Josh Cottrell, a high school teacher, is teaching the first philosophy class ever offered in the Poway Unified School district. “Critical Thinking: Philosophy in Literature” is a thematic approach to philosophy, augmented with poetry, prose, visual art and film, covering epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and some metaphysics. Josh reports that “the students are totally engaged. In fact, I'm stunned at their engagement. These kids (juniors and seniors) are taking this class as an elective and earning UC "g" credit for the course. This class is not required, and in fact is more work than many of their required academic classes. Yet, I'm finding that they are not only doing the readings, but annotating their readings like graduate students! I've rarely seen that kind of work ethic in my honors and AP students.”

One of the challenges of doing philosophy with pre-college students is the isolation that many people engaged in this work experience. Often I hear from, especially, high school teachers who are teaching the lone philosophy class in their districts and have no one with whom to communicate about what's going on in their classrooms. The Pre-College Philosophy Committee of the American Philosophical Association (APA) is trying to address this issue by developing a new national organization, PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization), that will provide resource-sharing and support to K-12 philosophy teachers around the country.

The Truman Show

2009-09-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

The Truman Show, by director Peter Weir, is a film about Truman Burbank, who is adopted at birth by a television network to be the star of a reality television show. Truman grows up unaware that his whole life is a staged television show, available 24 hours a day to viewers, and that everyone in his life is an actor, including his wife.

The film raises many philosophical questions, including questions about ethics, free will and determinism, the nature of truth, and the relationship between appearance and reality. It’s a provocative film for discussing these issues with middle and high school students. Some questions it raises are:

Is Truman’s life real?
Is “The Truman Show” morally acceptable?
Do we “accept the reality of the world with which we’ve been presented,” as the creator of “The Truman Show” asserts?
Does anyone know Truman?
Is creating a “perfect world” and imposing it on someone morally permissible? What would be the benefits of living in the safe, constructed world of “The Truman Show?”
Is there more truth in the world than in “The Truman Show?”

Harry Potter

2009-08-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

Over the past two weeks I've been re-reading the seven Harry Potter novels. A lovely way to spend long summer afternoons.

I've been thinking how much fun it would be to teach a year-long course that involved reading and talking about all of the novels, perhaps to fifth or sixth grade students. The stories are so full of philosophical suggestiveness. It would be interesting to teach them together with an English teacher, and read the novel from both literary and philosophical perspectives.

As I read the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I created a list of some of the philosophical questions that occurred to me as I read:

The "Mirror of Erised" is a mystical mirror that shows the “deepest and most desperate desires of our hearts.” What do you think you would see looking into the mirror? Would the mirror be able to tell you something you don’t know? If you are not sure of the “deepest desire of your heart,” can it be really be your deepest desire?

What does it mean to trust other people? What must be true for us to say we “trust someone?” Can we ever trust someone completely? What would that mean?

Is bravery the absence of fear? Is it action despite fear? Is courage an act or a quality of a person? What does it entail?

What are the obligations of friendship? Do they vary based on circumstances? If so, what circumstances?

“Horcruxes” are objects used to split a person’s soul and thus seek immortality. There is a comment in the novel that for Voldemort, splitting his soul is the same as splitting his mind. What does this mean? Are the soul and the mind the same thing, or only for Voldemort (and if so, how would that work)? What are the soul and the mind?

How do you prove something is not real?

If something is happening to you, is it real?

August

2009-08-11T11:22:00.000-07:00

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of Eye –
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –

Emily Dickinson

August Birthdays

August 6 Nicolas Malebranche (French, born 1638)

August 7 Nelson Goodman (American, born 1906)

August 10 Jean-Francois Lyotard (French, born 1924)

August 16 Catherine Trotter Cockburne (British, born 1679)

August 19 Gilbert Ryle (British, born 1900)

August 20 Paul Tillich (German-American, born 1886)

August 22 Max Scheler (German, born 1874)

August 23 Jakob Friedrich Fries (German, born 1773)

August 25 Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann (German, born 1775) and Johann Gottfried von Herder (German, born 1744)

August 27 Johann Georg Hamann (German, born 1730) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (German, born 1770)

August 29 John Locke (British, born 1632)

And the Pursuit of Happiness

2009-08-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

Maira Kalman writes a wonderful illustrated New York Times blog, "And the Pursuit of Happiness," about American democracy, with a new post on the last Friday of every month. In March she wrote "So Moved," about tolerance, the democratic process, civility and compromise. It is a marvelous piece to use to broach these issues with high school students.

Online Philosophy for Children course

2009-07-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

The Institute for the Advancement for Philosophy for Children, in Montclair, New Jersey, is offering a fall online class on "Teaching Children Philosophical Thinking." Here is the description of the class:

This innovative course prepares teachers and philosophers to facilitate philosophical dialogue with children and adolescents, in classroom settings and elsewhere. The course is suitable for both beginners and those who wish to build on their current practice and extend their knowledge. Participants will study the theory of Philosophy for Children, engage in an online philosophical community of inquiry, and experiment with Philosophy for Children practices in their own classrooms.

I do not have any experience with the IAPC online courses, but I have attended IAPC seminars in New Jersey in the past and they were marvelous and very inspiring.

More information about the online course can be found on the IAPC website at: http://frontpage.montclair.edu/iapc/OnlineCourseFlyer.htm

Solar Eclipse

2009-07-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

Nothing there is beyond hope, nothing that can be sworn impossible, nothing wonderful, since Zeus, father of the Olympians, made night from mid-day, hiding the light of the shining Sun, and sore fear came upon men.
Archilochus (description of the total solar eclipse of April 6, 648 BCE)

A complete solar eclipse will take place Wednesday morning (July 22) that will last for six minutes and 39 seconds, the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century. Those of not in the far East will be able to watch live webcasts of the event (information at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/20jul_longestsolareclipse.htm?list3658).

There won't be another eclipse like this in the lifetime of anyone now living. And those 12 decades just a blip in cosmic time. A wonderful inspiration for discussions about the nature of time and the wonder of the universe with students.

July

2009-07-07T09:53:00.000-07:00

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

Jane Kenyon

July Birthdays

July 1 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (German, born 1646)

July 12 Henry David Thoreau (American, born 1817)

July 15 Jacques Derrida (Algerian-French, born 1930) and Richard Cumberland (British, born 1631)

July 17 Alexius Meinong (Austrian, born 1853)

July 18 Immanuel Fichte (German, born 1797) and Thomas Kuhn (American, born 1922)

July 19 Herbert Marcuse (German, born 1898)

July 28 Ernst Cassirer (German, born 1874), Ludwig Feuerbach (German, born 1804), and Karl Popper (Austrian-British, born 1902)

July 29 Jean Baudrillard (French, born 1929)

July 31 Hilary Putnam (American, born 1926) and John Searle (American, born 1932)

Stormy Night

2009-07-01T10:12:00.000-07:00

I have used Michele Lemieux's book Stormy Night in elementary school philosophy classes. It’s a great resource for an introductory session to help the students start to recognize philosophical questions and to think about the questions they have.

Stormy Night is wonderfully illustrated with black and white line drawings. It starts off with a young girl going to bed. Kept awake by a storm, she lies there, thinking, “I can’t sleep! Too many questions are buzzing through my head.” All of us, including children, know this feeling.

The remainder of the book is filled with this young girl's questions and her thoughts about life and death, and their illustrations. “Where does infinity end?” “Is there only one of me in the world?” “Will I always make the right decisions? And how will I know if they’re right?” “Will I know when it’s time to die?”

25 Philosophers

2009-06-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

This is a nice, accessible resource for high school students: http://onlinecollegedegree.org/2009/05/04/25-timeless-insightful-philosophers-for-your-personal-development/. It lists 25 philosophers, from Confucius through Descartes and Kant to Mary Midgley and Foucault, and gives a short synoposis about each of them.

June

2009-06-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

ochikochi ni taki no otokiku wakaba kana

fresh young leaves –
the sound of a waterfall
both far and near

Yosa Buson

June Birthdays

June 5 Charles Hartshorne (American, born 1897) and Adam Smith (Scottish, born 1723)

June 6 Isaiah Berlin (British, born 1909)

June 9 Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (Russian, born 1829)

June 14 Bernard Bosanquet (British, born 1848)

June 18 Jurgen Habermas (German, born 1929)

June 19 Blaise Pascal (French, born 1623)

June 21 Jean-Paul Sartre (French, born 1905) and Anthony Collins (British, born 1676)

June 23 Alan Turing (British, born 1912) and Giambattista Vico (Italian, born 1668)

June 24 Julia Kristeva (Bulgarian-French, born 1941)

June 25 Willard Van Orman Quine (American, born 1908)

June 27 Emma Goldman (Lithuanian-American, born 1869)

June 28 Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French, born 1712)

The Little Book of Thunks

2009-06-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

Thunk: "a beguiling simple-looking question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks and helps you start to look at the world in a whole new light."

The Little Book of Thunks is a wonderful resource for talking about philosophy in a classroom or with your own children. About the first quarter of the book discusses philosophy sessions with young people -- how you can do them and why you should. The little book (and it is little, only 90-odd pages) then lists 260 thunks. For example:

Can you have a friend you don't like?
Which is more important, being right or being nice?
Does a sound exist?
If you could take a pill that meant you would never fail, would you?
Can you touch the wind?
If I acquire your memory who am I then?
When you comb your hair, is it art?
Can a fly see a skyscraper?
Can you have a third of love?
Why don't dogs laugh? Is it because they don't have a sense of humor?

College Students in Pre-College Classrooms: Philosophy Books and Other Ideas

2009-06-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

Thursday was our last seminar session at UW for the spring. Through this class, twelve college students introduced philosophy into public school classrooms around Seattle over the quarter. The seminar included students majoring in philosophy and education.

On Thursday the seminar students presented the lesson plans they had implemented in the classrooms in which they had been working. The philosophy sessions they had led ranged from discussions about how we know what we know in a second/third grade classroom to a fourth grade class questioning the nature of friendship to explorations of identity with fifth grade students to a dialogue about the nature of good and evil in a high school classroom.

One pair of students who worked with second and third graders came up the idea of doing a book-making activity, in which the children created their own “philosophy books” using paper, scissors, and pens. The books had pages designated for the following questions, which the class discussed and the students filled in as the discussion ensued:

What is philosophy?
How do you know what you know?
An original philosophy question, which the children drew and/or wrote. The students ended up asking questions such as “Are there dragons? and “Are aliens real?” and “What is the meaning of time?”

Most of the college students had rewarding experiences bringing philosophy into pre-college classrooms, and the teachers with whom they worked really enjoyed the opportunity to have their students introduced to philosophy. One seminar student wrote, “After taking this course, I discovered that if I become a teacher, I want to be a teacher who produces excitement in her students. I’d want my future students to know what philosophy is and to appreciate the wonder that arises in thinking as a philosopher. I’d want them to go about their classes and their lives with this kind of thought."

May

2009-05-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Li-Young Lee

May Birthdays

May 3 Niccolo Machiavelli (Italian, born 1469)
May 5 Soren Kierkegaard (Danish, born 1813) and Karl Marx (German, born 1818)
May 7 David Hume (British, born 1711)
May 9 Jose Ortega y Gasset (Spanish, born 1883)
May 18 Joseph Butler (British, born 1692), Rudolf Carnap (German, born 1891), and Bertrand Russell (British, born 1872)
May 19 Johann Gottlieb Fichte (German, born 1762)
May 20 John Stuart Mill (British, born 1806) and Wilfrid Sellars (American, born 1912)
May 21 Rudolph Hermann Lotze (German, born 1817)
May 23 Sarah Margaret Fuller (American, born 1810)
May 24 William Whewell (British, born 1794)
May 25 Ralph Waldo Emerson (American, born 1803)
May 30 Mikhael Bakunin (Russian, born 1814)
May 31 Henry Sidgwick (British, born 1838)

Philosophy in the Classroom

2009-05-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

This week and next students in our Philosophy for Children seminar at the University of Washington will be doing philosophy lessons in a variety of public school classrooms around Seattle, from 5th through 10th grade. We have been meeting for seven weeks now, and in the seminar we've discussed topics ranging from the nature of the mind to identity to free will. In each class, we spend some time talking about the students' experiences in their pre-college classrooms, and then spend most of the remaining time doing a philosophy lesson that can be done in a K-12 classroom. The seminar students are from around the university and include philosophy majors, education students, and others. It's gratifying to see college students excited about introducing philosophy to pre-college students!

Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust: Blog Series Part VII

2009-05-11T15:05:00.001-07:00

Can one person make a difference?

The last class for the Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust unit involves watching the film Not in Our Town, which describes a series of hate crimes that took place in Billings, Montana, in the 1990s, and the town's reaction to these events. The people in the town really came together and fought back, and the film illustrates what can happen when people speak out against activities they believe are wrong.

After the film, we broke up into small groups and talked about the film, and then the students responded to two questions: What would you most like to change about school? What could you do to change this? I asked each student to answer these questions, and then each group picked one or two ideas that they wanted to see implemented.

When we came back together, we got up on the board the list of changes the students desired, which included:

More time to do things other than school or school sports, so a shorter school day or less homework
Better school lunches
Students treating one another better
Less favoritism on the part of teachers
More individualized choices about classes, so that students could design what they study based on their interests and goals
More choices for sports

The next day, we talked about all of the ideas that had emerged from the groups, spending over an hour discussing the reasons the students thought these changes were needed and how they might approach making them happen. It was exciting to see how engaged and energized many of the students were in thinking about these issues. They chose two that they would like to work on as a group: better school lunches and more time outside of school.

We talked about the importance of creating a plan and thinking through exactly what they wanted, and about how much power they had to make change. Students often seem to think that here they are, locked in a situation (school) over which they have little control, and though they complain a lot, they don't seem to try very hard to make anything in school better. We talked about how empowering it can be to work together to make change happen and about recognizing that what you think and say and do matter.

Postscript: The language arts teacher, Jane Orme, told me today that the students began working on a survey about school lunches to distribute to all of the students in the school, and are on their way to trying to improve the situation.

Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust: Blog Series Part VI

2009-05-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

Why did some people become rescuers during the Holocaust? What makes some people, despite the risks, act to prevent moral wrongs? Is being a bystander morally wrong?

In this class we see the film The Courage to Care, involving profiles of individuals during the Third Reich who helped protect Jews in France, Holland and Poland. The film raises questions about what motivated rescuers to assist victims in Nazi-occupied Europe and the moral dilemmas non-Jews confronted when deciding to engage in rescue work.

Most of the people interviewed in the film note that the decision to help really wasn’t a well-considered decision, but a split-second choice to act. They “had to do it,” the rescuers say. We talked in this class about how many moral choices are made in a moment, and what you choose is really based on the kind of person you have been up until that point.

We discussed the people who didn’t help, the vast majority who were bystanders, and examined whether that behavior is wrong. When you see someone being bullied in the hallway, should you help? Do you balance the risk to you against what difference you might make? Many students commented that most of the rescuers seemed to be single people, without families and children whom they would have put at risk. It seemed to them to make a difference if you were just risking harm to yourself only, or if you taking a risk that could affect others as well.

We talked about courage and what it means. Did the rescuers have more courage than people who did not help? Several students made the point that the rescuers were people who were thrust into circumstances where they had the chance to help, whereas many others might not have been given so clear a choice. One of the men interviewed in the film describes moving all around Europe as a Jewish teenager, hiding from the Nazis, and all the people who helped him in small ways (giving him shelter for a night, pretending to know him when asked by police, etc.). Many such small acts likely remain unknown and unpublicized, yet lives were saved because of them.

Are most people bystanders? When students see bullying in the hallway, most do not do anything. Why? We discussed the complex reasons people are bystanders, and how some people become the kinds of people who are not. President Obama said recently, in the context of a Holocaust memorial, that “no one can make us bystanders without our consent.” If our moral choices to help are often made without time to think, it seems that we consent to become bystanders long before those choices are before us.

Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust: Blog Series Part V

2009-04-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

In this class we view the film Heil Hitler: Confessions of a Hitler Youth. The film is an interview with Alfons Heck, who describes his childhood experiences as a member of the Hitler Youth and his rise to prominence as a leader in the organization, and then his shame and revulsion as he realized after the war the full extent of the horror to which he had contributed.

Heck discusses the indoctrination he underwent as a child, describing hearing Hitler over the radio from the age of 5 and noting that "we swallowed our daily dose of nationalistic instruction as naturally as our morning milk." He speaks candidly about the Jewish neighbors and friends he had known and liked as a child, and his eventual "total indifference to their fate" as he watched them being deported, after years of accepting the propaganda taught in school and elsewhere that characterized all Jewish people as enemies of Germany.

In our small groups and the larger discussion that follows, we talk about the forces that attracted children to the Hitler Youth and whether there are group pressures similar to those of the Hitler Youth in today's society. We discuss responsibility and Heck's statement that, as a contributor to the Nazi effort, he too was "guilty of the crime of mass murder." Is he guilty of mass murder when, as one student put it, he "had been taught by everyone in his life since he was a little boy that fighting for Germany and getting rid of all Germany's Jews was the right thing to do?"

One student this week commented that since everyone was taught that the Jewish people were inferior, they were not wrong to act in accordance with that belief. But not all people did so. What about the people who did question the Nazi doctrine? We analyzed whether the children who joined the Hitler Youth were making a choice, or whether there was no meaningful choice within the context of their lives at the time.

We also spent a long time examining the question of forgiveness, whether Heck should forgive himself and what such forgiveness would mean. Does forgiveness entail forgetting? Exoneration? One student noted that Heck had spent much of his life in a kind of atonement for his actions as a member of the Hitler Youth. Does this then entitle him to forgiveness? From himself? From others?

Stellaluna

2009-04-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

The picture book Stellaluna, by Janell Cannon, is a wonderful book for inspiring discussions about what makes something what it is and about friendship. It tells the story of a young fruit bat who becomes separated from her mother and lands in a nest of baby birds, becoming an adoptive member of the bird family. The baby bat learns to act like a baby bird and struggles to accommodate herself to the family, but she never completely fits in. Eventually she is able to regain her identity as a bat, and she and her bird friends wonder together about friendship and being alike and different at the same time.

The following are some questions that can be used to discuss this story in a classroom or other group setting or just with your own children:

WHAT MAKES A . . .
Duck a duck?
Cat a cat?
Human being a human being?
Animal an animal?
Bird a bird?
Smile a smile?
Feeling a feeling?
Thought a thought?

COULD A . . . AND HOW DO YOU KNOW?
A duck catch mice?
A bat write a letter?
A television eat grass?
A person fly?
A dog purr?
A teddy bear talk?
A person turn into a lion?
A painter plant a garden?
A child drive a car?
A doctor play the piano?
A book talk to you?

ONE THING BECOMING ANOTHER
What makes a child become an adult?
Is an adult the same person he or she was as a child?
Can an animal ever become a person?

FRIENDSHIP
Can you be friends with any of the following?
The moon.
A car.
A stone.
A pair of shoes.
A book.
A movie.
A cat.
A plant.
A house.
A piece of land.
An idea.
A dream.
A painting.
A tree.
A parent.

If someone is a friend, is the following true?
I spend time with him or her a lot.
I talk to him or her a lot.
We share thoughts with each other.
We share feelings with each other.
I like him or her.
I want to be near him or her.
We help each other.
The person thinks that I am his or her friend.

Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust: Blog Series Part IV

2009-04-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

Why do people obey authority even when they sense that what they're doing is wrong? Central to the conditions that allowed the Holocaust to occur was people's tendencies to conform to the situations in which they find themselves.

In this class we watch a clip from the film Obedience, which documents the Milgram experiments. In the 1960s Stanley Milgram, a professor at Yale University, decided to create an experiment to see how far people would go in situations in which they are ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim. Milgram wanted to see when a person would refuse to obey the experimenter.

The subjects of these experiments were told that the experiments were testing how learning is affected by punishment. Labeled the “teacher,” the subject watched as the “learner” (who, unknown to the "teacher," was part of Milgram's team) was strapped into a chair with an electrode attached to each wrist. The “learner” was then told to memorize word pairs for a test and warned that wrong answers would result in electric shocks. Each teacher was taken to a separate room and seated before a “shock generator” with switches ranging from 15 volts labeled “slight shock” to 450 volts labeled “danger – severe shock.” Each “teacher” was told to administer a “shock” for each wrong answer, with shocks increasing by fifteen volts every time the “learner” responded incorrectly. The shocks were not real, but the “teachers” thought they were.

Before the experiment began, Milgram imagined that most volunteer subjects would refuse to give electric shocks of more than 150 volts, the point at which the learner starts to yell and complain of heart pain. A group of psychologists and psychiatrists predicted that slightly more than one-tenth of 1 percent of the volunteers (so 1 out of 1,000 people) would administer all 450 volts. However, more than 80% of people continued to administer shocks after reaching 150 volts, and more than 50% of the “teachers” gave the full 450 volts!

This film is always a surprise for most of the students. They are surprised by the numbers of people who obey the experimenter, even when it is clear that the subjects are troubled by what they are doing. We had small group discussions for about 20 minutes after the film, and then came back together for a large group discussion. The students were interested in examining the question of responsibility, and what responsibility the person who is inflicting the pain bears versus the responsibility of the person ordering the acts. They quickly made the connection to the Holocaust and all of the people who did not defy the edicts of the Hitler and the Nazis. We talked about whether a person is ever morally obligated to defy authority, and what it is about human beings that results in such widespread conformity.

Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust: Blog Series Part III

2009-04-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

When Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, Jane Elliott, a third grade teacher in Iowa, decided to implement an exercise in her classroom to help her students understand racism and discrimination. She divided the class into students with brown eyes and students with blue eyes, and spent one day discriminating against the brown-eyed students and the next discriminating against the blue-eyed students. In 1970, when she did this exercise for the third year, it was filmed by PBS. In the film A Class Divided, the students in the 1970 film reunite 14 years later to watch the film and discuss the effect of the exercise on their lives.

Watching the exercise unfold in the third grade class in 1970, it is striking how quickly the students who are labeled as the “superior group” for the day take to discriminating against their peers. In a very short time, Jane Elliott created an enormous gulf in her class. The exercise powerfully demonstrates the effect of the “us and them” mentality on a community.

This week is the first class in the “Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust” unit in which the community volunteers who have been recruited and trained for this unit participate. The film is always compelling for the students. After viewing it, we break up into nine small groups, each with 4 or 5 students and an adult , and spend about a half hour discussing the features of the film that surprised the students, whether it is natural for human beings to discriminate and when that is acceptable and when it isn’t, and the nature of community. Then the whole group comes back together and we talk for another 20 minutes or so about the film and the students’ reactions to it.

The students generally are surprised by how quickly the third graders start to discriminate, even against children who had been their closest friends the previous hour. One student said that she thought that we should do this exercise in their grade. When I asked the group what they thought about the idea, some thought it would be less effective with older students because, one student contended, “the older you get the less influenced you are by what your teachers tell you.” Many of the students, though, thought that this could be very successful in the 8th grade. Several students suggested that the biggest challenge would be getting some of the students’ parents to permit this to take place.

“Yeah, I was really surprised that this teacher could do this exercise year after year and no parent objected!” remarked one student. “I don’t think that would happen today.”

We talked for a little while about the differences in the way parents interact with the school system today, as opposed to almost forty years ago. Then one of the students commented, “I don’t think there’s really any racism in our school. I’m not sure we would need this exercise.”

“I disagree. I think there’s plenty of racism here. All you need to do is go out in the hall and listen,” responded another student.

“I think that there are all kinds of discrimination,” reflected a student. “People get into groups here and judge each other. Like in the lunchroom, where you sit and who you sit with makes a difference.”

Reflecting about what constitutes discrimination and whether it is always wrong, whether communities are necessarily exclusive, and how easily people can accept a situation that puts them into a position of superiority over others, starts the students thinking about how an event like the Holocaust could happen. As part of this unit, the students are reading Daniel’s Story by Carol Matas, a novel about a Jewish family in Nazi Germany. Next week we will examine further questions about the forces the influence people’s moral choices, looking at the nature of conformity and obedience to authority.

Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust -- Blog Series Part II

2009-04-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

This morning I taught the second class of the "Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust" unit to two eighth grade classes. This class is an introduction to moral philosophy, a way to give the students some background before we launch into the issues raised by the Holocaust. We began by talking about Plato's Ring of Gyges story. I asked the class what they would do if they had a ring that allowed them to become invisible, and whether they thought Plato was right that there would be no difference between what a morally good person would do and what a person who was not morally good would do.

Most of the students seemed to think that although many people might do things they wouldn't do otherwise if they knew there would be no consequences, they thought that there would be differences among what people would do. One student noted that she would never kill anyone, no matter what, because her conscience wouldn't let her and she knew if she did, she'd be wracked with guilt for the rest of her life. Other students mentioned rules against killing and stealing, for example, that were so ingrained into their thinking that they couldn't imagine violating those rules.

I gave the students a problem to consider: You have a friend and you know this friend has been robbing houses and using the money for himself. You are worried about him, feel badly about the people from whom he has stolen, and you are trying to decide what to do. Should you tell someone?

The students felt very strongly about this scenario, in widely varied ways. One student said that no matter what, “you don’t rat out your friends.” Another student argued that you also have some obligation to help the people being robbed, because what would the community be like if no one helped other people? Others thought that you needed to look at what would happen if you told: your friend would end up in juvenile prison, your friendship would be over, and other students would dislike you for telling on your friend, versus people’s homes no longer being robbed and your feelings of feel relief about that.

I pointed out to them that they were using several perspectives that philosophers talk about when analyzing moral issues. Most of the time, we tend to look at moral questions through a particular lens, whether it be rules-based, an examination of the likely consequences of our moral choices, our intuition or conscience telling us what is right, etc. What can be helpful about moral philosophy is that it can help us to widen the lens through which we view moral problems, and help us to make better moral decisions.

“But you can’t judge someone else’s moral choice!” one student declared. “Everyone has the right to make their own decisions, and you can’t really say that those decisions are good or bad.”

“But aren’t some decisions better than others?” I asked. “For example, if I was walking by a pond with water no deeper than my waist, and I saw a toddler drowning, and I decided not to wade in and lift the child out of the water because I didn’t want to get my jeans wet, wouldn’t you be correct in saying I made a poor moral decision?”

“No!” the student insisted. “I could say you did a nice thing if you saved the child, but I couldn’t say you were obligated to do that.”

This resulted in a very lively discussion about what moral obligations we might have, and where they come from, and if they always apply. Do we have obligations to help other people? We talked about bullying in the hallways and whether students have an obligation to intervene, and whether being a bystander is morally acceptable. What is the right balance between our obligations to ourselves and our obligations to others?

Philosophy? It's so difficult!

2009-04-08T05:16:00.000-07:00

Created by 5th grade students

Methow Valley Elementary School

Winthrop, Washington

I was reflecting this morning about a conversation I had last week, in which I was asked by an acquaintance about my work. Her response to what I do was, "Philosophy? I took one philosophy class in college, but it was so difficult!" I've been thinking about this because it is so typical of the response I get when I tell people what I do, but it is not at all the response my pre-college students have, and it is not the response I think they will ever have.

Most of the K-12 students I've worked with are really comfortable with philosophy after several classes (not all of the students take to it, of course, but I don't think any of them feel intimidated by the discipline). I think back to my introduction to philosophy. I was lucky enough, in a public high school, to have the opportunity to take a philosophy class, and it is what inspired me to study philosophy in college. And after all my years of studying philosophy, the foundational affection I have for the discipline is still rooted, I think, in that high school class and its emphasis on exploring the big mysteries of life with which philosophy began.

I guess this is one of the main reasons I think it matters that students get introduced to philosophy earlier in life than college. College philosophy classes are taught in a certain way, and the emphasis on the history of philosophy and learning the arguments philosophers make in support of one view or another can be both intimidating and mystifying if you haven't already developed an interest in the questions themselves. Many college students do embrace philosophy after an introductory college class, but many more take one class and that's it, or are never introduced to philosophy at all. My hope is that many of the students I've taught over the years will take philosophy classes in college because the students have been thinking about the questions and have become interested in what philosophers have to say about them!