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.
Monday, November 29, 2010
The Thief
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.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Philosophy Talk and Fourth Grade Philosophers
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
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
The Cricket in Times Square
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.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Double Trouble
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.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Happiness at 10
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 said, "I think it's your attitude about life that's most important 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.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Meaning in Education
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Plato with Fourth Graders
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?
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Philosophical Sensitivity
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Why do we go to school?
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
When You Reach Me
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Frederick
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!
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
How much philosophy does a pre-college philosophy teacher need to know?
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.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
What is a child?
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?
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children Grant and Summer Workshop
Friday, April 23, 2010
New York Times article on doing philosophy with children
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Developing a philosophical self
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.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
PLATO
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!
Monday, March 29, 2010
Time, nothingness and imagination
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.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Hotel Rwanda

Monday, March 15, 2010
Really, Really BIG Questions

Tuesday, March 2, 2010
When does morality begin?
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Ethics of Stealing
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!
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Phantom Tollbooth

Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Experience Machine
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
What is normal?
