World Poetry Day 2016

UNESCO marks World Poetry Day every year on the 21st March.

In celebrating World Poetry Day UNESCO recognises the unique ability of poetry to capture the creative spirit of the human mind.

The Philosophy Foundation use poetry to explore philosophy, and philosophy to explore poetry.

“As the weeks have progressed I have noticed real improvements in regards to how the children respond to one another when they disagree and the quieter children are really beginning to ‘find their voices’. One particular child who finds writing a real struggle due to language barriers was so inspired following a poetry session that he sat and wrote a mainly phonetically correct poem of his own!”

Louise Toner, Year 2 Class Teacher, Crawford Primary School

 

For this World Poetry Day, download and use this free resource taken from one of our multi-award winning books The Philosophy Shop, to get your children writing some philosophical poetry of their own.

Philosophical Poetry

(This extract is taken from The Philosophy Shop © 2012 Peter Worley and Crown House Publishing)

And, from March 14th until April 30th take advantage of a special offer from Crown House Publishing to purchase any of our titles!

The Philosophy Foundation Series:

The Philosophy Shop: ideas, activities and questions to get people, young and old, thinking philosophically £25.00

Thoughtings: puzzles, problems and paradoxes in poetry to think with £14.99

The Numberverse: how numbers are bursting out of everything and just want to have fun £14.99

Provocations: philosophy for secondary schools £14.99

Buy any two titles from the Series at a 25% discount

Buy the complete series at a 50% discount.

Start Date: 14th March 2016

Expiry date 30th April 2016.

To take advantage of this offer contact Crown House Publishing at learn@crownhouse.co.uk or telephone 01267 211 345

Write a #Shorting for National Poetry Day and Win Books

Win a copy of ’40 Lessons to Get Children Thinking’ or the award-winning ‘Thoughtings’.

‘This collection of poems is very, very irritating. It’s irritating like having toast crumbs in your bed. It’s irritating like having toast crumbs in your brain… getting toast crumbs out of your bed is fun. They jump up and down. Some of them refuse to be swept out. Some of them find new places to hide. Some invite you to nibble them. Getting toast crumbs out of your mind is just like that too.’

– Michael Rosen, from his foreword to Thoughtings by Andrew Day and Peter Worley

For National Poetry Day 2015 Andrew and Peter would like to invite you, and your classes, to write a Shorting (a short Thoughting). Tweet your short ‘poem for thinking’ with the hashtag #Shorting and we’ll gather them together and post them all here after National Poetry Day.

This competition is open to adults and young people (under 18) . The teacher (or parent, or interested adult) prize will be a copy of Peter’s new book 40 Lessons to Get Children Thinking and the under 18 prize, a copy of Thoughtings.

Need inspiration on poetry in the classroom? Download Thought Adventure Number 8, Is This a Poem? from 40 Lessons, on The Philosophy Foundation’s website.

What’s a Thoughting?

Thoughtings: poems for thinking

In 2012 Andrew Day and Peter Worley wrote a book called Thoughtings: Puzzles, problems and paradoxes in poetry to think with (Awarded Teach Primary Magazine’s ‘Best Teaching Book’ 2014) to use in classrooms to stimulate philosophy sessions. Michael Rosen, who wrote the foreword (or forward!) for Thoughtings recommends it in his book for parents Good Ideas (2014). The title for Thoughtings was coined by a 6-year-old who was asked to say what thinking is without saying the word ‘think’ or ‘thinking’ in his answer; he said, ‘It’s when you’re thoughting’. There are free downloadable Thoughtings for you to use National Poetry Day on our website.

40 Lessons to Get Children Thinking, Philosophical thought adventures across the curriculum

What’s a Shorting?

In Peter Worley’s new book 40 lesson to get children thinking (out in October 2015) he has a chapter called ‘Is This A Poem?’ to help classes think through what poems are (and what they’re not). In the chapter he introduces the idea of a ‘Shorting’, a Thoughting for the Twitter generation: a ‘poem for thinking’ in 130 characters or less (to make space for the hashtag)! Here are some Shortings by Andrew and Peter:

Nospacetothinkmakesnosense. Space to think makes sense. B ut notw hen thes p ace s a r ei nthew ron gp lac e s.

I’ve got 140 characters I can play. Which one shall I be today? Let’s see what other people do and what they make me say.

Deciding is taking a scalpel and making a clean incision, cutting away the alternatives every time you make a decision.

Over to you! 

Write your shorting, post on twitter with the #shorting, or if you’re not on twitter send it to us via email info@philosophy-foundation.org

Thoughtings (plus more free poetry resources) on our site.

40 Lessons to Get Children Thinking will be available in October, available for pre-order now.

For more on our work on philosophy in schools and with children visit our website www.philosophy-foundation.org

Tales from the Nursery

By Steve Hoggins

I have been doing philosophy with nursery children for the last couple of years (having previously worked as a nursery teacher) and I have noticed some differences between doing philosophy with them and doing philosophy with older children, which I’d like to share.

Get their attention

The first significant difference is that nursery children aren’t regimented into a formal lesson structure. Their activities are child-centred and free flow. As an approach to education there is much to admire here but for our slot of 15 minutes we don’t have the luxury of waiting for opportunities to do philosophy. However, nursery children rarely sit down with the express purpose of following your lesson plan. To overcome this problem I have had to try and make ‘following my plan’ the most interesting thing for them to do. Partly this is achieved through your selection of resources, choice of games etc. but I think one key element is having an infectious enthusiasm yourself. Try stepping into nursery with a pillowcase thrown over your shoulder, a cardboard crown on your head and proclaim “Quick! The story of the Unhappy prince is about to begin!”.

Engagement. Engagement. Engagement. During the beginning, middle and end of the lesson and in the most immediate way, that is to say make them interact with you, their story-teller, narrator, problem-setter or puppeteer. Then you have them and the ground is fertile for you to plant the philosophical problem. However, engagement doesn’t always come easy.

I was being observed when, mid-way through telling a story, one child suddenly pipes up with,

“I want to go upstairs”

“Sure you can go, upstairs”, I reply.

“I want to go upstairs as well” chimes in another.

“Ok”

“Me too!” I let this child leave too.

“Can I go?” Says another as she is halfway out the door.

“Upstairs!” Choruses the rest of the group, rising. Cue a mass exodus. I lose the entire group to the mysterious delights of ‘upstairs’; I look across the empty room to the person observing me.

“This doesn’t always happen…”

Set out the basics

The engagement needed was there, but it wasn’t enough. I also needed to set out some routines and start developing some habits. These are things that our older students are already aware of, we just have to asked them to do it in the right way. Nursery needs to be introduced to these ways of working as a group. First was the concept of ‘sitting down’. As adults we view sitting down as a position that one adopts, usually for some length of time, when one is at rest. Children seem to view sitting down as a split-second transition between standing up and rolling all around the floor, limbs flailing towards the ribs of nearby teachers. Success in this area is never really complete until children are about 23 years old, I feel, but you can make progress. To get them sat in the right place I have tried a three stage strategy:

1. A catching game in which the prize for catching the ball is to sit in the special circle! (that I have taped out on the floor prior to the session).

2. Many children will know the ‘Make a Circle’ song, which is set to the tune of Frere Jacques; also a good way of getting them in place.

3. Then, I play the passing game in which they have to call the name of another child and roll the ball to them. The idea behind this is that they develop the habit of talking to each other (not just me), taking turns and joining in. Try this out and if it doesn’t work try it again.

Running games with young children can take a lot of problem solving to get just right.

I’m running the pass-the-ball game with some success. Most of the children have had a turn, many of them said someone else’s name and passed that person the ball. At least two of them have said someone’s name but then threw the ball directly up, dislodging several ceiling tiles in the process. Currently one child is gripping the Elmer ball and incoherently mumbling their own monologue with occasional audible exclamations of ‘elephant!’. I gently lean forward with the glittery butterfly puppet, and as she reaches for it, I whip the ball away with my spare hand so the rest of us can continue the game.

Get to the philosophy

Once I have their attention and covered the basics I have between 1 and 13 precious minutes of philosophy potential. Most weeks I hit around the 7 mark. My success indicators for philosophy are different for younger children and by themselves may not, rightly be called philosophy. However, I consider them to be part of doing philosophy, a significant part too. More so than ‘being awake’ is part of doing philosophy but obviously less than ‘expressing valid arguments in syllogistic form’ is.

One of the greatest struggles is finding the point at which the children find a concept controversial. Friendship, for example is normally a term we reserve for describing human relationships, perhaps stretching to pets before it gets debatable whether Fido can be a friend. Children, I discovered, had few difficulties with considering animals as friends.

Can Jack and Fido be friends?

“Yes!” several children shout, some hands go up.

“Why?” I ask one child.

“Cause Fido is happy to see Jack”

I ask others in the group. There are no contrary views but I had anticipated this.

“OK, can jack be a friend with a robot?” I whip out a robot picture and pass it to Lyra.

She puts it next to the picture of Jack and proclaims them friends.

We still haven’t got an opposing viewpoint.

“Who thinks Jack and the robot are NOT friends?”

Silence. I begin to improvise.

“Can Jack and this pen be friends?”

“Yes!”

I really didn’t think they would say that,

“Can you show me?”

Mason picks up the pen and the picture of Jack. He then puts on a crude puppet show in which Jack and pen meet, say hello and are best friends thereafter.

“Can Jack and this piece of paper be friends?”

“No!”

“So why can’t they be friends, Casey?”

“Because paper can’t talk”

Finally…

Finally I was getting to the bite point, the point at which children think of it as a friend and not a friend, the point at which it is controversial. They may not go further to give conditions of friendship (like ‘talking’) as Casey did in my cherry-picked example, but doing philosophy is substantially helped when the children see that there is a problem.

Once a problem has been spotted children tend towards the dramatic response rather than the reasoned response. Unless the dialogue is managed the to and fro of child pantomime will quickly ensue:

FAC: Mason says that they are friends

CASEY: Not they isn’t!

MASON: Yes they is!”

CASEY: No!”

MASON: Yess!

CASEY: Nooooo…No!”

To begin the reasoning I look to put the grammar and language in. This is done elegantly and simply through the use of ‘why?’ as a follow-up question and ‘because…” as a prompt. Admittedly you don’t always get supporting reasons from 4-year-olds, but you will get the language and grammar of reason-giving embedded as a habit. Sometimes I’m tempted to rename my nursery sessions Becausing classes for this reason.

It’s not your session

Honestly, even when you think they have followed your plan perfectly, it is only because your plan happens to be what they want to talk about. There will be more days where they go off at a tangent you couldn’t prepare for.

Today’s story is about this land where the king has made it law that everyone must be happy. The key characters are the king who thinks it’s better to be happy and this boy who wants to be sad. And a dog. These opposing characters will help set up opposing views, enabling the children to see the controversy (adapted from The Saddest King by Christoper Wormell).

“So, the King told the boy that it was better to be happy all the time. Is it better to be happy all the time?”

“Look, the dog is funny!”

“Thank you, Sara. Is it better to be happy?”

“Look! It’s smiling…”

“Happy, sad or something else, Sara, what’s better?”

“…And its tail is wagging” I sigh heavily “So is the dog happy?”

If your question isn’t the one the children are interested in there is little point in pushing it. Sometimes they’ll answer your question if you repeat it but at other times you have to improvise a new question using the content they are interested in. On this occasion my session deviated from the ethics of when one should be happy and moved toward the metaphysical concerns of what happiness is. So I guess the session is still yours in that you are going to still aim for controversy, differing viewpoints and some level of reasoning. However, you can only suggest content to your class to see if they want to run with it and if they don’t you have to see if you can run with theirs.

Recap

Four things to try in your next nursery class are:

Be ready to bin it!

1. Engage them, make learning interactive at every possible moment.

2. Create the conditions for philosophy to take place; this takes longer to do with younger children.

3. Get to the philosophy, if you hear the word ‘because’ then that’s a start.

4. Keep your lesson plan near the bin at all times. Follow them.

Philosophy GCSE

Over the last year The Philosophy Foundation has been supporting the Philosophy in Education Project (PEP), run by Dr John Taylor and A. C. Grayling, along with SAPERE, A Level Philosophy and a host of well-known philosophers including Angie Hobbs, Simon Blackburn, Nigel Warburton and Tim Williamson.

This is a response by Peter Worley to ‘why there shouldn’t be a philosophy GCSE‘ by Miss AVE Carter, who has started an important open debate about the newly proposed philosophy GCSE by PEP.

Carter’s argument is premised on an incomplete understanding of philosophy. She says,

‘One thing which makes philosophy sessions so wonderful is that they go some way to breaking the mould of educating children on factory lines. They are set apart from any lesson anywhere in the school. Children get a chance to just wonder, to think, to discuss to learn, without writing anything down at all. They are engaged with the biggest questions ever dreamt up, questions which they may have never considered. I judge my lessons to have been successful if, and only if, pupils continue to talk about the material when our 40 minutes are up.’

I agree that doing philosophy with children (especially very young children) is often more successful when they do not write things down, but it would be wrong to conceive of philosophy as something that is – or must be – done without writing things down; or, for that matter, without reading texts, or without learning about philosophers and philosophers’ ideas. The way many practitioners do philosophy with primary-aged children in particular (myself included) is just the beginning of how philosophy is done. Miss Carter seems to think that it is the beginning and the end. The evidence for this claim is in this line:

‘I judge my lessons to have been successful if, and only if, pupils continue to talk about the material when our 40 minutes are up.’ [My italics]

Remember: ‘if, and only if’ means ‘under no other circumstances’ (I would ask Miss Carter: does she really think there are no other circumstances under which she would consider a lesson to be successful?); it is a very strong claim. Even when working with younger children, I think this is an incomplete conception of philosophy. This view of philosophy confirms my more general worry that philosophy is seen to be nothing more than a sharing of opinions, an involved chat. But, as I have argued elsewhere [TEDx ‘Plato not Playdoh’] philosophy is evaluative and re-evaluative; and this means – and many will not like this – that it is judgmental. By this, I mean that philosophy includes evaluative judgments (albeit provisional) about the arguments that have been made, based on the quality of reasons given. I will fall short of saying ‘if, and only if’! This conception of philosophy invites criteria: criteria for what makes good reasons. And these criteria would be good candidates for a marking criteria for a GCSE, and I see no reason why we should have a problem with this per se.

This argument about why there should not be a GCSE is also premised on a false dichotomy: that either education initiatives are:

a) box-ticking, knowledge-heavy, test-driven ‘factory’ models, or they are

b) exploratory, dialogical, engaging ‘discovery’ models.

Surely, the preferred place is in between? And a well-put together GCSE would, ideally, inhabit this space. At this point we reach the question of whether a GCSE would be well-put together and whether it really would inhabit this space and how we might ensure that it does. In this respect I am sympathetic to many of Miss Carter’s worries, and that is why PEP have gathered together academics as well as philosophy in school practitioners and teachers, but that discussion is for another day.

The Talking Skull – thinking about making claims

From Peter Worley’s new book due out in September 2015, given here as part of Keystone Workshop held on March 25th in St Albans.

Equipment needed and preparation:

• (Optional) something to stand in for the skull and Enitan’s head, such as two balls (in addition to the talk-ball).
• (Optional) have the Thoughting ‘Talking is like…’ ready to project or handout.

Starting age: 9 years

Key concepts / vocabulary: knowledge, belief, reasons, miracles, magic, talk, communication, communicate

Subject links: RE, Science, Literacy, PSHE

Key controversies: Should we believe people’s accounts of miraculous events? Is talking a good thing?

Quote: ‘There are only three possibilities. Either your sister [Lucy] is telling lies, or she is mad, or she telling the truth. You know she doesn’t tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad… we must assume that she is telling the truth.’ – The Professor in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

‘No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.’ – David Hume ‘Of Miracles’

Key facilitation tool: Quotes. Discuss. – In the extension activities section, this session suggests the use of a quote (from C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe) as a stimulus. Statements can be very effective catalysts to thought, sometimes more effective than a question, as they can provoke a visceral response. Compare these two ways of putting an issue to someone: a) ‘Are girls or boys better at writing?’ b) ‘Girls are better than boys at writing.’

Session Plan:

Do: read or tell the following story. It is only a little more than a synopsis, so feel free to embellish the story in your retelling, if you choose to tell it. (See Once Upon an If: ‘Sheherazad’s Handbook’ pp. 20-55.)

Say: A long time ago, somewhere in Africa, there was once an honest, sensible man, called Enitan. One day, while walking through the jungle by himself, he found a human skull lying on the ground. He wondered how the skull had come to be there so he said, out loud to the skull, ‘How did you get here?’ not expecting an answer.

         ‘Talking brought me here,’ said the skull. Amazed and terrified at what he had just witnessed, Enitan ran all the rest of the way home.

He went to see the village chief and told him about the talking skull he’d found in the jungle, thinking that this would make him famous in the village.

Start Question: Should the village chief believe Enitan?

Possible Further Questions (you do not need to go through all of these):

• The man’s story is extraordinary, so should the chief believe him?
• If the story is true, then should the chief believe him?
• Should Enitan believe himself?
• Is it a miracle?
• What is a miracle?
• Could there be any other explanations for the skull talking?
• If someone tells you something unbelievable should you believe him or her?
• If so, under what circumstances should you believe an unbelievable account?
• Try using the Professor’s test from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with Enitan’s claim (see quote above). Is the Professor’s test a good way of testing people’s claims?

         The chief did not believe him. ‘But I DID see a talking skull! I did! I DID!’ Enitan protested.

         ‘Okay,’ said the chief, ‘I, and two of my guards, will go with you; if the skull speaks I will reward you with treasures and fame, but if it does not… then I shall reward you with death.’

The chief, his guards and Enitan returned to the place where he had found the skull. Enitan bent down and said to the skull, ‘How did you get here?’ The skull said… nothing.

         ‘HOW DID YOU GET HERE?’ said Enitan again, louder this time. Still the skull remained silent. The king turned to his guards and said, ‘This man has also wasted my time! Kill him!’ So they chopped off his head which fell to the ground next to the skull with a thud. The king and his guards returned to their village. Once they had departed, the skull opened it’s grinning mouth and said to Enitan’s head, ‘How did you get here?’ and Enitan’s head replied, ‘Talking brought me here.’

Comprehension Question: Why did Enitan’s head reply, ‘Talking brought me here,’?

Start Question: Is talking a good thing?

Possible Further Questions:

• What is talking?
• What does talking help us achieve?
• What would we loose if we lost the ability to talk?
• What would the world be like without talking?
• When and how might talking be bad?

Say: No one noticed: not Enitan, the chief or his guards, but lying in or on the ground, littered all over the place, were many more human skulls!

Comprehension Question: Why are there lots of skulls?

Extension activities:

Task: Communicate something without talking

• Have someone leave the room.
• Identify an item in the room to another child.
• Set the second child the task of communicating something – anything – about the item but without talking or using words in any way.

Questions:

• Can they do it?
• How easy is it?
• What methods did they use?

‘Talking is like…’: a simile exercise

Do:

• Go round the circle and say ‘Talking is like…’ to each child.
• Give them 3 seconds to say a word without repeating another child’s suggestion (employing ‘the different answer rule’).
• Gather the words on the board as you go around.
• Once everyone has had a go, ask all the children to challenge the words: for example, ‘I don’t understand how talking can be like X…’
• Ask the class, as a whole, to respond and attempt to explain why talking is like X.
• Here is a Thoughting based on the exercise that could be used in a similar way: ask the children to challenge the words in the Thoughting and have the class respond in its defence. If the children struggle to grasp the simile/metaphor essence of the task you could read the Thoughting first, in order to give them a flavour of the task, and then run the activity, stipulating that they should not repeat anything from the poem.

Talking is like…

A tool,

An instrument,

A cloak,

A weapon,

A map,

A metal detector,

Medicine,

Poison.

A virus,

A wireless

Kind of

Connection.

A finger

That Points

To the farthest

Location.

With talk

I walk

But do not

Move.

With talk

My thought-

Hawk flies

To you.

Thoth and Thamus: for-and-against

In The Philosophy Shop (page 256) Claire Field retold an Egyptian myth told by Plato called ‘Thoth and Thamus’. In it, Thoth (the ancient Egyptian god of intelligence) is a god who invents new things and Thamus is a king who has to agree to Thoth’s new inventions before they will be given to the people. Thoth invents writing and the two argue about the merits and demerits of giving writing to the people. Claire has the class argue, with each other and on behalf of Thoth and Thamus, the ‘pros and cons’ of writing. When the myth is used in this way, its general application can easily be seen. A part from the ‘for-and-against’ dialogue opportunities Thoth and Thamus affords, it also has potential for the children’s written work. Have the children write their own dialogue with the two characters Thoth and Thamus arguing over the merits (Thoth) and demerits (Thamus) of X. ‘X’ could be ‘writing’ or ‘talking’, but it could also be ‘cars’, ‘plastic’, ‘green energy’, ‘democracy’ and so on. (See ‘The Cat That Barked’ in Once Upon an If, page 112, for more on dialogues and dialogue writing.)

Talk Ball

Play the BBC Radio 4 game Just a Minute! (Here called ‘Talk Ball’ because a minute is too long). This is when a player has to speak on a subject, while holding the talk-ball, for a set time period without hesitation, repetition or deviation. I begin with a 10 second time period, then, when someone succeeds, extend the time to 15 seconds, then 20 seconds etc. (See also Robert Fisher’s Games For Thinking.) The class choose up to eight topics, but which of the topics each speaker has to speak about, is chosen randomly.

Related Resources:

Ted Hughes’s poem The Thought Fox

The Philosophy Shop: The Txt Book, Thoth and Thamus in The Philosophy Shop and conduct the same discussion around talking instead of writing. Task Question: If you were Thamus would you allow Thoth to introduce talking to the people?

The If Odyssey: ‘Nobody’s Home (The Cyclops)’ especially the online supplement on the companion website ‘Through a Philosopher’s eye: Cyclops’. In some versions of the Greek myth of the Trojan war, the character of Palamedes meets an ironic, tragic end when, he – the so called inventor or writing – is undone by a written letter. In revenge for Palamedes’s uncovering of Odysseus’s attempt to escape being sent to Troy, Odysseus fakes a letter from Palamedes to Priam. Palamedes is stoned to death by Odysseus.

From the Chalkface

by Steve Hoggins

I had a breakthrough with one of my pupils this week, all initiated by a great learning support mentor who has also helped with our Young Philosophers group (a termly meet up of children from across Lewisham who are good at philosophy, and who don’t normally get these opportunities. The aim of the group is to inspire children, raise attainment, and also for us to keep in contact with children who would benefit from extra support).

Our class had a new arrival last term, an extremely quiet pupil who wasn’t making friends and refused to speak in philosophy. The quiet pupil was assigned a learning mentor after the first few weeks and a couple of weeks after the learning mentor approached me to say that this pupil had been talking about philosophy in their one-to-one lessons.

At the learning mentor’s suggestion the pupil would come to the class a little earlier and we’d have a chat. It transpired that she had ideas but couldn’t get them out straight and was a little intimidated by the rest of the class. We made a deal that every Talk Time (moments in the session when the children talk with each other about the question under consideration) I would listen to her idea one-to-one, and then share it with the class. At first I would share it anonymously and later we agreed that I could say it was her idea.

This week the class were discussing friendship and some argued that, ‘you can be friends with something as long as you like it; you can be friends with a teddy bear’. My shy pupil told me in Talk Time, “That’s not right, I like food but I eat food and you don’t eat your friends”. So, per our agreement, I shared this with the class. There was some healthy disagreement but some had clearly just missed the point. All of a sudden, after one particular misapprehension of the shy pupil’s idea, that same shy pupil raised a hand and with a bit of a stumble clearly re-stated her argument, speaking in front of the class for the first time since joining – whoop!

I think there are 4 things of note here:

• This quiet pupil was actually engaging in philosophy, despite not speaking.
• The other people around the pupil can bring valuable insight.
• The child was drawn out from a desire clarify her idea rather than being asked/persuaded (intrinsic motivation, rather than extrinsic)
• Some days are just brilliant.

Working with Concepts

From Peter Worley’s new book, 40 lessons to get children thinking, published in September 2015. Philosophy is not part of the curriculum so why on earth should anyone spend time doing philosophy with their class? Philosophy might not be part of the curriculum but inevitably thinking is. Philosophy helps children think. It allows them to practise the kind of thinking they already do in class in their other curriculum subjects but it also opens doors and allows the children to think in new ways about new things. One of philosophy’s central concerns is understanding. When doing philosophy one has to understand what the other is saying in order to respond appropriately, one has to understand what one thinks oneself in order to be able to give expression to the thought, one needs to understand the problem that has been presented in order to even begin trying to solve it, but perhaps most important of all, one needs to understand what it is that is not understood by oneself and by others in order to improve ones understanding. This is an important aspect of what is sometimes known as meta-cognition or learning to learn. To help with this I have tried to identify the key concepts behind each session so that you can use the session to help do two things: 1) to observe the class’s grasp of key, relevant concepts before being taught the relevant module and 2) to assess the class’s application of the key concepts once the module has been taught or during it being taught. These sessions, therefore, can be used before, during and/or after a teaching module. For instance, if you are about to teach a module on dissolving then The Incredible Shrinking Machine could be run in order to see how the children approach thinking about the microcosm. Do they think that something that can’t be seen still exists or not? Which children think what? Do those that recognise that ‘not being able to see something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist’ make a convincing case to the others? Who has relevant knowledge (atoms, evaporation etc.)? By keeping a record of the answers to these and similar questions the philosophy sessions can help you plan your teaching of the module and to deal with such things as differentiation and peer-to-peer support in the class all based on the conceptual understanding of the class with regard to the relevant key concepts for the module. A word about misconceptions

Alice in Wonderland

Philosophy sessions are a great way to address common misconceptions that children have in and around subjects and topics. An example of this kind of misconception has been alluded to above: that ‘not existing’ means ‘not being able to see it’ or that ‘not being able to see something’ means ‘that it is nothing’. But I’d like to offer two words of warning about diagnosing misconceptions. First of all, children do not always mean exactly what they say and they do not always say exactly what they mean (think of Alice in Wonderland: ‘Is saying what you mean the same as meaning what you say?’) so, a misconception is not the same as a simple misuse of language or referring term and, similarly, a misconception is not the same as being mis-informed. Your questioning should involve a great deal of eliciting in order to avoid pre-interpreting and possibly misinterpreting children’s words. Secondly, also look out for your own misconceptions, either of the issue or with regard to what the children are trying to say. For example, in The Disappearing Ball Trick you may be using the session to address a misconception about matter: that matter doesn’t cease to exist is simply transforms into something else (what is known as the conservation of energy principle in physics). The question in the session is ‘How would you make the ball no longer exist?’ You may have something like the following notion in your head: ‘You can’t, because of the conservation of energy principle’. But, because you have this fixed notion in your head it is possible that you may miss a more nuanced position that a pupil is trying to express: ‘though the particles the ball is made of cannot cease to exist those particles may no longer configure to make a ball as a ball if the particles are scattered across the universe.’ The philosophy sessions are not only good for the children to improve their understanding of themselves, each other and the issues they’re thinking about, philosophy is also good for you – the teacher – to improve your understanding of yourself, your pupils and the issues and topics the philosophy sessions engage you all with. An edited session extract from Peter’s new book, showing how philosophy can help with conceptual understanding in the curriculum. Equipment needed and preparation: talk circle; a ball (use the talk ball) Age: 5 years and up Key vocabulary: nothing, something, doing, anything, verb Subject links: literacy, science (forces) Key controversies: Is it possible to do nothing? Can something without a will or the power of agency perform an action? Key concepts: nothing, doing, verbs, agency, will, action, event, intention, force. Possible misconception(s): that verbs are only ‘doing words’ when in fact verbs cover not only actions but also occurrences and states of being; that ‘not doing nothing’ is not equivalent to ‘not doing anything’. Critical thinking tool: Break The Circle (see any of The If Books) on ‘do’ –  Say: I would like you to say what ‘do’ means but without saying the word ‘do’ or ‘doing’ in your answer. Begin by saying ‘It is…’ so you don’t have to say ‘Doing is…’ Do: Give the class a minute or two to talk with each other about what doing is. Then write up their ideas as a concept-map in order to discuss the answers. If someone accidentally says ‘do’ or ‘doing’ ask them to think of another word or phrase they can say in place of the word ‘do’. If they can’t, ask someone else to help them. Session Plan: Say: Today I have a task for you. The task is this: do nothing. Talk to each other in pairs to decide how you will attempt to do nothing. Then when I hold the ball in the air put up your hands if you think you can perform the task: to do nothing. Do: Give the class a minute to think through how they might do nothing. Then put the ball up in the air. Remind them that they should be ready to show the class how to do nothing. The Doing Statue  Say: Everyone stand up and make a pose like a statue. Hold it and stay absolutely still for 20 seconds. Task Question: Do statues do anything? Nested Questions:

• If statues stand and stare then are statues doing anything?
• Do statues stand? Do statues stare?
• If someone pushes a statue and makes it fall over has the statue done something?
• What is it to do something?
• What is doing?
• What is a verb? Are verbs only ‘doing words’?

Are the following words doing something:

1. Sitting
2. Sleeping
3. Being dead

This is a good place to do the Break The Circle activity on ‘do’ (see Critical Thinking Tool above). Extension activities:

Is the ball doing anything?

The Doing Ball Roll a ball to someone (X) in the class. Ask the following two questions: 1) Did X [insert student’s name] do something? 2) Did the ball do something? Here’s an argument given to me by a 7-year-old-girl: Rolling is a verb; Verbs are doing words; When a statue rolls, it is rolling; So statues can do something. Present this nicely structured argument to the class and invite them to critically engage with it: ‘Do you agree with this idea?’ The girl’s argument rests on a belief that verbs are only ‘doing words’ (see Misconception above). This presents a nice opportunity to teach the children that verbs are more than doing or action words. Related Resources: 

• The Philosophy Shop: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (page 200), Ooops! (p. 202), Not Very Stationary Stationery (p. 191), Lucky and Unlucky (p. 198), The Good Daleks (p. 203) Immy’s Box (p. 20)
• Picture Book: Let’s Do Nothing by Tony Facile
• The If Machine: Thinking About Nothing (p. 135)

Stoic Week Philosophy Session Plan

Here’s a lesson plan for Years 6 and up (and able Y5s) on Stoic-related themes for Stoic Week. Draw from it what you want. Taken from Peter Worley‘s forthcoming book, 40 lessons to get children thinking [September 2015].

Equipment needed and preparation: a glass of water, half-filled; handouts or a projection of the extract from Hamlet (optional)

Age: The ‘glass of water’ section is suitable for 7 years and up, but the ‘Hamlet’ section is suitable only for 10 years and up.

Key vocabulary: optimism, pessimism, positive, negative, good, bad

Subject links: literacy, Shakespeare, PSHE

Key controversies: Is ‘good and bad’ a state of mind or a state of the world?

Key concepts: attitude(s), perception, value,

A little philosophy: Stoicism is a branch of Hellenistic (late ancient Greek period from approx. 323-31 BCE) philosophy that derives its name from the ‘painted porch’ (Stoa poikile) in the marketplace of Athens, under which many of the early Stoics taught. The school of Stoicism is said to have begun with Zeno of Citium (c. 334-262 BCE) and been further developed by Cleanthes of Assos (330-230 BCE) and Chrysippus of Soli (279-206 BCE) but the most famous of the Stoics is Epictetus (55-135 CE), originally a slave who later became a free man because of his philosophy, Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE), tutor and advisor to the Roman Emperor Nero, and Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE), himself an Emperor of Rome (who features in the film Gladiator). The word ‘stoic’ has entered the English language and means ‘to accept something undesirable without complaint’. The key ideas of stoicism are as follows:

• All human beings have the capacity to attain happiness.
• Human beings are a ‘connected brotherhood’ and, unlike animals, are able to benefit each other rationally.
• Human beings are able to change their emotions and desires by changing their beliefs.
• Stoics care less about achieving something and much more about having done one’s best to achieve it.
• Stoics attempt to understand what is in one’s power and what is not, to act, when necessary, to change what it is in one’s power to change, and to accept stoically (see above) what it is not in one’s power to change.

Quote: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.’ (Reinhold Niebuhr’s serenity prayer used by Alcoholics Anonymous)

Emperor Penguin

Critical thinking tool: Examples, counter-examples and falsification – Examples are often used to illustrate a claim whereas counter-examples are examples that are used to refute a claim. Counter-examples are very useful for falsifying general claims:

Child A: All birds fly.

Child B: A penguin is a bird but penguins don’t fly, so not all birds fly.

In this case, because the claim made was a general claim (‘All Xs F’), only a single example is needed to refute it; it is quite unnecessary to mention ostriches or kiwis for the refutation to be successful. Hamlet’s

Is the glass half full, or half empty?

Session Plan: Part One: The Glass of Water

Half fill a glass of water and place it in the middle of the talk circle so all the children can see it. Then ask the following task question:

Task Question: Is the glass half full or is the glass half empty?

Nested Questions:

• Is there an answer to this question?
• Is it a matter of opinion?
• Can it be both?
• Is it good or bad that the glass is only half full/empty?

Allow a discussion to unfold around this question. At some point it may become appropriate to introduce the following words:

1. Optimist
2. Pessimist

Find out if anyone has heard these words before and see if anyone can explain the words to the class. Provide the following starting definitions if they don’t do so themselves:

1. An optimist is someone who sees things in a positive way; someone who often sees the good side of things.
2. A pessimist is someone who sees things in a negative way; someone who often sees the bad side of things.

Questions:

1. Which one, the optimist or the pessimist, would see the glass as half-full? Why?
2. Which one, the optimist or the pessimist, would see the glass as half-empty? Why?

Task Question: Is it better to be an optimist or a pessimist? 

Laurence Olivier as Hamlet

Part Two: Hamlet’s Prison

Part one makes a good session by itself. Here is a second part that is more advanced and can be approached in one of two ways: either use the full extract from Hamlet and allow the class to unpack it or simply skip straight to the central Hamlet quote (‘For there is nothing…’). The previous enquiry around the glass of water should give the class what it needs to approach the quote on its own. I recommend not explaining how the two parts link; give the class the opportunity to make the link. Because you want to get to the thinking aspect of the session I recommend not having members of the class read out the extract. I usually ask them to read it, dramatically, in pairs to each other; I then read it properly to the class as a whole and ask them to raise their hands if:

1. There is a word they don’t understand.
2. There is a phrase they don’t understand.
3. They would like to say what they think the entire extract is about.
4. They would like to say what a particular part means.

Give out the handouts or project the extract on the IWB then read the following:

This extract is taken from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare – it’s the one that contains the line ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’. This is another extract from the play that is less well-known but really good for thinking with.

HAMLET	Denmark’s a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ	Then is the world a prison?
HAMLET	A goodly one; in which there are many confines,
	wards and dungeons, Denmark being one of the worst.
ROSENCRANTZ	We think not so, my lord.
HAMLET	Why, then, ’tis no prison to you; for there is nothing
	either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me
	it is a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ	Why then, your ambition makes it one; Denmark is too
	narrow for your mind.
HAMLET	I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
	myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
	have bad dreams.

Once you have spent some time unpacking the extract write up or project the following claim made by Hamlet: 

HAMLET	Why, then, ’tis no prison to you; for there is nothing
	either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me
	it is a prison.

(If you are skipping to the single quote then write up just this:

HAMLET                                    …for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so…)

First of all ask the class: What do you think Hamlet means by this?

Then ask the following task question:

TQ: Do you agree with Hamlet – is it true that there is nothing either good or bad, but that thinking makes it so? 

Ask the class to come up with some examples of things that are good or bad whatever you happen to think about them.

What about these situations (use these examples only if the children do not find their own):

1) You fail an exam.

2) You win the lottery.

3) Your family forget your birthday.

4) Your tattooist misspells a word in your tattoo.

5) Your favourite pet dies.

6) You discover that you have become addicted to something.

7) You are diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Take some quotes from below and ask the children to respond critically to them. This is done by simply asking them if they agree or disagree with the quote. I sometimes ask for ‘thumbs up’ if they agree, ‘thumbs down’ if they disagree and ‘thumbs sideways’ if they think something other than agree or disagree.

Epictetus

Epictetus

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”

“People are not worried by real problems so much as by imagined anxieties about real problems.”

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

Seneca

Seneca

“Most powerful is she who has herself in her own power.”

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labour does the body.”

“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”

“Life is like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.”

“It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.”

“A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.”

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful.”

TQ: Can one agree with Seneca and also believe in God?

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius

“You have the power of your mind – not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.”

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love…”

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”

“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”

Extension activities:

Here is a new Thoughting that could be used for, during or after this session that will introduce the children to some more isms.

(Preparation: half fill a glass of water and place in on a table in front of your class. Then, as you reach the part where the speaker in the poem says ‘cheers!’, pick up the glass of water and drink it. Half fill it once more and replace it before beginning the discussion.)

The Glass of Water

The pessimist says it’s half empty

The optimist says it’s half full

The sceptic says, ‘Now, hang on a minute!

Do we know that it’s there at all?’

The cynic says, ‘Whatever you do, don’t drink it!’

The paranoiac says, ‘Who put it there?’

Then, looking round, adds, ‘And why?’

The psychologist says that you think it,

The realist: ‘Without it you’ll die.’

And while all the company debate it,

Over the din no one hears,

When – feeling somewhat dehydrated – I say,

‘Cheers!’

Questions:

• If you don’t already know, can you guess what each of the ists and so on means from the context of the poem? E.g. What’s a pessimist? What’s an optimist? A sceptic? A cynic? And so on.
• Are you any of them? Why or why not?

Related Resources: 

• The Saddest King by Chris Wormall
• ‘Emotion’ in Provocations: Philosophy For Secondary School (page 140) by David Birch
• Thoughtings: Bite (page 178), Happy Sad (page 164).

Philosophy Club – a parents guide

So you want to set up a philosophy club for your child or children.

What is philosophy and why do it?

This is a big question and not easily answered but I’m going try to give a snappy response – snappy for a philosopher anyway.

A good place to start is that philosophy is about thinking. Next, we might say that it is thinking about thoughts and thinking itself (but not how a psychologist does). Here’s a bit more: inspired by the ancient Greeks, philosophy can be said to be a rational attempt to better understand ourselves, the world and our place in it. Philosophy’s main questions can be broken down to these four:

1) What is there? (Reality or metaphysics)
2) What can be known about what there is? (Knowledge or epistemology)
3) What matters in what there is? (Value or ethics/politics/aesthetics)
4) What can be said about what there is? (Logic, language and meaning)

Plato not Play-doh, Peter Worley’s TEDx talk, can children do philosophy?

Philosophy also has certain characteristics that I have tried to capture in the 4 Rs of philosophy (for more on this see my TEDx talk, Plato not Play-doh):

Response: first of all there has to be something that is puzzling and this is often accompanied by a pre-reflective, intuitive response (E.g. ‘That’s not fair because he’s not sharing!’)
Reflect: then there is a ‘standing back’, a reflection, often of the form ‘What is X?’ (E.g. ‘Hang on, what exactly is fairness?’)
Reason: Then there is an attempt to answer the reflective question through a process of reasoning (E.g. ‘So, fairness is… because…’)
Re-evaluate: and finally there is the all-important and ever-present further reflection upon the reasoning. (E.g. ‘But is that right? Because, actually…’)

The relationship between reasoning and re-evaluation is what makes philosophy, in my view, fundamentally dialogic – in other words, a kind of conversation, either with others or oneself.

Often, at some point, a judgement is made, but the judgement is only ever provisional because of the ever-present re-evaluation rule. The good outcomes, or added value, of doing philosophy are that there might well be clarity, insight, or, a certain smaller problem within ‘the big problem’ may even get solved. In which case there might be a fifth R: Resolve?

When doing philosophy with children the emphasis is on the ‘doing’. So, they will not be learning about philosophy (the ‘who-said-what-and-when’) – and this should be reassuring if you don’t know much about it anyway. Instead, they will philosophize with each other. For this, they already have everything they need to begin (a brain, ears and a mouth). However, it’s up to you to make sure the conditions are right for them to be able to begin.

For more on ‘Why do philosophy in schools?’ go here:

‘The First R’
‘If understanding and wellbeing are central to education then philosophy must be taught in schools.’
‘Class Act’

Who’s it for?

Your child, obviously. But there should be others too as this is going to be discussion-based. Try to find children who want to be there, although, this will, to some extent, be down to how fun and interesting you can make it.

So, how many then?

Remember that it is very difficult to sustain a philosophical discussion with just one or two children because children don’t usually have a sufficient diversity of ideas to keep a philosophical discussion going. A group of children is much more likely to have the necessary diversity of ideas. So, I recommend a group of no less than 8 children and probably not much more than 18. 12 would be perfect (this is just a guideline so it could be amended depending on the children attending).

Where?

Find a place with lots of space. You may just need to push a few things out of the way to get the space you need in a front room, for example. If there is a larger space available to you then try to use that but it should not be too large as discussion is difficult in echoey places such as church halls.

Sit in a horseshoe shape so the children can talk to each other.

How should I set things up?

Set up some chairs to form a horseshoe shape and, if possible, have a flipchart, some different coloured pens and a pile of A4 paper.

When?

One day-a-week after school is probably the best time. Otherwise, a Saturday morning could be good. Anytime that’s convenient for all is likely to be the time you fun The Philosophy Club.

How long?

Usually an hour is a good time for philosophy, however, getting them to sit and discuss for a full hour is going to be tough, especially after school when they could be doing something more fun. So, here’s my recommendation for how to divide up the hour:

First 15-20 minutes:
Assuming that they won’t all turn up on time have some thinking games ready that they can play in pairs, threes or fours as they come in. See Robert Fisher’s Games For Thinking for some ideas. I would have little strategy games ready like Nim (and its many variations), Fifteen etc. See Fisher’s book and The Philosophy Foundation website for how to play these (and other) games. You will need more props for these games such as a deck of cards or two, beads or pebbles etc.

Discussing ‘Aliens in underpants’ interesting philosophical questions around knowledge and ethics.

Middle 35 minutes:
Use this for the PhiE (philosophical enquiry), which should follow this procedure (NB: the philosophy is not the procedure described below; the philosophy happens in good quality dialogue around philosophical topics, the procedure is there merely to try to create the best conditions to allow philosophy to happen):

1) Present the stimulus (story, scenario, puzzle, activity etc. see resources below) and ask the Task of Start Question (see The If Machine and/or The Philosophy Shop for explanations of these).
2) Give children Talk Time – 1 or 2 minutes of time to discuss the question with a partner.
3) Show sign to begin discussion – see Stop Look and Listen Rule below in ‘Rules for the group’.
4) 2-5 minutes of discussion (Try to identify diversity by asking for a ‘Yes’-response to the question, a ‘No’-response and a ‘something else’-response such as ‘yes and no’, ‘I don’t know’ and so on. This helps to bring the controversies out. Also see imaginary disagreer below.)
5) More Talk Time – it’s always good to give them more time to talk with each other once a greater diversity of ideas has been voiced. There’s more to talk about then.
6) Return to group discussion – let them explore different ideas first (‘I think X…’) and then they can move to justifying them (‘So, does everyone agree with all the ideas we’ve heard?’)
7) Move between discussion and Talk Time as many times as necessary or until the 35 minutes elapses.

Bippity bippity bob – great ending game

Ending 10 minutes:
Play a game to end with that involves the whole group and which will get them standing up. The following games are favourites of The Philosophy Foundation and can be found on our members website, which is free to join: Twenty-One, Random Words, Samurai, Bippity-Bippity-Bop and The Sitting Down Game.

Snacks:

It’s always a good idea to bribe children with snacks! However, I recommend leaving the snacks to the end or you’re likely to have a major sugar-rush problem on your hands for the next hour!

Rules for the group (the children):

The Ball Rule helps with speaker management

• Speak one at a time (I use a ball that I pass to speakers to make this visual). – The Ball Rule
• Listen to whoever is speaking. – The Listening Rule
• Hands up if you want to speak; hands down when someone else is speaking. – The Hand Up/Hands Down Rule
• Respect each other (usually: don’t be rude, don’t make fun of and don’t laugh at others’ ideas – unless it’s a joke of course!) – The Respect Rule
• They should know that they are free to disagree with each other as long as they do so with respectful language. – The Free-to-disagree Rule
• They are to stop, look and listen immediately when the facilitator holds the ball in the air. – The Stop Look Listen Rule
• Those that persistently break the rules will be asked to leave The Philosophy Club.

Rules for the facilitator:

• Shut up! – you must not say what you think about the issue. Don’t get involved. Ask another adult to listen in to see if you’re sticking to the rule (and the other rules, for that matter).
• Listen! – always make sure you are actively listening (listening to understand).
• Question! – question in order to understand (this follows on from the listen! Rule) The main ‘opening-up’ questions you will ask should be:

o Justification (E.g. ‘Would you like to tell me why?’)
o Elicitation (E.g. ‘Can you say more about that?’)
o Clarification (E.g. ‘Can you say what you mean by?’)
o Exemplification/counter-exemplification (‘Can you give an example?’ / ‘Can anyone think of an example where not X?’)

• Enthuse! – be enthusiastic and show interest in their ideas while remaining neutral.
• Allow time! – don’t rush them or ask too many questions; one clear question and time-to-think is all they will probably need.
• Encourage peer conversation – don’t have conversations with the children; get them having conversations with each other.
• Use ‘the imaginary disagreer’ (see below), not devil’s advocate moves, or else you’ll be doing the thinking for them.
• Echo what they say – if you say anything at all; don’t paraphrase (‘So, you’re saying…’) or interpret (‘So, what you mean is…’) what they’ve said.
• Don’t answer questions that children ask; get the group to do that.
• Use closed questions (‘Is the mind the same as the brain?’) but remember to ‘open them up’ (see the list under the Question! Rule).
• Draw out controversies/tensions (but they must see controversies for themselves!) You should be: providing the conditions for the children to see, for themselves, philosophical controversies for them to then try to solve.

A useful classroom technique: the Imaginary disagreer

This is where, when you want to introduce an alternative position that the children may not have thought of, you activate them to do so instead of doing it yourself with the usual ‘devil’s advocate moves’. This is how you do it. When necessary or appropriate simply ask: ‘What do you think someone would say if they disagreed with you?’ and then follow this up with: ‘What reasons do you think they might have for thinking that?’ Have this strategy ready to help the group create it’s own diversity and thereby create it’s own controversies. Usually the children will be motivated to think of contrary ideas to those of their peers but if/when this doesn’t happen then use ‘the imaginary disagreer’ – he/she can be very useful.

Last Word: at The Philosophy Foundation, when philosophy with children is done formally in an educational setting, because of the special educational aims and objectives, we usually recommend that philosophy facilitators be philosophers (that is: have studied philosophy). But in a more relaxed atmosphere such as a parent-run philosophy club, where the main aim is to be social and fun as much as intellectually stimulating, a background in philosophy is of less importance. That said, it will not harm to read up on dialogue facilitation and philosophy (see resources). Listen! keep an open, inquiring mind, and remember to have fun and to make it fun!

What resources should I use?

Games For Thinking (Games) **
The If Machine (Guidance and lessons) **
The Philosophy Shop (Guidance and lessons)
Plato Was Wrong! (Secondary/late primary)
Philosophy For Young Children (Early Years)
Provocations (Secondary/late Prep)
Once Upon an If (For storytelling skills and ideas)
What Makes Me Me (BBC films resource)

Big Questions (films made by The Philosophy Club)

Online article: Socratic Irony in the classroom
Online article from Creative Teaching and Learning magazine: The Question X

If you only have money for one or two books then go to ** to get started.

We recommend the following websites and podcasts to learn more about philosophy:

History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

Philosophy Bites

Philosophy Now

The Philosophers Magazine

Join our website and see sessions modelled.
Listen to Philosophy Now podcast of children doing philosophy and this blog that accompanies it.

Books for the children to read in between Philosophy Club days:

The Philosophy Files
The Philosophy Gym
Thoughtings

Sophie’s World

See more books for young people on our resources pages

The blog was originally written for the Parents Show and Keystone Workshops.

The Philosophy Foundation Series Book Launch

On June 27th a crowd of teachers, philosophers, academics, friends and family gathered at Blackwell’s Bookshop at the Institute of Education to welcome The Numberverse and Provocations into the world.

Party go-ers at The Philosophy Foundation Series Launch Party.

These books are part of The Philosophy Foundation Book Series, a set of books published by Crown House, that challenge, engage and stimulate the imagination as well as being a practical resource for teachers/educators and parents to use. 

Andrew Day’s The Numberverse which was released on June 30th is a maths book designed to help teachers teach maths through enquiry, putting students at the heart of lessons and letting their curiosity drive it. 

What is in-between numbers?

At the launch Andy ran a session from his book where he puts a number line on the floor, and then asks, ‘Is there anything in-between the numbers?’. ‘Yes’, says one attendee, ‘Show us’ replies Andy. On pieces of paper in different colour they step forward and write 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5 and so on, placing them eqi distance between the whole (or as I would find out later that evening ‘natural’ numbers) numbers. ‘Is there anything else between the numbers?’ Andy asks, ‘Yes’, replies another and steps forward to show us. Through a series of comments, discussions and questions we soon find ourselves talking about infinity, ‘real’ numbers, and whether there are more numbers in-between the natural numbers than the natural numbers themselves. Andy does this session with Year 3 classes (aged 7/8) and above, and it is one of many activities on fractions, or the ‘in-betweeny-bits’, designed to make fractions more understandable.

Andy says in his introduction that “I’m putting The Numberverse out there now for two kinds of people: teachers looking for ways to get their more reluctant pupils into maths, and people who liked school generally but not maths (probably the latter group are the pupils from the first group but grown up).

“The evidence I have [that the book works] is anecdotal. Feedback from head teachers is very often positive. They want to instil a risk-taking, creative, exploratory attitude in all their classrooms. They want all their children to have high self-esteem and to believe they can improve at maths. But it’s hard. It’s also difficult to reconcile with the barrage of targets, levels, directives and schemes through which a teacher has to pick her way.

“One assumption I have made is that the teacher can get the class’s attention and manage behaviour to positive levels. I am as aware as anyone that those conditions are not always in place. I do know, however, that the material and techniques in this book can help win over a class, as part of an overall strategy for both ruling and entertaining the young.”

What order would you put these objects in?

Next up was David Birch, whose book Provocations: Philosophy for Secondary Schools has already received excellent reviews, including one from Michelle Sowey in Australia, having been released in February this year. David put the following objects on the floor: a banana, a mobile phone, Provocations and a chocolate bar, and then asked us to put them in order from the most to the least natural.

So, what order would you put them in? What do we mean by natural? Is something man-made natural? Are we natural? Is anything more natural than anything else? There was a fair amount of disagreement around these issues, and if you use David’s book his chapter on ‘Nature’ looks at the many varying ideas around nature, our relationship and responsibility (or not) towards it, including considering whether we should protect all natural things.

From Provocations:

“Smallpox has existed for at least 3,000 years and its rash can be seen on the faces of Egyptian mummies. In the 20th century alone an estimated 300 million people died from it. It is a disease caused by the variola virus; its most conspicuous symptom is blistering which develops all over the body, even in the mouth and throat, but mostly on the face and arms. It kills approximately a third of all those infected.

“Though there is no cure, smallpox was officially eradicated in 1979. The variola virus, however, still exists. It is preserved in two high-security facilities, one in Russia and the other in the US. The World Health Organisation (WHO), which was instrumental in its eradication, has been calling for its complete destruction for decades.

“The request by WHO has raised concern. It has been argued that if the virus were to be destroyed, it would be the first instance of humans intentionally acting with the explicit goal of eliminating another life form from the planet. It would constitute an unthinking disregard for nature. In arguing for the conservation of species, the biologist David Ehrenfeld has said, ‘they should be conserved because they exist and because this existence is itself but the present expression of a continuing historical process of immense antiquity and majesty.’

“The deliberate extinction of a species – the total annihilation of a life form – is perhaps an act worthy of moral scrutiny.”

Both of these books are available from all good booksellers and from The Philosophy Foundation Shop for £14.99. 

Win a copy of The Numberverse

Exterion Media (UK) have kindly provided The Philosophy Foundation with ad space on two bus routes in London and Wales and to mark the occasion we are giving away a copy of The Numberbervse. To find out which bus routes will be be carrying the ad, follow the hashtag #TPFBUS. To enter, simply take a photo and Tweet it to us @philosophyfound including the hashtag #TPFBUS and we will select a winner at random by the end of August.

If you would like a review copy of either of these books please email Rosalie Williams with the address you would like the book sent to, and details of where you will be publishing the review.