Philosophy for children is a teaching approach in which students, not the teacher, choose the question and reason their way through it together. The movement goes back to the philosopher Matthew Lipman in the 1970s, and Professor Sarukkai's barefoot philosophers project has taken it into rural classrooms in Kannada and Tamil.
You do not need training in philosophy to run a circle. You need a good starting point, some ground rules, and the patience to let students think. Here is one way to do it in about forty minutes.
The session, step by step
1. Sit in a circle
Everyone should be able to see everyone else. The teacher sits in the circle, not at the front.
2. Share a starting point (5 min)
Read a short story, show a picture, or describe a puzzle. The atom-and-God exchange from the episode works well: 'Is an atom more like God or more like a stone?'
3. Collect questions (5 min)
Ask each student, or each pair, to write one question the starting point raises. Write them all on the board, with names.
4. Vote (3 min)
Students vote for the question they most want to discuss. The class owns the choice.
5. Discuss (20 min)
Ask for reasons and examples: 'Why do you think that?', 'Can you give an example?', 'Does anyone see it differently?' Let students answer each other rather than you.
6. Close (5 min)
Ask each student to say one thing that changed or became clearer in their thinking. Agreement is not the goal.
Let students speak in whatever language they think best in. Some of the sharpest reasoning in the barefoot philosophers project happened in students' home languages.
Ground rules to agree on first
- We listen to the person speaking until they finish.
- We disagree with ideas, not people.
- We give a reason when we agree or disagree.
- It is fine to change your mind, and fine to say 'I don't know yet'.