Philosophy for Children draws heavily on the Socratic approach to philosophy so that is what we will look at further. The man, the myth, the legend – Socrates actually did not write any philosophical works himself. What we know of his methods actually comes from the writing of his students, such as Plato. Socrates had a method of enquiry, which he referred to as "elenchus", a cross-examination approach which is now known as the Socratic method. This method basically means questioning and questioning until all possible answers have been eliminated apart from the best one. You know when a child asks ‘Why? But why? But why?’, well this should be evidence enough that a four year old could give Socrates a run for his money.
The Socratic Method looks a little like this; 1. A person makes a statement. You ask them to clarify what they mean. For example, “You should never steal” 2. Ask them for evidence or justification for their opinion “It is wrong to take something that isn’t yours. There is a law against it.” 3. Challenge their assumptions “But sometimes people might need to steal” 4. Find an exception – an example which would mean that the person’s statement isn’t true “What if your family have had no food for a long time and someone has left the last bits of their picnic while they play on the park?” 5. Ask the person to revise their original argument “So do you still think you should NEVER steal? Or did you mean something else by that?” 6. Continue to raise objections or exceptions until the person reaches the closest to a valid statement that they can get This method is so simple that it works with children of all ages. In your work as a facilitator keep the two roles of midwife and gadfly in mind as you encourage children to begin to question the world and coax out all of their prior knowledge and experience of being in order to form some ideas and opinions of their own (midwife) but keep on pushing them to think further (gadfly).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
AuthorMiss Magical Mess is a pre-school teacher and P4C Level 2B facilitator. After a shaky start as a P4C facilitator (P4C with 3 year olds... are you kidding?) Miss Magical Mess created her own approach to P4C and enquiry model and is now a big fan. Archives |