I’m often asked how the center got started and about ways to get into schools to do philosophy with young people. I decided to start the center when I was about to finish my Ph.D. in 1996. I had become interested in working with pre-college students, and a non-profit center seemed to me the best … Getting philosophy into classrooms
Pen and inkdrawingby Mollie Hunt8th grade student Winthrop, WA, 2008 I grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust, learning about the horror of it as an elementary school child, experiencing recurrent childhood nightmares about the Nazis. For years I stayed away from the subject, avoiding books and films that dealt with it. After the … Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust
When I was a graduate student in philosophy, I sometimes thought that the initial wonder and enthusiasm that drew me to philosophy as a high school student was in danger of being eclipsed by the pressure I was feeling to show how philosophically sophisticated I was. I loved the rigor and depth of the work … Being philosophically naïve
Among twenty snowy mountains,The only moving thingWas the eye of the blackbird.I was of three minds,Like a treeIn which there are three blackbirds. . . . From Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens Over the past six years I have taught philosophy to the same general group of children, starting in … What are thoughts?
At the end of our philosophy sessions together this year, I asked the 5th grade students with whom I’d been working what questions they’d like to keep talking about. I loved their questions. Here are some of them: Why are we here? Why am I me? Why do we have philosophy? What is art? How … Why are we here?
“The orgin of philosophy is wonder.”Plato, Theaetetus When I tell people I spend a lot of my time in K-12 classrooms doing philosophy with young people, often I’m met with a somewhat skeptical response. How do you teach philosophy to children? What philosophy do you teach them? Is this religious? Are children really able to … Can Children Do Philosophy?
Around the age of four most children start asking the “why” questions. Why do things have to be fair? Why do we have to die? Why is blue a color? Why do we have minds? The beginning of intellectual curiosity. Children generally have no idea that they are joining a dialogue that has been going … The Why Questions
PLATO is part of a global UNESCO network that encourages children to participate in philosophical inquiry. As a partner in the UNESCO Chair on the Practice of Philosophy with Children, based at the Université de Nantes in France, PLATO is connected to other educational leaders around the world.
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
If you would like to change or adapt any of PLATO's work for public use, please feel free to contact us for permission at info@plato-philosophy.org.
Connect With Us!