Merger Announcement
We are happy to announce that PLATO is merging with the Center for Philosophy for Children.
As of January 1, 2022, the newly merged organization will be known as PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization), an independent nonprofit registered in Washington State. It will now have the capacity to expand the work in which both organizations have been engaged for many years: to support and advance philosophy for young people. PLATO will continue to bring together the education and philosophy communities, empowering the voices of young people, and endorsing a wide range of philosophical approaches and methods.
Among its expanded activities and programs, the newly merged PLATO, which will now have a paid staff of four, will fund innovative philosophy programs around the United States; run online and in-person classes, workshops, and webinars for educators, families, and students; offer an intensive 10-week online program, Philosophy in Schools; help schools around the world develop philosophy programs; run a Philosophers in the Schools program; publish two journals (Questions: Philosophy for Young People and Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice); and convene both a biennial conference and a biennial teaching and learning seminar for teachers.
As part of this change, the Center for Philosophy for Children will cease being a University of Washington Academic Research Center and will no longer hold any formal affiliation with the University of Washington. PLATO will continue to collaborate with the University of Washington and faculty in the Department of Philosophy on projects concerning philosophy for young people. Although there will be no financial or legal ties between PLATO and the University, we anticipate a continued mutually supportive relationship between the university and the newly merged organization.
