Watch the introductory talks to past roundtables:

Thursday, June 5, 2025
Feelings and Philosophy

Jack Flesher (he/they) is a fifth-year PhD Candidate in Ethnomusicology at UW and has completed Graduate Certificates in Ethics, Public Critical Race Scholarship, and Philosophy for Children. He is also the Philosopher-in-Residence at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School in Seattle, WA, and has been a judge for the Washington State High School Ethics Bowl for the past two years. Jack’s favorite thing about philosophy is that moment when you feel so sure that you finally understand a big idea only to have someone else offer a completely new perspective that you’ve never considered that completely rocks your world and makes you stop and think anew yet again.

Thursday, May 22, 2025
Environmental and Restorative Justice (no recording available)

Ben Almassi is a Professor of Philosophy and Program Coordinator of Interdisciplinary Studies at Governors State University, where he teaches a range of courses in healthcare ethics, environmental ethics, political philosophy, logic and practical reasoning. He is the author of numerous journal articles and two books including Reparative Environmental Justice in a World of Wounds (Lexington 2020). He is particularly interested in the role of trust in knowing and working together across social difference and reparative practices that rebuild trust and collaboration after injustice. When not in the classroom, Ben can be found tramping throughout the Chicago Wilderness.

Thursday, May 8, 2025
Community of Philosophy Inquiry Discussion (no recording available)

Allison Cohen is an Advanced Placement U.S. Government and Philosophy teacher at Langley High School in McLean, VA. She also teaches AP Capstone Seminar and Research classes. Allison is dedicated to bringing quality philosophy curricula to high schools across the nation and expanding opportunities for students to engage in philosophical questioning and reasoning. She also serves on the board for Street Law, a national nonprofit committed to preserving and enhancing civics education in our schools.

Thursday, April 24, 2025
Teach Different: A Framework for Impactful Classroom Conversations

Dan Fouts has been high school social studies teacher since 1993 in the Chicagoland area, teaching US history, AP government, American studies and, most recently, a philosophy elective which he designed in 2011. Outside of the classroom, he has presented extensively at the state and national level on inquiry-based instruction techniques, in addition to working with PLATO and the American Philosophical Association to bring philosophy into K-12 classrooms in the United States. He is a co-founder of Teach Different, a professional development organization which helps teachers and students master the art and science of classroom conversations using a simple protocol which combines quotes, claims, counterclaims and essential questions.

Thursday, March 27, 2025
Philosophy of Love and Friendship

Stephen Kekoa Miller, Humanities Department chair at Oakwood Friends School and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Marist College, has taught philosophy for the past 20 years in Poughkeepsie NY. Stephen has developed a wide range of courses from middle school philosophy through upper-level college courses, and a philosophy series for parents and community members. Stephen served on the Teachers Advisory Council of the National Humanities Center. He is the editor of Intentional Disruptions (Vernon, 2021).

Reading: Plato, Symposium

Thursday, March 13, 2025
Teaching Online Classes to Middle and High School Students (no recording available)

Debi Talukdar has been facilitating K-12 philosophy classes since 2014 and was the Philosopher-in-Residence at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, Seattle, from 2018-2021. She also mentors educators and facilitates professional development workshops, and was previously Program Director at the University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children before it merged with PLATO in 2022. Debi is an adjunct lecturer for online courses at the University of Washington School of Educational Studies and former ensemble member at Theater for Change UW. She currently lives in Oakland, CA.

February 27, 2025
The Ethics of Neutrality Statements

Jane Rutstein Shay has been an educator for nearly 20 years and is presently a 5th-grade teacher and the Lead Middle School Debate Coach at the Evergreen School in Shoreline, WA. Jane received her bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Tufts University and her master’s degree in teaching from Seattle University. She spearheaded the creation of an Ethics Bowl for middle school students in the Seattle area in 2024. She has been involved in PLATO (formerly The Center for Philosophy for Children) since 2014, currently serving on its Academic Advisory Board.

February 13, 2025
Bringing Philosophy Into the Home

Karen S. Emmerman, PLATO’s Education Director, started teaching philosophy classes at John Muir Elementary in Seattle in 2010 and has worked as their Philosopher-in-Residence since 2013. She has facilitated teacher trainings in pre-college philosophy for many years. Karen is part-time faculty in the philosophy department at the University of Washington and writes in ecofeminism, animal ethics, and philosophy for children, as well as serving as associate editor of the journal Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice.

January 30, 2025
Epistemology

Megan Bogia serves as the Associate Director of the Fordham University Center for Ethics Education, teaching applied ethics to undergraduate & graduate students. Her research explores postsecondary policy ethics through a combination of social epistemology, engaged philosophy, and empirical research. Her work has also appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education and InsideHigherEd.

Reading: Primer on Epistemic Injustice in Schools

January 16, 2025
Community of Philosophical Inquiry Session (no recording available)

Jana Mohr Lone is the Executive Director and co-founder of PLATO and for many years was the director of the University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children, before its 2022 merger with PLATO. She holds an appointment as Affiliate Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Washington, and is the author of the books Seen and Not Heard (2021) and The Philosophical Child (2012); co-author of the textbook Philosophy in Education: Questioning and Dialogue in Schools (2016); co-editor of Philosophy and Education: Introducing Philosophy to Young People (2012); author of many articles about young people’s philosophical thinking; and, most recently, author of a series of six picture books – entitled What Would You Do? (2024) – focusing on moral issues facing children. Jana has been leading philosophy sessions with students from preschool to graduate school for more than 25 years. She has a Ph.D. in philosophy and a J.D. She lives in Camden, Maine.

Watch the introductory talks to past roundtables:

December 5, 2024
Political Philosophy: Human Nature & Social Contract Theory

Ariel Sykes is the Director of Mindbridge Education. She is a member of PLATO’s Board of Directors and has worked in the philosophy for children community for 17 years and specializes in dialogic teaching strategies, argumentation, and ethics instruction.

Reading: Leviathan Chapter 13

November 21, 2024
Fiction and Philosophy
Kolby Granville is a lawyer, teacher, traveler, writer, and trail runner. He spent five years teaching Socratic discussion classes based on primary source literature and just finished spending 3.5 years traveling and living the digital nomad life. He now works with his sister as a lawyer at Granville Law doing indigent criminal defense and runs the literary magazine After Dinner Conversation.

November 7, 2024
Philosophy with video/role-playing games

Terrance MacMullan is an award-winning educator and author who has loved teaching philosophy at EWU since 2002. The author of Habits of Whiteness: A Pragmatist Reconstruction (Indiana UP, 2022) and From American Empire to América Cósmica: Prospero’s Reflection (Lexington, 2023), his current research interests include Latin American Philosophy, pop-culture and philosophy and philosophy for children. He developed the class “Roll for Wisdom!: Dungeons, Dragons & Philosophy!” for the EWU Satori Camp where he guides middle and high school students through a D&D campaign set inside The Epic of Gilgamesh where they encounter mythological creatures and real ethical questions.

October 24, 2024
P4C With Teachers
Debi Talukdar has been facilitating K-12 philosophy classes since 2014 and was the Philosopher-in-Residence at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, Seattle, from 2018-2021. She also mentors educators and facilitates professional development workshops, and was previously Program Director at the University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children before it merged with PLATO in 2022. Debi is an adjunct lecturer for online courses at the University of Washington School of Educational Studies and former ensemble member at Theater for Change UW. She currently lives in Oakland, CA.

October 10, 2024
Philosophy: Ethics 101
Karen S. Emmerman, PLATO’s Education Director, started teaching philosophy classes at John Muir Elementary in Seattle in 2010 and has worked as their Philosopher-in-Residence since 2013. She has facilitated teacher trainings in pre-college philosophy for many years. Karen is part-time faculty in the philosophy department at the University of Washington and writes in ecofeminism, animal ethics, and philosophy for children, as well as serving as associate editor of the journal Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice.

September 26, 2024
Virtue: Pride/Humility

Jeremy Fischer is a writer interested in the psychological underpinnings of inegalitarian and undemocratic social relations. His works include “Racism as Civic Vice” (published in Ethics), “Feeling Racial Pride in the Mode of Frederick Douglass” (published in Critical Philosophy of Race), and “Pride and Moral Responsibility” (published in Ratio). His current research on human relations with animals considers the ethics of training children to consume animal products. His paper, “Creating Carnists” (co-authored with Rachel Fredericks and forthcoming in Philosophers’ Imprint) sketches some concerns about such caregiving. He also has research interests in ethical and political topics relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the work of Peter Kropotkin. He lives in Chicago.

May 30, 2024 
How to Support Families in Being Philosophical

Karen S. Emmerman, PLATO’s Education Director, started teaching philosophy classes at John Muir Elementary in Seattle in 2010 and has worked as their Philosopher-in-Residence since 2013. She has taught a high school philosophy class and has facilitated teacher trainings in pre-college philosophy for many years. Karen teaches a course in philosophy for children at the University of Washington and mentors graduate and undergraduate students. She was the Education Director of the University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children before it merged with PLATO in 2022. Karen is part-time faculty in the philosophy department at the University of Washington and writes in ecofeminism, animal ethics, and philosophy for children as well as serving as associate editor of the journal Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice.

May 16, 2024 
The Virtue of Honesty

Robert Weston Siscoe is a postdoctoral fellow with the Virtues & Vocations project, a national forum for scholars and practitioners across disciplines to consider how best to cultivate character in pre-professional and professional education at the University of Notre Dame; and a FWF Research Fellow with the University of Graz. Siscoe received his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Arizona. His research explores the connections between rationality and virtue ethics, and his work has appeared in Mind, Philosophical Studies, Philosophers’ Imprint, and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, amongst other venues.  He is also a pedagogy contributor at the Blog of the American Philosophical Association, the Daily Nous, Philosophy, Ethics, and Academia, and The Philosopher’s Cocoon.

May 2, 2024
Free Will

Dr. Kyle Robertson is a Continuing Lecturer in the UC Santa Cruz Philosophy and Legal Studies departments and a staff member at the Center for Public Philosophy. As a part of the Center, he founded and directs the Northern California High School Ethics Bowl program, teaches as part of Mount Tamalpais College at San Quentin State Prison, runs local pre-college philosophy programs, and regularly speaks and publishes on public philosophy. He also works with a variety of national organizations in public philosophy including the Public Philosophy Network, PLATO, and the National High School Ethics Bowl.

This roundtable was part of the PLATO series introducing educators to philosophy and included the following short reading: Harry Frankfurt, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility”

April 18, 2024 
Assessing a P4C Session

Dr. Joe Oyler is an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education, Deputy Head of Department and Course Leader for the Master of Education programme. He teaches courses in Pedagogy, Philosophy of Education and Research Methods at the undergraduate and graduate level. His teaching and research interests revolve around the use of discussion based, collaborative practices and philosophical content as ways of exploring the world and our place within it. His current research aims at developing a deeper understanding of how experienced facilitators engage students in inquiry dialogue.

April 4, 2024 
The Current Political Climate and Challenges to P4C

Dr. Sarah Vitaleis Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where she teaches classes on philosophy for children, critical theories, existentialism, and social institutions. Her research focuses on Marx and post-Marxism, as well as the scholarship of teaching and learning. She is co-chair of the Radical Philosophy Association and the director of the Philosophy Outreach Project, which promotes philosophy in high schools. Outside of Ball State, Dr. Vitale is the Chair of Muncie Resists, an Indivisible organization dedicated to promoting progressive values in Indiana and beyond.

March 28, 2024
Introduction to Existentialism

Stephen Kekoa Miller has taught Philosophy and Religious Studies at Oakwood Friends School and Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York for 19 years. Stephen is the Treasurer and member of the Executive Committee of PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization). Stephen has served on the Teachers Advisory Council of the National Humanities Center and currently serves on the Ethics Board of the Town of Poughkeepsie and has just begun serving as the Chair of the Committee on Precollege Philosophy for the American Philosophical Association. Stephen speaks and publishes in the areas of pre-college philosophy, philosophy of emotions, ethics education, moral imagination and virtue ethics.

This roundtable was part of the PLATO series introducing educators to philosophy and included the following short reading: Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, Introduction

March 14, 2024
Research in Pre-College Philosophy

Dr. Michael Vazquez is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Director of Outreach at the Parr Center for Ethics. He is also a lecturer on the Social Foundations of Education for Penn’s Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2020. Michael specializes in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. He also draws actively on his community engagement efforts to conduct research in philosophy of education and to develop innovative practices for the teaching and learning of philosophy.

February 29, 2024
Religion and Philosophy for Children

Dr. Erik Kenyon is author of Augustine and the Dialogue (Cambridge, 2018) and co-author of Ethics for the Very Young: A Philosophy Curriculum for Early Childhood Education (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). He taught philosophy and classics at Rollins College from 2012 to 2020. Erik currently teaches middle-school Latin and humanities at Friends Academy in Dartmouth, MA. He serves on the research committees of PLATO and the National Middle School Ethics Bowl. His current book project, Philosophy at the Gym, explores the intersection of ethics and athletics in ancient Greece.

February 15, 2024
Working with Multilingual Learners

Dr. Brian Tauzel is an Assistant Professor, researcher and teacher educator specializing in equity for culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Focal areas include teacher collaboration, district policy, and social studies curricular & pedagogical development for immigrant youth and English learners. He received his PhD from the University of Washington, MA from Teachers College, Columbia University, and BS from Cornell University. 

February 1, 2024
Is it Possible for a Philosophy Instructor to be Neutral?

Karen S. Emmerman, PLATO’s Education Director, started teaching philosophy classes at John Muir Elementary in Seattle in 2010 and has worked as their Philosopher-in-Residence since 2013. She has taught a high school philosophy class and has facilitated teacher trainings in pre-college philosophy for many years. Karen teaches a course in philosophy for children at the University of Washington and mentors graduate and undergraduate students. She was the Education Director of the University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children before it merged with PLATO in 2022. Karen is part-time faculty in the philosophy department at the University of Washington and writes in ecofeminism, animal ethics, and philosophy for children as well as serving as associate editor of the journal Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice.

Debi Talukdar, PLATO’s Program Director, was previously Program Director at the University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children before it merged with PLATO in 2022. She has been facilitating K-12 philosophy classes since 2014 and was the Philosopher-in-Residence at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, Seattle, from 2018-2021. She also facilitates educator workshops and organizes a monthly seminar for individuals interested in philosophy with young people. Debi is a former instructor at the University of Washington College of Education and former ensemble member at Theater for Change UW. She currently lives in Oakland, CA. 

January 18, 2024
Virtues and How They Manifest in Personal & Professional Life

Dr. Brian Collins is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at California Lutheran University. His primary research interests are in Ethics and Political Philosophy with an emphasis on ‘political obligation’ and the intersection of ethical and political philosophical theories. His teaching interests include topics in Ethics and Political Philosophy, History (primarily Early Modern and Ancient), Applied Ethics (particularly Business, Environmental Ethics, and Restorative Justice), Existentialism, and Pre-College Philosophy. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Philosophy from The University of Iowa and B.A. from St. Olaf College.

Watch the introductory talks to past roundtables:

December 14, 2023
Fostering Moral and Intellectual Virtues in Classrooms

Evan Dutmer is Senior Instructor in Ethics and Curriculum Leader in the Department of Leadership Education at Culver Academies, where he also holds a J.D. Williamson ’63 Fellowship. Evan’s ethics teaching and research are rooted in a practiced neo-Aristotelian character education model centered around personalized virtue acquisition modules for each student: all with the aim of empowering young people to grow in virtue practice and flourish as human beings. He received his PhD in Ancient Philosophy from Northwestern University in 2019.

November 30, 2023
How High Schools Can Engage More Students
Richa Shukla is a senior at University High School in Normal, Illinois. She has been interested in philosophy from a young age, and she joined PLATO Student Advisory Council to introduce more philosophy education in her community. Richa hopes to make philosophy accessible for many, because it encourages many to think critically about the world around them.

Nava Rezaiamiri is a sophomore at Atlanta International School. Her interest in philosophy has grown out of her passion for equity and social justice. She has taken several classes on philosophy, and she hopes to make similar opportunities accessible to other students through the PLATO Student Advisory Council.

November 16, 2023
Cultivating an Ease with Changing Course
Marisa Diaz-Waian is the founder and director of a public philosophy non-profit called Merlin CCC, a speaker for Humanities Montana, and serves on the Academic Advisory Board for PLATO.  A community philosopher and generalist by nature, training, and practice, her work frequently has an interdisciplinary, environmental, and intergenerational bent.  She earned a Masters in Philosophy from San Diego State University and has a special interest in ethics, ancient philosophy, existentialism, humor, and “fuzzy” topics at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. Marisa happily hangs her hat at Merlin Nature Preserve where she lives and serves as its trustee and steward.

Mitchell Conway is a Facilitator at Cottonwood Agile Learning Center, a Community Philosopher at Merlin CCC, and a Philosophy Instructor at Carroll College. He is a student of philosophy, a theater maker, and a teacher who cares ardently about empowering young learners; his work often interweaves education, story, and inquiry. Mitch serves on PLATO’s Academic Advisory Board on the Editorial Board for the journal Questions. He has a Masters degree in Philosophy & Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and he trained at the Institute for the Advanced of Philosophy for Children.

November 2, 2023
The Current Political Climate & Challenges to P4C

Dr. Sarah Vitale is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where she teaches classes on philosophy for children, critical theories, existentialism, and social institutions. Her research focuses on Marx and post-Marxism, as well as the scholarship of teaching and learning. She is co-chair of the Radical Philosophy Association and the director of the Philosophy Outreach Project, which promotes philosophy in high schools. Outside of Ball State, Dr. Vitale is the Chair of Muncie Resists, an Indivisible organization dedicated to promoting progressive values in Indiana and beyond.

October 19, 2023
How P4C Can Help Students Develop a Comfort with Failure

Laurie Grady has been teaching English for over 20 years in the Philadelphia area. She is committed to the instruction of critical and philosophical thinking and communication in all of the courses she teaches, including AP Language & Composition and Literature & Philosophy. Laurie serves on PLATO’s Board of Directors, Media Committee, and Program Committee. She is passionate about communicating the potential of philosophical inquiry to other teachers and is dedicated to exploring practical ways of expanding philosophy into more schools, classrooms, and homes.

October 5, 2023
Practices of a Successful Facilitator
Ariel Sykes is the Assistant Director of the Ethics Institute at Kent Place School and serves on PLATO’s Board of Directors. She has worked in the philosophy for children community for over ten years and specializes in dialogic teaching strategies, argumentation, and ethics instruction. She received her B.A from Mount Holyoke College and her M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University in the field of Philosophy and Education. Ariel is the co-founder of the New York City High School Ethics Bowl and an endorsed practitioner of the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children.

Reference Tools

June 1, 2023
P4C and Music

Jack Flesher (he/they) is a fifth-year PhD Candidate in Ethnomusicology at UW and has completed Graduate Certificates in Ethics, Public Critical Race Scholarship, and Philosophy for Children. He is also the Philosopher-in-Residence at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School in Seattle, WA, and has been a judge for the Washington State High School Ethics Bowl for the past two years. Jack’s favorite thing about philosophy is that moment when you feel so sure that you finally understand a big idea only to have someone else offer a completely new perspective that you’ve never considered that completely rocks your world and makes you stop and think anew yet again. 

May 18, 2023
Ethical Dilemmas: Case Studies

Alexandra Chang is a middle school English teacher in Michigan. Previously, she taught for four years in Boston Public Schools. Alex studied philosophy and education at Carleton College, where she first began teaching philosophy in local schools. As a teacher, Alex continues to develop philosophy lesson plans for middle school students, as well as consider the intersection between philosophy, social-emotional learning, and restorative practices. Most recently, Alex has collaborated with A2Ethics in Ann Arbor to develop a workshop for local teachers interested in expanding the use of philosophy in their core classes.

May 4, 2023
How can P4C Help US Embrace Failure?
Dustin Webster is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania where he serves as the Co-Director for Penn’s Project for Philosophy for the Young. In addition to philosophy for children and pre-college philosophy, Dustin’s research interests include normative evaluations of using education for social mobility, the relationship of education to work, character and virtue education, and educational ethics. He has a professional background in K-12 education with experience in a variety of contexts, including most recently as a 5th grade teacher. Dustin received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education where he studied the philosophy of education.

April 20, 2023
P4C and Cultivation of Character and the Virtues

Cassie Finley is a PhD candidate in philosophy at the University of Iowa. She is the director of the Iowa Lyceum, a free precollege philosophy summer program run by University of Iowa graduate students. She has published on the Iowa Lyceum and graduate student education, and has current projects in public and precollege philosophy in the works. She also developed (with Jen Foster, USC) the free public philosophy workshop series, “Cogtweeto.” Her research interests include virtue education, metaphilosophy, social epistemology, ancient Greek philosophy, and philosophy of technology.

March 2, 2023
How Can P4C Develop Imagination and Curiosity?

Wendy Turgeon specializes in philosophy for children and the history of philosophy, Wendy C. Turgeon is presently the chair of the Department of Philosophy at St. Joseph’s College, where she has been teaching courses since 1991. One of the leading proponents of the freshman honors program, Dr. Turgeon coordinates the program in addition to teaching one of its core courses. She has also incorporated global education into many of the philosophy classes at the College and is a passionate advocate for study abroad. Dr. Turgeon was also instrumental in creating the College’s minor in women’s studies.

Mitchell Conway is a Facilitator at Cottonwood Agile Learning Center, a Community Philosopher at Merlin CCC, and a Philosophy Instructor at Carroll College. He is a student of philosophy, a theater maker, and a teacher who cares ardently about empowering young learners; his work often interweaves education, story, and inquiry. He has a Masters degree in Philosophy & Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and he trained at the Institute for the Advanced of Philosophy for Children. In addition to serving on the Academic Advisory Committee for PLATO, he is also on the Editorial Board for the journal Questions.  

Michael Vazquez is Teaching Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Director of Outreach at the Parr Center for Ethics. He is also a lecturer on the Social Foundations of Education for Penn’s Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2020. Michael specializes in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. He also draws actively on his community engagement efforts to conduct research in philosophy of education and to develop innovative practices for the teaching and learning of philosophy.

Debi Talukdar, PLATO’s Program Director, was previously Program Director at the University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children before it merged with PLATO in 2022. She has been facilitating K-12 philosophy classes since 2014 and was the Philosopher-in-Residence at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, Seattle, from 2018-2021. She also facilitates educator workshops and organizes a monthly seminar for individuals interested in philosophy with young people. Debi is a former instructor at the University of Washington College of Education and former ensemble member at Theater for Change UW. She currently lives in Oakland, CA. 

Watch the introductory talks to past roundtables:

November 17, 2022
How does doing philosophy impact your teaching practice?

Colin Pierce has been an educator for 14 years and is a passionate advocate for equity in education and elevating youth voice and agency in the matters most important to them. He taught at Rainier Beach High School in south Seattle for eight years and coached teams in the Washington State Ethics Bowl for seven. Born in Oakland, California, he received his Bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College and his Master of Arts in Teaching from Lewis & Clark College. He currently works for the City of Seattle’s Department of Education and Early Learning and serves on the Washington State Leadership Board, among other volunteer activities. 

Dan Fouts has been high school social studies teacher since 1993 in the Chicagoland area, teaching US history, AP government, American studies and, most recently, a philosophy elective which he designed in 2011. Outside of the classroom, he has presented extensively at the state and national level on inquiry-based instruction techniques, in addition to working with PLATO and the American Philosophical Association to bring philosophy into K-12 classrooms in the United States. He is a co-founder of Teach Different, a professional development organization which helps teachers and students master the art and science of classroom conversations using a simple protocol which combines quotes, claims, counterclaims and essential questions.

October 20 Roundtable

How can P4C contribute to community building?

 

Claire Katz is Professor of Philosophy at Texas A&M, where she currently serves as Interim Department Head of Teaching, Learning, and Culture. A Baltimore native, she majored in philosophy at UMBC. She holds a Master’s of Arts in Teaching (teaching of philosophy to K-12 students) from Montclair State University and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Memps throughout Texas; training for university students in facilitating philosophical discussions with pre-college students, which includes an undergraduate course that teaches students to teach philosophy to K-12 students; and developing and running a week-long philosophy summer camp (Aggie School of Athens) for 6^th-12^th graders.

 

 

 

October 6, 2022 Roundtable
Who is doing philosophy and who is a philosopher?

John Torrey is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and a contributing professor in the Africana Studies unit at SUNY Buffalo State. He holds a BA in Philosophy and Spanish from Morehouse College and an MA and Ph. D in Philosophy from the University of Memphis. His primary research interest is the interconnection between moral arguments and their political limits regarding calls for reparations for Black Americans. He also has done work in applied ethics, philosophy of education, and pre-college philosophy. In addition to his publications on Black reparations, he has published on the theoretical underpinnings of Black Lives Matter and on doing precollege philosophy. He also has participated in precollege philosophy programs since 2010, including organizing the July 2019 Buffalo State Lyceum. He currently serves on PLATO’s Academic Advisory Board. As a public philosopher, he has worked with the City of Buffalo’s Commission to Recommend Police Policy and Advance Social Reconstruction (2020), and was elected to the Board of Ethics for the City of Buffalo in 2022.