Subversive

At the Philosophy for Children Mini-Conference in conjunction with the American Philosophical Association’s Western Division Convention today, lots of fascinating questions, concepts, ideas, and examples of practices involving philosophy with pre-college students were discussed, but two re-emerging themes resonated particularly strongly within me: first, the broad issue of whether there ought to be more standardization of philosophy for children curriculum and second, the degree to which the program or curriculum of P4C should be delivered more widely in classrooms and school districts around the world.

I take what I hope comes off as a somewhat minority (as opposed to merely cranky) position on both these issues.

Regarding whether or not P4C ought to be “sold” or packaged in a way that might make it easier to “sell” more widely: I resist this. It’s long been my view that philosophy is necessarily subversive and that the degree to which it becomes something that’s fully endorsed by the educational establishment (whatever that is, exactly) is the degree to which it is undermined.

I like, for instance, that when I come into a pre-college classroom, I’m coming in from the outside; I’m not “the man;” I’m a rebel, a corruptor of youth, just like Socrates. I can say and do things that the teachers can’t and hopefully, connect with the kids on a different level, perhaps even encouraging responses from them that they might not be willing to offer in their regular classes. My fear is that some of this might be lost if I were to become more a part of the establishment.

My resistance to greater standardization of the curriculum has a similar source (one again I hope not entirely in my crankiness). Essentially, my concern is that the great flowering of creativity that seems to currently be happening in the field will be squelched if more people start doing the same thing. I think it’s cool that, for instance, today, we heard from a couple P4C practitioners who are doing games for kids based on Wittgenstein, Foucauld, and Hegel, as well as from some others who create exercises drawing on Socrates and Plato. I fear that if there were more of a “right” way to deliver our lessons that we’d lose some of the diversity that makes our field so vital and exciting right now—even if that meant it were somewhat easier and more accessible for people just getting into it.

At the end of the day, we had a large group discussion where about 50 of us, all at once, talked over these (and other) topics. I tried (unsuccessfully) to hold my tongue; I’m just hoping I came off as a thoughtful (and perhaps somewhat subversive) alternative and not just a total crank.