That Kid

Often, after I’ve been doing philosophy with a pre-college classroom for a while, the teacher will remark to me about a particular student, something to the effect of, “It’s really great seeing how ‘Johnny’ (let’s say) has taken to this; most of the time, in other subjects, he’s really quiet.”

I love that, in no small part because I WAS that kid, too. (Not that I was especially quiet in ANY of my classes, but I was the student who took to philosophical questioning way more than any other subject.)

There was a student in a 5th grade class I went regularly to some years ago; his name was Jake, and he was the kid who always had his hand up with questions and comments, most of which were even relevant to our discussions. He cracked us all up once with an imitation of Socrates drinking Hemlock and spearheaded the end-of-the-year philosophy poster that the class drew on long pieces of butcher paper that they then posted around the room. It never occurred to me that he wasn’t like this in all of his classes until his teacher told me that he was pretty much failing everything else besides band, in which he played clarinet.

It warms my heart to think that, for some kids, anyway, doing philosophy in school is one of the things that makes it worthwhile for them. I realize, of course, that for many students, that’s not the case: I occasionally see the same blank looks of boredom on 12 year-olds as I do on 20-somethings when we’re getting too far into logical hair-splitting, but I’m also confident that doing philosophy does save a youngster here or there.

I’ve already seen a few kids really come alive in the 5th grade class I’ve started going to this quarter; we’ll see how long they sustain that interest. But if philosophy can engage even that “one kid,” then, I think it’s worthwhile—at least for me.