If we really want the best education for children, then we should ditch classes on jargon and go back to teaching real subject matter - including sometimes difficult, philosophical subject matter.’ ‘The EEF report has been widely welcomed, but largely as a convenient shortcut away from serious teaching in favour of therapeutic talking shops. For more on this see my response to Tom Bennett ‘It’s (not?) what you know’.
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And what they need – as a minimum, in my view – is an understanding of what a conceptual discussion is and how to facilitate it. I have recommended that teachers be trained in what it is they need to be able to run good dialogues with their classes. A discussion around whether it’s right to bully people (where the teacher holds the view that it is wrong) probably won’t be, but a genuinely open discussion around what bullying is, that leads to conceptual progress in the children’s views as a result of this analysis (see the response to Tom Bennett ‘progess in philosophy’) is much more likely to be philosophical. Whether a discussion of bullying and fairness are philosophical is all in how it’s approached. I agree that many teachers don’t know enough about philosophy. Why was Humpy Dumpty on that wall? And a burning question for all young girls: Does kissing frogs work? These are potential philosophical sticklers, and can be addressed without the dumbed-down approach of P4C.’
Even in nursery rhymes there are challenging topics. Yet as we wait for a drive to recruit more actual philosophers into primary schools, which we should do, teachers can easily teach some of the history of philosophy in history, and some of the works of philosophy in literature. ‘The EEF report also said teachers don’t know enough about philosophy and aren’t confident enough to teach it. I don’t see much childish whining in my philosophy classes, because I always ask them to say ‘why?’ When someone complains about something without providing good reasons, that’s what I call ‘childish whining’. I agree, childish whining is not philosophy. ‘Childish whining is not philosophy reading books, even difficult ones, and then having proper classroom chats about them is.’ Why not start with the classical Greek philosophers? Teach your charges about Socrates and Plato and Aristotle! Let them rehearse the arguments of all the great philosophers.’
‘The problem today is that children are being taught bits of philosophy, in their circle-time activities.
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By claiming that P4C might help all primary-school pupils - especially those on free school meals - to do better in other disciplines, the EEF report does a serious disservice to philosophy.’ ‘P4C is a popular method of exploring concepts such as fairness or bullying in small group discussions. ‘Surely the worst, most instrumental reason for doing philosophy is that it might improve your skills in other areas, like maths and reading, while also boosting ‘cognitive abilities’ and pupils’ self-esteem.’ (So that I don’t simply repeat myself, go here for my response to the issue of philosophy’s own value: Aeon, should children do philosophy? Also read my response to Tom Bennett’s, Philosophy. Dennis Hayes wrote in Spiked Online, ‘Philosophy for children’ isn’t real philosophy.
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