What if heaven is full? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Philosophy with Children, the stingray and the educative value of disequilibrium
Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2008
Philosophy with children (P4C)1 presents significant positive challenges for educators. Its ‘community of enquiry’ pedagogy assumes not only an epistemological shift in the role of the educator, but also a different ontology of ‘child’ and balance of power between educator and learner. After a brief historical sketch and an outline of the diversity among P4C practitioners, epistemological uncertainty in teaching P4C is crystallised in a succinct overview of theoretical and practical tensions that are a direct result of the implementation of P4C in mainstream education. These recurring pedagogical tensions in my practice as P4C teacher, teacher educator and mentor of teacher educators cause disequilibrium that opens up rich opportunities for philosophy of education in supporting novice P4Cers. Disequilibrium is a positive force that opens up a space in which educators need to reflect upon their values, their beliefs about learning and teaching, and ultimately encourages educators to rethink their own role. Plato's metaphor of the stingray highlights the role of the P4C teacher educator as model of the P4C teacher in any setting: ‘to numb and to be numbed’. The P4C community and its institutions need to address the questions arising from these pedagogical tensions; and this needs to be done with integrity, that is, in communities of enquiry that include children. If not, in the long term, a more instrumental version of P4C may prevail.
Reading Philosophically in a Community of Enquiry: Challenging Developmentality with Angry Arthur
Children's Literature and Education , 2013
Meanings cannot be found or discovered ‘in’ a picturebook, but are constructed in the space between words, images and reader. Contemporary picturebooks are ideal vehicles for a deep reading of, and philosophical engagement with, texts that move beyond literary and literacy knowledge. Philosophy with picturebooks also offers an alternative to personal responses to these texts that are individual, subjective and anecdotal. The use of these works of art for teaching demands an epistemological reorientation with ethical and political implications. First, it is argued how picturebooks’ ambiguity and complexity demand the ‘community of enquiry’ pedagogy that positions its participants (including young children) as able meaning-makers and problem-posers. Secondly, it is shown how philosophical knowledge changes the questions lecturers, teachers and primary children ask and how these can disrupt naturalised psychological discourses about child and childhood. The argument is supported by showing how the picturebook ‘Angry Arthur’ by Oram and Kitamura can be used in Higher Education to teach key theoretical distinctions in the philosophy of emotions and how these ideas challenge the still current discourse of developmentality through deep readings that are also literal and not symbolic or figurative as often assumed. ‘Angry Arthur’ is therefore suggested as a useful text in teacher education especially in combination with the community of enquiry pedagogy.
Chapter 18 Philosophy with Children An Imaginative Democratic Practice
This chapter offers a critical account of Philosophy for and with Children (P4C). This approach has grown in popularity around the world since Lipman and others launched the Philosophy for Children Programme over forty years ago. Its theory and practice have been hotly debated. This chapter considers the narrative philosophising and collaborative dialogue in the community of enquiry that characterise P4C, whether practised with children or other contexts. It explores the discussions about both childhood and philosophy that have taken place in the light of P4C. Through a series of examples of picturebooks, framed as philosophical texts, notions of transgressive, ageless and playful philosophy are introduced. This chapter proposes that the community of philosophical enquiry is a radical proposal for education through such imaginative democratic engagement. This chapter is published in The Palgrave International Handbook of Alternative Education (2016) edited by Helen E. Lees and Nel Noddings
Africa Education Review, 2014
Education for transformation and social justice calls for critical, reflective, imaginative and independent thinkers with enquiring minds and a strong sense of curiosity – the ends and means of what Jonathan Jansen calls a ‘pedagogy to disrupt’ and Gert Biesta a ‘pedagogy of interruption’. For this reason, I introduced an innovative pedagogy in some of my courses at the School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg – the internationally established ‘community of enquiry’ pedagogy. I report on how in an Ethics course the pedagogy opened up a space for undergraduate students to disclose their own experiences of corporal punishment in the schools where they were placed for teaching practice. The pedagogy made room for a critical incident to emerge that was painful for both tutors and students, but, as I argue, crucial for participation, inclusion and the demands of open-mindedness, critical thinking and also solidarity required in a deliberative democracy.
This article reports on a philosophy for children (P4C) literacy project in a South African foundation phase classroom that introduces an important new focus in the P4C classroom: the visualisation of philosophical ideas provoked by the picture book The Big Ugly Monster and the Little Stone Rabbit (2004) by Chris Wormell, giving voice to young children’s own imaginative ideas and beliefs (in this case about death). This research shows how a particular use of the community of philosophical enquiry pedagogy combined with the making of drawings necessitates a rethinking of what ‘voice’ means. We conclude that the children’s drawings bring something new into existence, thereby offering unique material and discursive opportunities for all children, including those who otherwise might not have expressed their ideas.