November 18 was this year’s World Philosophy Day. Wuxi United International School held the first Children’s Philosophy Seminar on this day. It was a great honor to invite senior experts in the field of P4C and also leaders and teachers from other primary and secondary schools to feel the charm of children’s philosophy together.
The event kicked off with a lecture led by Ms. Cindy, Co director of Children’s Philosophy and China Research Center called “Do you like talking to Children? Do you try to find opportunities to talk to children and listen to their ideas?……”, Ms. Cindy led the participants to approach children’s philosophy by asking a series of questions. In addition, she also introduced the development of children’s philosophy in China, and played a video of a speech by Nick Chandley, one of the founders of dialogue works of children philosophy promotion center in the UK.
Mr. Pu Jianjun, director of Xishan District teacher development center, pointed out that children’s philosophy is the forefront of modern pedagogy. The purpose is to cultivate children’s philosophy thinking ability, good thinking habits and the ways of looking at the world, and guide the cultivation of internal values. Education should first point to the future. Children’s philosophy curriculum opens up a road for the exploration of education in the new era and brings different experiences to children’s growth.
Principal Ms. Angel mentioned in her speech that the depth of thought has nothing to do with age. Good thinking should not only be critical and creative, but also caring and cooperative. Children’s philosophy is based on everyone’s ideas being heard and respected as well as taking care of everyone’s curiosity. In the recent years, Wuxi United International School has been committed to cultivating professional children’s philosophy teachers and encouraging teachers of various disciplines to grow into philosophical teachers, so as to help students think better.
Professor Dr. Gao Zhenyu from School of Education of Hangzhou Normal University pointed out the importance of building a child-friendly school——inclusiveness and equality; effective teaching and learning; safety、health and protection; participation and harmony. All of these standards are exactly in line with the curriculum concept of children’s philosophy. As a senior practitioner in the field of children’s philosophy education, Dr. Gao demonstrated the practical contribution and path of children’s philosophy in schools across the country, emphasizing that the p4c classroom should makes children feel safe and that they can take care of each other when they are having a discussion.
Professor Dr. Gao Zhenyu from School of Education of Hangzhou Normal University pointed out the importance of building a child-friendly school——inclusiveness and equality; effective teaching and learning; safety、health and protection; participation and harmony. All of these standards are exactly in line with the curriculum concept of children’s philosophy. As a senior practitioner in the field of children’s philosophy education, Dr. Gao demonstrated the practical contribution and path of children’s philosophy in schools across the country, emphasizing that the p4c classroom should makes children feel safe and that they can take care of each other when they are having a discussion.
Then, the experts gave feedback on the demo lessons of the two teachers. The two demo lessons had their own unique characteristics, but they also had something in common. Ms. Carol’s P4C lesson created a safe environment where everyone could speak equally. She connected with children’s real life and finally generated rational judgments. Ms. Gigi’s Chinese lesson tried to create the possibility of subject integration and deepen children’s introspective thinking activities by using philosophical tools. Both teachers have made it possible to stimulate children’s internal learning motivation through a problem driven way in the process of mutual cooperation.
In the afternoon, the teachers who came to the seminar went around the campus to participate in various workshops led by experts and teachers. The main contents were:
Dr. Zheng Minxi——《The tension of questioning: the perspective and method of children’s philosophical questioning》: It introduced basic proposition and inquiry toolkit of children’s philosophical questioning method; combined with children’s phenomena and problems.
Ms. Zheng Guoying ——《Dialogic reading integrated into children’s philosophy》:Parents and children participated together, and experienced the charm of children’s philosophy classroom based on picture books and learn the CROWD which is a questioning method in dialogic reading.
Ms. Jiang Jingya ——《Experience of the whole process of children’s philosophy》:With the “Free Hugs” video as the stimulus, all participants formed an inquiry community, and explore the whole process of children’s philosophy around the stimulus. Everyone shared in the personal experience of interesting warm-up games and cooperate to create questions and carry out dialogue construction around the questions.
Our principle Ms. Angel——《A-Z Thinking》:Through games the teacher helped students recognize meta-cognition as well as make friends with the process of thinking behind thinking.
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The development of each workshop enabled everyone to further understand the modules of “ What is children’s philosophy?” Why should we implement children’s philosophy? How to implement children’s philosophy?
At the same time, all the students were experiencing different World Children’s Philosophy activities at school.
Activity one: Philosophy Pop-up Station
Teachers and students from grade one and two discussed four topics together. What is sharing? What is children? What is thinking? What is beauty? In the end, they needed to express their ideas in the form of writing and drawing.
Activity two: Philosophy Book Drifting
Students from grade three and four were reading books in the library. They needed to write down ideas on various topics and exchange ideas with each other.
Activity three: Philosophy Market
Students from grade five and six were holding a philosophy market where they share interesting topics to exchange ideas and promote one another’s improved thinking skills as “operators” and “customers”
Activity four: Philosophy Jenga
“What is children’s philosophy?”. All grades reviewed the activities of the day and wrote down their views on a shoebox. They then piled up the shoe-boxes in their own unique way to “make dialogue happen and let thinking grow”.
It is worth mentioning that as early as a month ago, we solicited the creativity of “ How do you want to celebrate the world philosophy day?” in the primary department. Therefore, this world philosophy day activity comes from the children’s own ideas, and it is their ingenuity that made these activities dynamic and meaningful
.After the seminar, many experts and teachers expressed a great appreciation for the holding of this wonderful seminar, saying that they were very lucky to participate in such a professional, deep and meaningful activities, and hope to have more opportunities to communicate with each other in the future.
The success of this symposium on children’s philosophy gives us a better expectation for the future development of children’s philosophy. We also hope that by holding such activities more and more people can participate, understand children’s philosophy, promote the construction of a wider philosophical community and grow all together.