...Versus Thinking

Steve Hoggins, another longstanding TPF specialist tackles David's and Pete's arguments on teaching critical thinking in the classroom, offering an alternative suggestion for a 'curious' way of thinking that seeks to straddle the potential divide between increasing confidence and building the child's capacity to withstand critical challenges.

Posted by Joe Tyler on 12th December 2016 at 12:00am


Category: Philosophy, P4C, Education

Tags: Critical Thinking, Philosophy in the classroom

Critical Thinking vs Confident Thinking

David Birch, a longstanding TPF philosophy specialist offers his thoughts on why it may be the case that teaching critical thinking in schools can go sour.  He suggests the most important thing is to replace the commonplace non-thinking happening in our classrooms with a positive form of thinking.  He advocates an idea of 'confident thinking' rather than 'critical thinking' as he sees how it can have a negative impact on young learners.

Posted by Joe Tyler on 12th December 2016 at 12:00am


Category: Philosophy, P4C, Education

Tags: Critical Thinking, Philosophy in the classroom

Young Philosophers on City Hall and Baddies

We took our group of Young Philosophers on their first trip of 2016-17 to conduct some philosophical explorations around London Bridge.  We went to City Hall and the nearby Unicorn Theatre to watch a play called 'Baddies: The Musical'.  How do you know if you're a good person?  Is it OK to be bad in some people's eyes?  We continue to wonder...

Posted by Joe Tyler on 1st December 2016 at 12:00am


Category: Education, P4C

Tags: Young Philosophers, Politics, Theatre, community

Dialogues in philosophy with children

Pete offers some practical advice on how to use dialogues to do philosophy with children.  Utilising plays written with philosophy in mind by Paul Bodin, Tim Sprod and others he provides some comments on how this medium can act as a catalyst for enquiry and philosophical discussions.  You can find some examples of plays by following the links in the blog.  You will need to become a member of our website to see them - which you can do for free by clicking the link here: https://www.philosophy-foundation.org/become-a-member

Posted by Joe Tyler on 7th November 2016 at 12:00am


Category: Philosophy, P4C, Education

Tags: dialogue, Socrates, role play

Observations and anecdotes on facilitation of philosophy with children

Recently, Peter Worley was interviewed by Laura Candiotto (PhD in Philosophy), a researcher at the University of Edinburgh for an Italian magazine.  We have published the interview in full (and in English!) as she asks important questions about the methods of The Philosophy Foundation.  Pete clarifies how TPF differs from other ways of doing philosophy with children and offers practical, straight-forward advice for teachers to use these methods in their classrooms.

Posted by Joe Tyler on 18th October 2016 at 12:00am


Category: Philosophy, P4C, Education

Tags: facilitation, Peter Worley, Democritus, Numbers, Ontology, absence principle