Stimulus Get hold of some sheet music (e.g. an Etude by Fernando Sor or a famous song) Show the class the sheet music. [Optional] Play or sing them the piece of music [if you can play an instrument or sing]. [Optional] Play them the song from an MP3 player. [Optional] If the class know the song, have them sing it. Task Question W...

BACKGROUND The basis for this story is one of the ten commandments: do not covet your neighbours goods. So we are told not to look jealously at what our peers have. The exact original meaning, and the best translations from the ancient sources, are a bit murky. For example, it is said by some analysts that those goods might include slaves, or...

Thought Adventure 42 The perfect friend – thinking about friendship, (perfection and A.I.) This session was put together for teachers asking for sessions for ‘anti-bullying week’ and for PSHE requirements ‘getting on and falling out’. The strategy I took for developing this session was to problematize th...

Focus With eyes shut try to imagine the perfect school. Ask the following questions: How would the pupils behave? How would the teachers take the lessons? How would the pupils feel at the end of the school day? How would the teachers feel at the end of the school day? Stimulus This piece of paper is a letter from the Prime...

BACKGROUND This story draws on events in history. The Europeans were not the first to use ‘movable type’, it seems. That happened in China and Korea some centuries earlier, but the Europeans developed moveable type in the 15th century. The main advance was that individual metal letters could be packed next to one another to make p...

THE PROM   A young man named Joe was looking forward to his final week in school. At the end of the week there would be a prom - a huge party where everyone would dress up really smart and dance in the school hall. Joe’s mum bought him a suit and his brother, Seb, showed him how to tie the tie properly. Seb also told him to star...

A two-minute play by Paul Bodin. (Words inside brackets are stage directions only.  They are not meant to be said out loud.) For information on how to use this play in the classroom, take a look at Pete's blog here: https://www.philosophy-foundation.org/blog/dialogues-in-philosophy-with-children   The Science ...

By Tim Beardmore-Gray This enquiry was written for the educational charity GROW. https://www.grow-up.co/ The story is based on the Swiss tale The Singing Fir Tree, as told by Sheryl Ann Karas. http://spiritoftrees.org/the-singing-fir-tree The text in brackets can be omitted or included depending on how open you’d like the compreh...

This session was created by Caroline Schaffalitzky de Muckadell, from the University of Southern Denmark.  She is part of the project Filosofi i Skolen, which The Philosophy Foundation is partnered with. Philosophy A central question in moral philosophy concerns what makes something morally wrong. Is it if the act harms others? If it ...