Method
The pedagogy of philosophy for children is diverse. However, many practitioners including those working in the tradition of Matthew Lipman and the IAPC emphasize the use of a community of enquiry method which has roots in the work of philosopher John Dewey. The term "enquiry" is preferred to "lesson" because the emphasis is on the group enquiring together into questions with the teacher as a facilitator rather than the authoritative source of information.
In a typical enquiry, a group would be presented with a thought-provoking stimulus such as a text, image, picture book, or video clip. Some time may be spent identifying the concepts raised by the stimulus, and then participants frame their own philosophical questions in response to the stimulus and vote for the one they wish to explore. The ensuing discussion usually takes place in a circle, with the teacher/facilitator intervening to push the thinking to a deeper level but aspiring to allow the discussion to follow the emerging interests of the group.
Read more about this topic: Philosophy For Children
Famous quotes containing the word method:
“Protestantism has the method of Jesus with His secret too much left out of mind; Catholicism has His secret with His method too much left out of mind; neither has His unerring balance, His intuition, His sweet reasonableness. But both have hold of a great truth, and get from it a great power.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary, & ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune,
He had not the method of making a fortune.”
—Thomas Gray (1716–1771)