Philosophy for Children

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in steps the cognitive ability in order to accomplish next the complex thinking. As the complex thinking is developed the cognitive abilities are achieved) otherwise is orientated to form reasonable people, in which involves a sociability instance in the reasoning .Besides the development of cognitive abilities ( abilities in reasoning, in inquiring , in conceptual analysis, in interpretation) and the work with philosophical concepts (”truth”, ”justice”, ”beauty”, ”goodness”, ”language”, ”liberty”, ”identity”), the program is worried about behaviours and habits such as; developing the ability of self-correction, learning how to listen to other people, paying attention and trying hard in order to understand, asking for and giving reasons, among others. Obviously the formative phase overtakes the philosophical domain as these abilities also belong to other areas of the knowledge. Nevertheless, these habits and behaviours are crucial for the existence of a democratic society. It’s important to teach the children how to think for themselves, so that they are capable of renovating creatively and carefully the society in which they live in, and at the same time be able to grow up in a critical, careful and creative way. By saying that education must allow the students to develop the instruments they need in order to evaluate carefully, creatively and critically the social expectations, it means that education must tend to develop human beings capable of evaluating the world and oneself, as well as expressing fluently and creatively besides caring for others. On the following some of the specific aims of Philosophy for Children: • Children and teenagers develop their reasoning capacity (derive inference of different kind, classify and categorize , work with coherence and contradiction, formulate questions, identify assumptions, formulate cause-effect relation, knowing and avoiding - or at least know how to use – language vagueness, distinguish ambiguities, recognize interdependence between means and results, define terms, identify and use criterion, exemplify, built hypothesis, context, anticipate, predict and estimate the consequences, generalize, find out informal deceitfulness, normalize daily language phrases); http://www.ffst.hr/ENCYCLOPAEDIA/ • Develop one’s creative thinking; • Familiarize oneself with the practice of the caring thinking; • Develop one’s capacity to find out the meanings of experience (find out connections, alternatives, offer some reasons, relations between part-whole and whole-part, detect and recongnize incoherence). To achieve the development and co-ordination of these thinking abilities it’s required a gradual and systematic process, nevertheless, it’s needed a cognitive aptitude for implementing those, further than the abilities themselves. This aptitude is consisted of cooperation, trust, self-appreciation, attention, respect for people, among others. Philosophy for Children believes these attitudes are stimulated when the class is transformed into a dialogic seminar committed to inquiry. It’s assumed that dialogue produces cogitation; 6
people who participate in a dialogue have to cogitate, to concentrate in what is being said, to evaluate different alternatives, have to pay careful attention to the definitions and significance, to recognize different options that haven’t been aware of, and in general, have to perform a great number of mental activities. Participants reproduce in their own thinking process the structure and the dialogue progress taken place in class. A thesis based on the social and cognitive psychology, that claims thinking is the interiorization of the dialogue. ”Dialogue” meaning not just any kind of conversation, but it’s referred to the dialogue in which aims an elaboration of the thinking from the contribution of others. For that reason, the community of inquiry is the place where the group’s self-appreciation and the process will be cared, in which the aptitude is meant to appreciate and criticise one’s reasoning as well as the mate’s. It will be trusted that the group’s procedures are reliable as they are self-corrected. When this becomes habitual, a following support is provided to the social and individual forming character. Finally Philosophy for Children is an alive organism. Therefore, it’s creator, Dr. Mathew Lipman, up-holds and stimulates each country or region to develop it’s own curriculum, according to the children’s interest and necessity, and the research and writing capacity of each Philosophy for Children Centre. Dr. Lipman wrote his own curriculum, between 1969 and 1980, which titles are; Elfie (6 to 7 years old), Kio and Gus (8-9 years old), Pixie (9-10 years old), Harry Stottlemeier’s Discovery (11-12 years old), Lisa (11-12 years old), Suki (12- 14 years old) and Mark (15-18 years old). These texts, with their corresponding support manuals, constitute the traditional program. Some of the texts haven’t been used lately in some parts of the world. More than twenty years has passed since they were written, therefore some of them don’t instigate the students from the XXI century any more. Others experts from the program with their critical, creative and caring effort are elaborating, writing, and publishing new texts for the program (as it happens in Argentina), that respects, amplifies, and turns into more complex the initial idea. It continues to be caring, creative and critical, and from the contribution of the philosophy introduced in education since early ages, goes on thinking about the teachers, the students and in a better world for everyone. http://www.ffst.hr/ENCYCLOPAEDIA/ References ACCORINTI, S., Introducción a Filosofía para Nińos, Buenos Aires, Manantial, 1999 ACCORINTI, S., Trabajando en el aula. La práctica en Filosofía para Nińos, Buenos Aires, Manantial, 2000 ACCORINTI, S., Lis, Buenos Aires, Manantial, 2000 ACCORINTI, S., Maravillándome con mi experiencia, Buenos Aires, Manantial, 2000 7
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Philosophy for Children

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