Some Active Alternatives to Reading in Philosophy for Children

One of the ancillary benefits for school kids involved in doing Philosophy for Children is that it gives them an additional classroom opportunity to read. A number of teachers I’ve worked with have been initially attracted to P4C for just this reason. Even if they were initially skeptical about the value of philosophy, they at least considered it worthwhile that students were being encouragedto explore the written word. And indeed, the value of the reading aspect of P4C is not to be underestimated; anything that we can do to lure kids towards books is, I think, to be commended.Unfortunately, though, lots of kids don’t like to read, don’t read well, or just think that reading is uncool. For these reasons and others, any classroom activity - philosophy or not - that is organized primarily around explorations of textual materials is likely to leave some students by the wayside. As practitioners of Philosophy for Children, therefore, it behooves us to try to developalternative ways of raising philosophical questions, exercises that don’t rely on the written words asa starting point.In this paper, then, I discuss three different strategies I’ve developed to get (mostly) middle school students philosophizing about moral questions. These strategies use exercises - interactivelearning models - as a way to motivate discussions. Two things I need to note in describing them. First, while these examples explore issues in moral philosophy, such activities are not limited to philosophical ethics; I use similar sorts of active learning initiatives to do metaphysics, epistemology, and logic, too. Second, and more importantly, while this paper discusses active learning, I’m not suggesting that this should be the only way we do P4C. Such activities ought to be part of a comprehensive program that includes a good deal of reading and writing, as well.