Philosophy
- if you believe in something does that make it real?
- how can we be sure everything is not a dream?
Kids ask the weirdest questions and parents and teachers sometimes struggle to come up with the answers.
But the revival of a very old subject is gaining a foothold in classrooms in Queensland and is making life a lot clearer for everyone concerned. It teaches that many questions do not have quick, easy answers and need to be thought about deeply.
Philosophy encourages students to value their own views, disagree respectfully and to feel an important part of the community.
It is also improving confi dence levels, responsible behaviours, critical and creative thinking and problemsolving skills.
Buranda State School has been reaping many of these rewards since philosophy was introduced into the school's curriculum 10 years ago.
Principal Lynne Hinton says the program was introduced to improve thinking skills and confi dence, with the hope these would lead to improved academic outcomes in literacy and numeracy.
"These expectations were certainly achieved as well as some very exciting, unexpected results," she says.
"The most significant of these was an improvement in social skills, leading to the current situation where bullying is simply not an issue at our school. We have also had an extraordinary improvement in student engagement."
At Buranda State School, philosophy is taught as a separate subject for at least an hour a week in all classes except Prep, which has half-an-hour a week.
It is integrated in the sense that the topics discussed in classes often relate to the curriculum being undertaken in the classroom.
Ms Hinton says parents have responded very positively to the philosophy program with 76 per cent of last year's Year 1 parents citing philosophy as the main reason for choosing Buranda State School.
"One parent noted very interesting topics are being raised around the dinner table and another said her children don't fight with one another as much as they used to."
Griffith University lecturer in education studies, Mark Freakley, says it's important to understand that ready-made solutions we can all agree on are rarely available.
"The best thing that parents can do is engage openly with their children, explore problems and support all questioning in the spirit of genuine inquiry," he says.
"Parents should not rush to reach comfortable conclusions, but encourage their children to accept a lack of closure as an opportunity to return to a problem at another time."
Year 4 teacher Cathy Douglas from Christ the King Catholic Primary School at Graceville has been teaching philosophy to her students for the past seven years.
"We use a community of inquiry model where we start with a stimulus, whether it's a movie or a book, then we take away the characters and the setting and start asking questions about what it was really about.
"It's hard to believe something as simple as philosophy can have such an impact. The kids love it - they even say they can feel their brains expanding."
Ms Douglas suggests watching television together or reading a magazine with their child, and then discussing what they've experienced, is a good starting point for parents wanting to explore philosophical concepts with their children.
"It's not just about having a discussion, it's about listening without negative comment, engaging in dialogue, making a connection between minds and questioning and building on each other's ideas."
St Peter's Lutheran College has been offering philosophy for the past 12 years, and the head of the exceptional learners department, Roger Smee, says students respond well to it.
"Philosophy underlies all other subjects. It teaches understanding, reasoning, thinking and critical analysis," Mr Smee says.
"It gives students the ability to judge the world and the validity of the information they're given. It teaches them logic, discovery, ethics and most importantly it empowers them."
The Buranda State School's philosophy program has won a number of awards, including a Premier's Innovation and Creativity Award in 2006.
Ms Hinton and Buranda State School teacher Simon Vaseo, along with Dr Philip Cam from the University of New South Wales and Dr Val Catchpoole from Queensland University of Technology have developed Learning to Think: philosophy in the classroom, a professional development course for teachers. The online course is being studied by teachers in Queensland, around Australia and overseas.
How philosophy benefits kids
- Encourages discussion about the big issues in life
- Fosters an ability to question, and to disagree respectfully
- Develops communication, social skills and reasoning abilities
- Develops critical and creative thinking skills
- Offers an opportunity to question and learn about concepts and ideas that are relevant to their lives
- Develops conflict resolution and problem-solving skills
- Helps develop and maintain personal friendships, and an ability to cope with peer pressure
- Encourages kids to understand differences in values and to develop tolerance
- Develops a sense of leadership and social responsibility
^ Top of page
Other languages