Wondering Aloud: Philosophy With Young People
The Snow Man One must have a mind of winterTo regard the frost and the boughsOf the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long timeTo behold the junipers shagged with ice,The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to thinkOf any misery in the sound of the […]
After 13 years of working in this field, I continue to analyze the most effective ways to make philosophy a more common offering in K-12 schools. Working with teachers to help them to develop the skills necessary to teach philosophy is the most obvious way to make a large impact, but my experience has convinced […]
A couple of years ago I created a series of ethics puzzles to introduce various moral questions to two fourth grade classes. I adapted some of these scenarios from puzzles created by others and made up the rest. I found that formulating dilemmas that would be easily recognizable to ten-year-old students was an effective way […]
The fifth grade class I’m working with had a wonderful discussion this week about the mind. We talked about what the mind is, whether it is the same thing as the brain, and, if not, what it might be. We began with the students asking various questions, including: What’s the difference between the mind and […]
This week I started a series of philosophy sessions with a fifth grade class. This was a first introduction to philosophy for this group of students. I started by asking them if they had any idea what philosophy was. We talked about that for a few minutes. I described some of the questions I associate […]
I love Thomas Nagel’s short 1987 book What Does It All Mean? It’s a really accessible introduction to philosophy for high school students and up, and it captures much of what drew me to philosophy in the first place. The book focuses on some of the philosophical problems that, as Nagel notes, “reflective human minds […]
One of my favorite children’s books to use in philosophy classes (including with high school students) is William Steig’s Yellow and Pink. The story begins with two small wooden figures, one pink and one yellow, who are lying on old newspaper. The yellow one sits up and asks the pink one, “Do you happen to […]
Jana Mohr Lone is the director and founder of the University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children, an academic research center dedicated to research and practice in philosophy for children and philosophy of childhood, and she is an Affiliate Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Washington. Jana is the author of Seen and Not Heard (2021) and The Philosophical Child (2012). She co-authored the textbook Philosophy in Education: Questioning and Dialogue in Schools (2016) and co-edited the collection of essays Philosophy and Education: Introducing Philosophy to Young People (2012). Since 1995 she has taught philosophy in classrooms from preschool to college and beyond. A frequent writer and speaker about precollege philosophy, Jana is the founding president of PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization) and the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Questions: Philosophy for Young People. Follow her on Twitter: @JanaMohrLone