Ann and Paul Rand’s picture book, I know a lot of things, captures a young child’s exuberance about the things he or she knows – such as “when I look in a mirror what I see is me.” Graphic designer Paul Rand’s illustrations enhance the inquisitive feel – looking at us from the mirror, for example, are simply two eyes starting out from an otherwise blank pink circle.
The book ends with: “as I grow I know I’ll know much more.”
Do we know more as we grow? What does it mean to know something? How do we know what we know? Do we know that when we look in a mirror, what we see is ourselves?
You can ask children, “Do you think you know more every day? Are there things you once knew that you don’t know anymore? Can you know something once and then not know it?”
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