Philosophy in Schools and Community of Inquiry

• Introduction
• Community of Inquiry
• Community of Inquiry and the Essential Learnings
• Conducting a ‘Community of Inquiry’
• View a Community of Inquiry Video
• A School’s Perspective – Huonville Primary Begins the Journey
• Resources

Introduction

Philosophy in schools is not about teaching the views of particular philosophers but rather engages students in the search for meaning. 

Matthew Lipman and his associates wrote the original ‘Philosophy for children’ syllabus at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Lipman believes that ‘people of any age can reflect and discuss philosophical issues profitably.’ 

Philosophy in schools is an exploration of a set of ideas that leads to questioning, exploring concepts and values, and posing problems. The focus is on listening, thinking, challenging and changing viewpoints within a safe environment in which students can take risks in their thinking. 

Community of Inquiry

‘Philosophy in Schools’ is enhanced through ‘Community of Inquiry,’ which has become a significant pedagogy in Tasmanian schools. Community of Inquiry was originally a term coined by C. S. Peirce  to reference interaction among scientists. 

The key description marking the ‘Community of Inquiry’ is: a group (social setting) of individuals who use dialogue to search out the problematic borders of a puzzling concept. 
Implicit in the ideal workings of this group are two key concepts:

• Thinking that is caring (each member is supported and allowed to be an integral member of the community), creative (new ideas are sought out and encouraged) and critical (good reasons are expected for one’s ideas and positions) and 
• Fallibilism (a willingness to be corrected and an acknowledgement of possible error).

Community of Inquiry promotes critical thinking and encourages an obligation to respect one’s fellow inquirer. It attempts to address contemporary challenges of education, to produce better thinkers and more caring members of society, who accept differences and at the same time, submit conflicts to reasonable scrutiny. All participants are expected to respect one another as thoughtful people who communally seek to better understand the issue at hand.

Community of Inquiry and the Essential Learnings

The Values and Purposes and the Culminating Outcomes of the Essential Learnings reflect those of Community of Inquiry. These values, or pillars of character have been identified by the Josephson Institute of Ethics  and include trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. These ethical values underpin the Essential Learnings, and are equally integral to Community of Inquiry.

Community of Inquiry is a ‘powerful pedagogy.’ It promotes:

• a sense of community through communication, friendship, care, compassion, cooperation, acceptance, belonging and sharing 
• understanding of values and purposes
• inquiry based learning focused on thinking
• reflective thinking
• higher order and complex thinking in the search for meaning
• dialogue about key common contestable concepts 
• teacher and students learning together
• ethical reasoning
• understanding of different perspectives and different points of view.

Conducting a Community of Inquiry.

View Jenny Morgan conducting a ‘Community of Inquiry’

1. Have students seated in a way that maximises opportunity for communication and democratic behaviour. This is usually a circle.
2. Establish appropriate guidelines.
3. Teach protocols -
   I agree with. ………because
   I disagree with …….because.
4. Decide on your ‘trigger material’ such as texts, current events, concepts, students’ brainstorm.
5. Ask children what they found interesting or puzzling.
6. Gather children’s questions on the board, writing the name of the child who asked each one after the question.
7. Group questions that are the same or similar.
8. Discuss the questions in an order decided by a variety of methods such as voting for the most interesting or discussing those that have easy answers first.
9. Facilitate the use of ‘wait time’ during the discussion.
10. Encourage participants to talk to the whole circle or directly to the person they are answering, rather than always through the teacher.
11. Have students raise hands or use ‘talking cards’ to facilitate’ taking turns.’
12. Participate in the discussion, but as the teacher also ‘hold back’ sometimes so as not to influence too much.
13. Facilitate questioning that signals cognitive moves that might encourage metacognition.
14. Encourage recognition in the community that many questions are complex and may never be answered.
15. Have children take responsibility for their comments and be prepared to defend, modify or change them as appropriate.

A School’s Perspective – Huonville Primary Begins the Journey

1. As the philosophy group we met early in 2nd term and decided on aims and objectives for the trial lessons and how to use children’s literature to introduce philosophy to our classrooms.
2. We wanted students to learn to:

• manipulate information and ideas in order to transform meaning. 
• understand that there is no fixed body of knowledge 
• coherently communicate ideas, concepts, arguments and explanations.

3. It was recommended that all philosophy resources be located in one convenient, accessible place in the library.
4. We organised a visit from Jenny Morgan, an experienced teacher in this pedagogy, to demonstrate philosophy lessons in prep, 1/2, 3/4 and 5/6 classroom. Teachers were able to observe the demonstrations.
5. The group then met with Jenny in the afternoon to reflect on the demonstrations, create guidelines for running a community of inquiry, and plan trial lessons
6. We were advised about important points to remember when trialling philosophy lessons. These included:

• being careful to remain neutral
• not imposing moral values on students
• encouraging active listening as important for students and teachers
• teachers being familiar with the texts used to keep the discussion flowing
• having questions ‘on the ready’ just in case the students can’t ask any
• reparing evaluation questions to conclude each session.

7. Teachers then trialled a philosophy lesson with a debriefing session soon afterwards. We discussed how the lessons went, the students’ reactions, responses, and what worked and what didn’t. 

At Huonville Primary this approach was found to be a powerful way of teaching for deep understanding. It has become embedded as one of our ‘best practice’ teaching pedagogies.

Resources

Books

Cam, P. (1993), Thinking Stories,1,2,3 Hale & Iremonger, 

Keen J.(2002). Time Riders Cod. Cumquatmay. Hobart 

Keen J. (2002). Changing My Mind. Cumquatmay Hobart

Peirce, C. (1965 -1966). The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Hartshorne. C & Weiss. P (ed) Harvard Uiversity Press. Cambridge. Mass.

Splitter, (1999). Places for Thinking ACER 1999

Sprod T (1993) Books into Ideas: a Community of Inquiry Hawker Brownlow 

Journals

 Websites

HolisticEducationNetwork

Queensland P4C Association

Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools

Tasmanian English Website:

• Using Texts to Ask Philosophical Questions (1)
• Using Texts to Ask Philosophical Questions (2)