Transcript The NNS: Is it working?

Philosophy for Children
Alumni Conference
John Smith, MMU Faculty of Education
October 2013.
There are many things that children can gain from P4C including:
thinking in caring,
creative and
metacognitive
ways
developing
confidence in
expressing
points of
view
following their
inquisitiveness
and curiosity
sharing
reponsibility
for their
teaching and
learning
making sense
of the world and
their place in it
engaging in
purposeful
dialogue
Philosophy for Children (often known as
P4C) was first developed in the USA by
Matthew Lipman but is now a world-wide
practice. It involves setting up
“communities of enquiry” in classrooms or
other settings and these are led by a
trained facilitator. P4C aims to help
children to be both “reasonable” and “able
to reason” and to use dialogue and the
tools of philosophy to consider issues
related to their own lives.
If you would like to take a training course in
P4C, accredited by Sapere (the national
organising body for P4C in this country) and
led by John Smith, then you can do this as
part of a Masters course of study (please
contact Rowena Smith for more details about
this option at [email protected] ) or you
can attend a course at MMU or arrange one in
your school or other educational setting (for
this option please contact Karla Heywood at
[email protected] ).