ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 33 Issue 1 68 Do You Need to Know Philosophy to Teach Philosophy to Children? A Comparison of Two Approaches Ann Gazzard Do You Need To Know Philosophy To Teach Philosophy to Children? After reading Tom Wartenberg’s (2009) book, Big ideas for little kids: Teaching philosophy through children’s litera-ture, and implementing the lessons as he prescribes, my students assert with confidence, “You don’t need to know philosophy to teach philosophy to children,” and after having been trained in Matthew Lipman’s approach to teaching philosophy to children, I shudder. The question, then, is whether these two approaches for teaching philosophy to children are compatible. Matthew Lipman Matthew Lipman, who could perhaps be best described as the founder of the modern day Philosophy for Children movement, developed an extensive and rigorous philosophy program for children in grades 1-12 with an accompanying teacher training program. The program for children consists of a series of children’s novels wherein philosophical issues are imbedded in the context of the everyday lives of the characters. The age of the children in these novels approximates to the age of the intended readers with each of the seven novels geared to a particular grade level. Each novel comes with a teacher’s manual full of discussion plans and activities to help teachers explore the ideas contained in the novels with their students. Lipman began writing Harry Stottlemeier’s discovery, one of the novels for elementary school, in 1969 and the curriculum was completed in the mid 1980s. The Philosophy for Children curriculum presents philosophy to children in an interesting fashion. On the one hand, a major branch of philosophy is the focus of each of the different novels. For example, Harry Stot- tlemeier’s discovery, written for fourth and fifth grade, focuses on logic and epistemological issues and “Lisa” for junior high on ethics. On the other hand, the issues and concerns raised in each novel are presented in contexts and language to which the children can relate. For example in “Pixie,” the novel written for third grade, Pixie the protagonist is excited about an upcoming class trip and cannot sleep. She goes to her sleeping mother, taps her on the head and says, “Mamma, are you in there?” Correspondingly, the accompanying teacher’s manual provides guidelines for discussion and inquiry into the continuity of existence and the nature of personal iden- tity, to name a few of the related philosophical themes. Lipman insisted that teachers of Philosophy for Children be trained by professors of philosophy who them- selves had undertaken teacher training workshops and accreditation with The Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC). Teacher training and the training of teacher-trainers all proceed in the same way as the children themselves move through the curriculum. A small section of one of the Philosophy for Children novels is read aloud, round-robin, and then the ideas of interest of each of the participants is collected on a board with each person’s question identified by his/her name. Most often, a vote is used to decide which question should be discussed first. Each question is usually discussed until all participants are satisfied to move on to the next (most popular) question to the point that all questions are dealt with to the satisfaction of all par- 45 ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 33 Issue 1 69 ticipants. Lipman was quite insistent that the teacher-trainers be philosophers themselves (meaning primarily doctorate level philosophy studies). He believed this would secure a greater acceptance and appreciation for the range of philosophical viewpoints that can accrue to any given topic thereby reducing the possibility of inadvert- ent indoctrination and, in fact, creating an atmosphere of openness and tolerance for multiple points of view (Lipman et al. 1980, p.83, 209-214). The teacher-trainers model this approach while at the same time offering insight into philosophical themes that might be brought to the surface by any one of the teachers. Lipman was also a firm believer in philosophy, more than any other discipline, being the discipline that teaches good thinking and that philosophers, in their pursuit of wisdom and truth, have a particularly strong interest in the rules that govern correct thinking which separates good reasoning from poor reasoning. It was not enough for Lipman that philosophical discussions remain at the level of sharing different points of view. Lip- man, and hence those trained in Philosophy for Children, sought rather to further the discussion by using the rules of good reasoning to determine if some points of view on a particular issue were better than others, where “better” might be decided by any number of criteria that establish good reasoning. A list of such criteria might include things like a viewpoint being more comprehensive in its explanation than another, or backed more sub- stantially by empirical evidence than another, or more easily supported by reason than another. This was what Lipman saw as one of philosophy’s unique contributions to children’s education, that is to say, the power of philosophical thinking to make good thinkers and independent thinkers of the youth, and it was the pedagogy that Lipman called the Community of Inquiry that enabled this.1 In short, the Community of Inquiry entailed the process described above plus a commitment on the side of the instructor to remain “pedagogically strong yet philosophically self-effacing.”2 In other words, it was the instructor’s role to keep the discussants on the path of inquiry continuing to pursue the original question where the inquiry may lead, to facilitate the sharing of ideas, and to encourage and direct discussants to reason through competing views. In order to be successful at this highly skilled task, Lipman believed that familiarity, at least, with both the content and also the methods of philosophy a necessary prerequisite. Ultimately, it is the goal of a well-run Philosophy for Children class that over time the students need less and less instructor guidance as they become more comfortable with sharing, challenging and defending, explaining and creating, and, evaluating and understanding different viewpoints. Contrary to what most educators do, even if they don’t believe in it, Lipman insisted also upon Philosophy for Children teachers being philosophically self-effacing in the classroom. Given, that is, that students, especially the younger ones, often have a desire to please the teacher, or think that the teacher is correct, Lipman insisted that the Philosophy for Children teacher should not insert his/her views into the classroom discussion. That is to say, the philosophy for children teacher, on Lipman’s account, should be well versed in philosophy and the competing views it provides, not so that they can give “right” answers, but rather to help facilitate dialogue amongst the students.3 For Lipman, the Philosophy for Children teacher uses this breadth and depth of knowl- edge to understand more fully different student perspectives and to then help them further elucidate their views rather than imposing his/hers. In general, the more a viewpoint is articulated with its underlying foundation and implications made clear, the better able are students to understand whether they agree or disagree with it and why, and the easier it becomes for the discussion and inquiry to move on. To secure as best as possible this type of pedagogy, teacher training in Lipman’s program is extensive. With an on-site teacher-trainer, one semester would be used to work through one novel. The teachers and their trainer would meet once a week for two hours and use the Community of Inquiry methodology to work through the curriculum (i.e. novel and accompanying teacher’s manual). At the same time, the teacher-trainer would visit each teacher’s classroom approximately four to six times over the course of the semester, twice to model the process with the teacher’s students and twice more to observe the teacher him/herself teaching a Philosophy for Children class to her students. If there were no teacher-trainers within a reasonable vicinity of the school, then teachers would be trained in a week-long intensive workshop. The teacher-trainer would then make two more week-long trips back to the school –once to model the program for each teacher with his/her students and once to then observe each teacher teaching the program to his/her students. 46 ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 33 Issue 1 70 As previously mentioned, the requirement for becoming a teacher-trainer has typically been doctorate level studies in philosophy followed with at least one ten day – three week long training workshop offered by Lipman and his associates. In all of these aspects of training, the program was conducted as it would be with the children with the addition of extra sessions in logic, philosophical studies, and pedagogical issues and concerns. Up until a few days before he passed away, Lipman remained emphatic about the importance of teacher train- ing.4 While all education is in fact teacher sensitive, teaching children philosophical thinking, a skill that relies on open mindedness and inquiry, is perhaps the type of education most vulnerable to corruption. In the New York Times’ (2011) recent obituary to Matthew Lipman, Gareth Matthews, himself an influential figure in bringing philosophy to children, was quoted as saying that Lipman was “‘the most influential figure’ in helping youngsters develop philosophical thinking” and Matthews “particularly praised his pedagogical ap- proach” (as cited in Education section, 2011, p. A24). Tom Wartenberg Matthew Lipman founded the IAPC in 1974, and soon after began Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, which continued as a four issue/year journal until 2010. Gareth Matthews was for most of that time a regular contributor, having his own column in each issue that featured a children’s book with a particular philo- sophical theme embedded therein. Matthews’ column unpacked the philosophical richness of each of these themes. In Big ideas for little kids, Tom Wartenberg follows the lead of Gareth Matthews and, on the basis of his own work with college students and grade level students, identifies some children’s books that he believes work well to introduce grade level students to some of the major fields in (academic Western) philosophy. Wartenberg’s book opens with “This book contains everything necessary for teaching an introduction to philosophy class in elementary schools… I emphasize the fact that you do not have to have a background in phi- losophy to become an elementary-school philosophy teacher” (Wartenberg 2009, p. ix). This belief is reinforced frequently throughout the book, especially the first few chapters. The book itself is relatively small, 147 pages in total. In the first three chapters, Wartenberg makes some general statements about his interest in philosophy, in children and in bringing philosophy to children, as well as discussing the educational issue of learner-centered education as opposed to teacher-centered education with children’s philosophy classes purportedly a member of the former category, a point to which I shall return later. Chapters 4-7 cover his pedagogy, and Chapters 8-15, the second half of the book, his curriculum. Whereas Lipman designed his novels to focus each one on a differ- ent major area in philosophy systematically across the grade levels, Wartenberg selects eight children’s books that contain themes from each of the major fields he has chosen to highlight, namely ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, environmental philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of language, and aesthetics.5 Chapters 8-15 of his book present each of these children’s books with a brief one to two-paged account of the philosophical issues raised within the novel and suggested discussion plans. In some cases, he presents more than one professional philosopher’s perspective on the issue, for example, Descartes and Quine on epistemology, in others one per- spective, for example, Aristotle on ethics, and in some cases, a discussion of the theme without reference to a philosopher, for example, “Emily’s Art” used to ‘teach’ aesthetics. Wartenberg’s basic conception of the nature of philosophical discussion is that it is a game of linguistic per- suasion, and he outlines six basic rules that “stipulate appropriate responses for any given stage of the discussion” (Wartenberg 2009, p. 29). The rules he advocates are as follows: 1. State your position on an issue - that is, answer a question that has been asked - in a clear 47 ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 33 Issue 1 71 manner after taking time to think. 2. Figure out if you agree or disagree with what has been said. 3. Present a real example of the abstract issue being discussed. 4. Present a counterexample to a claim that has been proposed. 5. Put forward a revised version of a claim in light of criticism. 6. Support your position with reasons, (Wartenberg 2009, p. 33). Like Lipman’s maxim that teachers of philosophy for children should be pedagogically strong, yet philosophi- cally self-effacing, Wartenberg also argues that “while we (philosophy teachers) don’t prescribe what the children say about anything, we do actually require that what they say fits into the rules for having a philosophical discus- sion…” (Wartenberg, 2009, p. 33). Little information is provided by Wartenberg, however, on how to go about this. Rule 6, for example, given half a small page of attention in Wartenberg’s book impinges upon each of the other rules, and relies upon students already being able to identify what counts as a reason, and what counts as a good reason. Wartenberg offers little, if any, help in this regard however. He states that “a philosophical ex- planation has to be logical and provide a good explanation of why anyone should accept the claim” but he offers no criteria for discerning among reasons, or distinguishing reasons from other moves in dialogue and argument (Wartenberg, 2009, p. 32). Rather to illustrate his point, he provides an example of what might constitute a good reason in one very particular situation. Furthermore, no instruction is provided in the rudiments of logic beyond an explanation of how to formulate a counterexample. In later chapters when he provides outlines for some of the possible discussions one could have with students over the books in his curriculum, more examples are provided, but general principles are not distilled neither for logic nor good reasoning, and there is no system- atic development of logic or reasoning skills throughout the children’s books he recommends. Notwithstand- ing the fact that the repeated practice of being in philosophical inquiry contributes enormously to one’s skill at participating in it, more pedagogical guidance would readily avert some potential serious and likely blunders from occurring. The Two Approaches This is clearly an area in which Lipman and Wartenberg differ tremendously. Not only do those trained through Lipman’s program get a full exposure to logic and good reasoning practices with ample rules, guidelines and criteria as to what counts as what, but the teacher’s manuals are embedded throughout with exercises to reinforce over and over the unending importance of clear thinking. Moreover, the logic is developed systemati- cally with skills necessary for more complex moves acquired earlier in the curriculum so that they gradually build upon one another. Martha Nussbaum compliments Lipman’s program on this point when she writes, “His series of books…show again and again how this attention to logical structure pays off in daily life and in counter- ing ill-informed prejudices and stereotypes” (Nussbaum, 2010, p. 73-74). So while the two approaches, Lipman and Wartenberg, advocate the importance of abiding by rules of a philosophical discussion, they differ greatly on the extent to which instruction and guidance is provided for doing this, especially in the areas of logic and good reasoning. An important consequence of this is the difference implied about the purpose or end-product of a philosophical discussion. According to the rules of a philosophical discussion outlined by Wartenberg, students are neither expected (nor are they given the tools) to negotiate between competing claims, nor are they expected to determine the superiority of one claim over another even if none are actually false. Lipman, on the other hand, while not proposing that there is always, or at any time, a best explanation/reason/theory, advocates strongly for students being able to figure out which ones are better than others, logically speaking, in the hope that such training might mitigate against, amongst other things, the ‘anything goes’ mentality, and provide stu- dents with the tools necessary to create more meaning in their lives. The status or purpose of philosophical content is also different in the two approaches. Whereas Lipman focuses on a different branch of philosophy within each one of the children’s novels and presents a large range 48 ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 33 Issue 1 72 of issues within that realm in that novel (not that they aren’t present in other novels), Wartenberg, although he has similarly chosen a different children’s novel for each of the branches of philosophy that he addresses, focuses on only one or two issues in that domain. Lipman’s novels introduce many philosophical themes within, for example, epistemology in Harry Stottlemeier’s discovery that the children may find interesting and provocative and thereby elect to discuss. Wartenberg, however, recommends that the teacher choose one or two issues in episte- mology presented in Morris the moose and lead the children to talking about those, or even just one of them. In other words, Wartenberg recommends the teacher set the agenda for discussion whereas Lipman puts it in the hands of the children, and on this point, the two approaches are radically different. Lipman’s insistence on teacher training by ‘philosophers’ was not only about the teachers being equipped to appreciate the range of viewpoints that could accrue to any one idea, but it was equally about them being sensitive to the philosophical that lay oftentimes below the surface of the ordinary. That is to say, Lipman’s ap- proach with its same style of teaching for children as well as adults more directly encourages teachers to be alert to children’s questions and comments with an ear for genuine philosophical puzzlement. After their extensive training in philosophical inquiry and its consequent exposure to the philosophical lurking behind the obviously contestable as well as not so obvious, teachers trained in Lipman’s program by force of their own experience are more sensitized to children’s philosophical nuances, even if the children are incapable of recognizing it, at least initially, themselves. The teachers’ awareness of potential teaching moments in philosophical inquiry is also greatly enhanced. An example comes to mind to illustrate the point. The late Dr. Phil Guin, a longtime teacher-trainer for IAPC, working with the second grade Philosophy for Children program, “Kio and Gus,” asked the second graders what they liked about what they read in the novel. It took a long time for any one of the children to respond. Finally one little girl uttered “Meow!”, a word which had appeared in the section they were reading. With gracious expertise, Dr. Guin led the children through a discussion and logical exercise on the difference between “All” and “Some” beginning with children discussing whether “All cats like milk” or only “Some cats like milk,” and so on.6 Lipman’s teachers’ manuals are extensive precisely because they attempt to anticipate the ideas that any of the children might propose to discuss and to provide related exercises and discussion plans to support teachers’ exploration of these ideas with the children. Lipman believed that to be learner-centered, the students must not only be able to discuss amongst themselves these ideas, but they must be free to elect the ideas to be discussed in the first place. Lipman wanted students to find the philosophical wherever it may be hidden and to learn how to discuss everything in a, if not philosophical way, then a reasonable one. While Wartenberg also encourages his readers to be prepared to abandon their lesson plans and follow the discussion where it may lead, he does direct his teacher readers to formulate lesson plans around the themes the teacher identifies as philosophically important to discuss, themes which Wartenberg himself identifies as the key philosophical themes presented by each of the books in his curriculum. He writes, “The course that you will find presented in this book was thus conceived as an elementary-school version of a typical college-level introduc- tion to philosophy class.” While he does also say that his book is about “…supporting the philosophical ques- tions that young children find themselves puzzled by,” his methodology is in favor of bringing the philosophical ideas to children that the adults/teachers/parents find interesting instead, especially those of interest to profes- sional philosophers (Wartenberg, 2009, p. xi). Wartenberg writes, “There are two problems that immediately confront anyone introducing learner-centered teaching in her classroom. The first is how to interest children in the philosophical issue you want to have them discuss…” (Wartenberg, 2009, p. 19). Wartenberg’s approach, therefore, represents a much more narrow view of what it means to be learner-centered than does Lipman’s. My experience with Tom Wartenberg’s approach via his book Big ideas for little kids and the children’s lit- erature he recommends for doing philosophy with children is much more limited than my experience with Lipman’s program.7 Although I have, over the past 15 years, used various selections of children’s literature to 49 ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 33 Issue 1 73 teach philosophical thinking to children and to teach adults how to teach philosophical thinking to children, I employed Lipman’s methodology as well as some of his program’s materials to teach logic and reasoning. In Fall 2010, however, I used Wartenberg’s book and its recommendations basically in the way he prescribes for one full semester with graduate students in education who are being certified to teach birth through second grade and grades 1-6 literacy. So perhaps I am better placed to discuss Lipman’s work. Nevertheless, Wartenberg’s first sentence in his book, “This book contains everything necessary for teaching an introduction to philosophy class in elementary schools,” is disturbing to me. My students loved Wartenberg’s book and our course using it as a text supplemented with numerous other articles from the field. Yet it concerns me immensely when students proudly and confidently say, “You don’t need to know any philosophy to teach philosophy to children” and “There are no wrong answers in this class,” even though I coached them repeatedly to the contrary. Possibly it is true that teachers need not have any prior knowledge of philosophy for beginning level discussions in teaching philosophy to children where students are getting used to hearing and finding their own voices, and obtaining some comfort level sharing their viewpoints openly. This is what my students experienced and they loved it. It was new found freedom in the classroom for them, an experience that integrated for them playfulness and seriousness. However, I failed to see on any con- sistent basis either confidence in, or an understanding for, the necessity of evidence and reason based argument in pursuit of truth, knowledge or the superiority within competing views (no matter how much I emphasized their importance). Students were content to share views with little forward movement into real inquiry. This is not to say that lively discussions didn’t occur, exposing participants to views that were in competition with their own providing food for thought. It was the lack of commitment to pursue publicly and in community these fine points that perhaps spoke to me the most as a disservice to philosophy. Students are still talking about the course, and one student has already elected to do her master’s thesis in the area of teaching philosophy to chil- dren. These are all very gratifying results that only speak to the power of engaging students more philosophically with children’s literature. Conclusions Merely sharing points of view, irrespective of the contribution it can make to the development of a com- munity, is not enough to demonstrate that philosophical thinking is going on or being encouraged. Discussion without this move to inquiry whereby students learn to feel comfortable agreeing and disagreeing, providing reasons for their views and expecting the same of others, intellectually challenging others and being challenged and where they develop the habit of validating viewpoints and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of these same views, ultimately strengthens bias, prejudice and narrow thinking. Unless the more dominant, verbally confident personalities within a group also happen to be the most sophisticated thinkers of the group who can remain impartial to their own preferred position/viewpoint, then the discussion and concluding re- marks will lean in favor of their ideas. Intellectual bullying is as much a problem as its physical counterpart. One might even argue that it is more insidious in its power to influence. The intellectual rigor that Lipman’s program hopes to establish is one that forecloses these possibilities. Children with points of view different from the bully, dominant personalities or popular people are supported equally along with all others on the basis of reason and reasonableness that applies equally to all. Strength here is not in physical attractiveness, charisma or any personality attributes other than the qualities that make one a genuine participant of the inquiry. That is to say, strength in the community of inquiry is reflected in the capacity for argumentation based on reason along with tolerance and respect for other people and their views.8 As mentioned earlier, it can be good initially, for the sake of building confidence and a sense of community, for first graders or first timers to philosophy to become more comfortable simply expressing themselves and their views. Without the attempt, however, to negotiate with reason between different viewpoints towards an agreed upon or understood goal of truth or greater meaning and understanding, the “free” space that transcends cul- 50 ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 33 Issue 1 74 tural and familial conditioning to which we are all subjected, cannot be reached. Navigating within the waters of culturally conditioned thinking obliges one to stay within the realms of likes and dislikes. Without making the commitment to reason, discussion typically leads to forming alliances with those who share similar views, avoiding those with dissimilar views and never experiencing the freedom that comes from being able to step back from what one always thought one knew to consider, and perhaps even embrace, if one thought it more reason- able and valuable, a different perspective. (Philosophy) offers those who pursue it to the end a deep understanding of the world and a satisfying explanation of the significance of human experience. It offers them the power to penetrate appearances and to discover the genuinely real from the mere appearance of reality; it offers satisfaction of that desire which everyone, everywhere, holds somewhere in his heart-the desire to be free. (Brunton 1984, p. 255) The great ideas of philosophy and the technique of dialogical inquiry particular to it together bring tools to the children capable of transforming them into astute and creative thinkers. But perhaps it educates their sen- sibilities as well. Perhaps it can transform them into more emotionally responsible and mature people, qualities the future so desperately needs. Being able to enter the previously mentioned “free” space can also be applied to emotional conflict, struggle, and understanding (Gazzard, 2002). Being able to step back from one’s emotional state and observe it (its nature and cause, for example) more impartially would be highly educative especially if these observations were able to be shared and discussed with others, and writing, painting and other creative activities were used to further enhance their expression. Nussbaum further highlights Lipman’s Philosophy for Children as perhaps the only actual democratic peda- gogy that has been developed when she states: Our historical digression (Pestalozzi, Froebel, Alcott, Tagore and Dewey) has shown us a living tradition that uses Socratic values to produce a certain type of citizen: active, critical, curious, and capable of resisting authority and peer pressure. These historical examples show us what has been done, but not what we should or can do here and now, in the elementary and middle schools of today. …. Teachers who want to teach Socratically have a contemporary source of practical guidance … They can find very useful and nondictatorial advice about Socratic pedagogy in a series of books produced by philosopher Matthew Lipman, whose Philosophy for Children curriculum was developed at… (Nussbaum 2010, p. 72-73) Yet she goes on to argue that the survival of democracy needs people also educated in: …what we can call the narrative imagination. This means the ability to think what it might be like to be in the shoes of a person different from oneself, to be an intelligent reader of that 51 ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 33 Issue 1 75 person’s story, and to understand the emotions and wishes and desires that someone so placed might have. The cultivation of sympathy has been a key part of the best ideas of democratic education, in both Western and non-Western nations (Nussbaum 2010, p.95-96). She draws upon the use of literature and the arts to do this, but perhaps philosophy can make a large con- tribution in this capacity as well. That is to say, in as much as our behaviors are readily shaped and conditioned by our environment, so, too, are our thoughts and emotions. Unhealthy and destructive patterns of emotion are readily acquired in the early years of life, so teachers of young children can do much to counteract the pat- terns before they become ingrained and more resistant to alteration. Young children often playfully imagine different ways of doing things and can easily be encouraged to transfer this skill to some of the things that they do or think regularly in life, things that perhaps they thought there was no choice about. For example, an au- thoritarian parent might insist that sugar goes on cereal first before milk, something a child could playfully learn to do differently at school. Similarly, a child could come to appreciate the possibility of an apple fairy while not denying the scientific explanation of gravity for the ripe apple falling to the ground. Here both Matthew Lipman and Gareth Matthews were in full agreement that, on account of this very playfulness and naiveté, children were natural philosophers. Recommendations I suggest that if one is to step outside the more formalized approach of teaching philosophy to children that Lipman and his associates advocate through the use of a specially created curriculum, then one needs more attention to teacher training. Using children’s literature to teach philosophical thinking to children is a very vibrant approach and one that has the advantages that Wartenberg mentions, not least of which is the conveni- ence of not having to justify the entry of yet another new program into the schools. Of course, for the children, an enormous advantage is the excitement that comes from seeing literature outside its literal transcription. Who ever thought “bravery” could be such an interesting idea with numerous ways of understanding it! Using chil- dren’s literature without more emphasis on teacher training than Wartenberg recommends, however, is fraught with challenges that teachers need more help with if the goal, that is, is to move beyond what might otherwise be merely a fun time talking together. As far as I understand, Wartenberg teaches his program/method to philosophy students, people already versed in some or many of the ways of philosophy, including we hope, logic, reasoning and inquiry. Perhaps then some of Lipman’s criteria for a good philosophy for children teacher have already been met. Yet Wartenberg claims that all you need is his book to teach philosophy to children, and that applies to non-philosophy students also. None of my graduate students, for example, had backgrounds in philosophy save one or two who had taken a single introductory philosophy course to meet their general education requirements. Given that we cannot count on teachers or future teachers having any background in philosophy, I believe Wartenberg’s book needs to be heavily supplemented with extra written materials and teacher training courses/workshops. Moreover, the book itself is in need of conveying more clearly that the views presented therein on different topics, for example Aristotle’s view of bravery for ethics, are not the only views one might have. Furthermore, given that students, even graduate students who should know better, are still susceptible to believing what the textbook says is right or true, it is no surprise that non-philosophy majors discussed bravery in Aristotle’s terms only. I do plan to keep up with this course using Wartenberg’s book. I very much want students to feel confident enough to do philosophy or philosophical thinking with their students, but I also want to disabuse them of the belief that you “don’t need to know any philosophy to do philosophy with children” and the belief that “there are no wrong answers.” Some answers are simply and plainly wrong, some are better than others, and a background in philosophy is an enormous asset to know the difference and teach philosophical thinking to children. After 52 ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 33 Issue 1 76 all, “The ability to detect fallacy is one of the things that makes democratic life decent” (Nussbaum 2010, p.75). Endnotes 1. Although this theme dominates much of Lipman’s writing, a relatively concise statement of his position can be found in Lipman (1993). 2. This expression was used frequently by Lipman and his collaborators in Philosophy for Children training workshops and considered one of the tenets of the Community of Inquiry pedagogy. See also for an example Lipman (1988, p.183) and Lipman (1993, p. 296). The idea has been further elaborated upon by Kennedy (2004, p. 761). 3. Each teachers manual, often upwards of 400pp in length, provides an enormous asset for teachers not only with discussion plans and activities but also with commentaries on many of the philosophical issues raised throughout the story to keep teachers abreast of the many different points of view that can accrue to ideas, even ones that they may have thought uncontestable or straightforward. 4. Conversation with Joanne Matkowski, former Associate of IAPC, February 2011. 5. In Lipman’s program, Elfie for grade one focuses on metaphysics, Kio &Gus for grade two on environmental philosophy and scientific thinking, Pixie for grades three through four on philosophy of language, Harry Stottlemeir’s Discovery for grade four through five on epistemology and logic, Lisa for junior high on ethics, Tony for high school on social and political philosophy and Suki for high school on aesthetics. Wartenberg uses “Dragons and Giants” from Frog and Toad Together for ethics, Lionni’s Frederick for social and political philosophy, Brown’s The Important Book for metaphysics, the story of the tin woodman from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for philosophy of mind, Silverstein’s The Giving Tree for environmental philosophy, Wiseman’s Morris the Moose for epistemology, Willem’s Knuffle Bunny for philosophy of language, and Catalanotto’s Emily’s Art for aesthetics. 6. Personal observation, 1980’s. 7. My experience with Lipman’s program includes attendance at three international teacher training workshops in Philosophy for Children varying in length from one-three weeks each. I also studied and worked at the IAPC for a number of years as a researcher, teacher trainer, teacher of young children and consultant to the schools, and co-authored the first grade curriculum with Matthew Lipman. 8. A caveat should be issued here that intolerance for people and views that are, at one and the same time, unreasonable and destructive to the course of humanity is acceptable. That is to say, under such circumstances it would be reasonable to be intolerant. References Brunton, P. (1984). The notebooks volume one: Perspectives. Burdett, NY: Larson Publications. Education section. (2011, January 15). New York Times: New York Edition, p. A24. Gazzard, A. (2002). Emotional intelligence, the witness and education. Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice, 15(4), 20-29. Kennedy, D. (2004). The role of the facilitator in a community of philosophical inquiry. Metaphilosophy, 35(5), 744-765. Lipman, M. (1988). Philosophy goes to school. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Lipman, M. (1993). Promoting better classroom thinking. Educational Psychology, 13(3-4), 291-304. Lipman, M., Sharp, A.S. & Oscanyan, F.S. (1980). Philosophy in the classroom. Philadelphia, PA: Temple Univer- sity Press. Nussbaum, M. C. (2010). Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wartenberg, T. E. (2009). Big ideas for little kids. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Address Correspondences to: Ann Gazzard, Ph.D. Associate Professor Education Department Wagner College One Campus Rd Staten Is., NY, NY, 10301. agazzard@wagner.edu 53