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The Place of ‘Philosophy’ in Preparing Teachers to 
Teach Pre-College Philosophy: A UK Perspective

Patrick J.M. Costello

In a recent issue of this journal, Wendy Turgeon (2012) offers what she refers to as ‘Notes for a conversation’ 
about the place of ‘philosophy’ in preparing teachers to teach pre-college philosophy.  In this article, I offer a 

response to her paper’s key arguments from a UK perspective. 

      It is clear to me from reading Turgeon’s paper that the American educational context which she describes 
has much in common with that which pertains in the UK.  In Britain, trainee teachers and their more 
experienced colleagues tend to find the idea of undertaking philosophy for and with children appealing 
because they are actively engaged (or wish to engage) in forms of pedagogy that rely heavily on  developing 
learners’ thinking reasoning and argument skills (Costello, 2010a).  On the whole, they see it as essential 
to their role as educators that they should engage children and young people in dialogue; that they should 
ask questions and explore answers in terms of learners’ ability to provide reasons and evidence for the views 
they hold; and that they should develop what Lipman and his colleagues have referred to as a ‘community of 
inquiry’ (Lipman et al., 1980).  In addition, not only do these educators ask questions but they are also keen to 
encourage those whom they teach to do the same.

      In this context, when teachers are introduced to philosophy for and with children, it seems like a natural 
extension of what they are already doing in the classroom.  Here, as Turgeon suggests (p.68), we meet an 
immediate obstacle: “... what many teachers do lack is sustained training in and appreciation for philosophic 
inquiry and this often derails their good intentions.”  In my view, there are two reasons why this is the case.  
First, some of the current literature which explores the teaching of philosophy in schools is less than helpful in 
assisting teachers to develop an understanding of the nature of philosophical thinking, which is a pre-requisite 
for successful teaching.  Second, it is sometimes implied that philosophy ‘just happens,’ for example as a result 
of teachers asking questions.  I offer the following example to illustrate this point.  

      In his book Teaching Happiness and Well-Being in Schools, Ian Morris (2009), devotes a chapter to the 
topic ‘Philosophy and Well-Being’.  In a section entitled ‘Getting started with teaching philosophy’, he makes a 
number of assertions. These will be examined and commented on in turn. 

Starting children off on philosophy is easy.  A philosopher does not have to read every last 

sentence written by Plato or understand every nuance of Kant, they simply have to start asking 

questions.  The process is so easy that even a 5 year old can do it, and indeed, there is a lot of 

successful teaching of philosophy happening in UK primary schools, where children learn to 

debate and help each other to form good arguments. (p.60)

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      Here we might ask: what evidence does the author offer for his view that “starting children off on 
philosophy is easy”?  While it is certainly true that, in order to develop learners’ philosophical thinking, 
teachers do not have to read “every last sentence” of Plato’s works or “understand every nuance of Kant” 
(as if this were a realistic ambition in any case), simply to start asking questions is no substitute for critical 
engagement with philosophical literature.  Indeed a good place to begin is to read introductory texts both 
on the nature of philosophy, of which there is now an abundance (Saunders et al., 2012; Finn et al., 2012; 
Arp and Watson, 2011) and on the history of the discipline, including its foremost thinkers and key ideas 
(Harwood, 2010; Law, 2007; Dupré, 2007). 

The first step is to stimulate questioning with the students and to do that you just need to 

give them something interesting to look at or do.  You would be surprised at how simple the 

stimulus can be: a pine cone, a box, a photo of a boxing match, a watch – anything.  The next 

step is to ask the students to come up with questions based upon the stimulus.  They do need 

to come up with the right kind of questions though: the more open-ended the better.  If you 

put a clown’s shoe on the table and a student asks the question ‘How do you spell shoe?’, any 

discussion will be short.  But if they ask ‘Do clowns feel pain?’ you may have a more open-ended 

debate. (p.60)

      While I have no objection to utilising a broad range of stimuli to develop learners’ philosophical thinking, 
indeed this is an important aspect of the pedagogical approaches associated with philosophy with children, 
nevertheless the author’s view that “anything” may be used to achieve this goal requires justification.  Again, 
this is part of an effort to assure would-be teachers of philosophy that the task facing them is a very simple one.  
However, it is not.  As with any successful teaching, philosophy requires careful planning and preparation, as 
well as considerable pedagogical dexterity in the classroom. 

      The ‘fixed lesson plan’ approach which student teachers are encouraged to adopt and adhere to at the very 
beginning of their training is likely to have little success in the philosophy classroom.  Here effective teaching 
requires that practitioners should be able to ‘go with the flow’ of the discussions, dialogues and debates that 
take place and to alter the focus of the lesson as appropriate.  Having observed a student teacher teaching 
philosophy to seven-to-eight year olds very successfully for an hour, I asked her in the conversation which 
took place afterwards how she felt the lesson had gone.  She replied: “Very well, I think, although I covered 
hardly anything on my lesson plan.  I had to change direction because they [the children] kept coming up with 
new ideas.”  In philosophy, this counts as a successful outcome, because it demonstrates that the student is 
reflective in terms of what she has tried to achieve and has ended up achieving, and because she has been able 
to adapt her lesson appropriately to ensure a successful outcome.

      The pedagogical approach adopted by Morris is also questionable.  He is at the same time both non-
directing (asking learners to devise questions—he does not appear to want to ask any himself) and narrowly 
focused (wanting learners to ask “the right kind of questions… the more open-ended the better.”  Again we 
are not given a rationale as to why open-ended questions are to be preferred: this is just assumed to be the 
case.  To his credit, the second question proposed by Morris is a philosophical one; however, like the question 
that precedes it, “Do clowns feel pain”? it may, at least on one level, be regarded as closed, since it admits 
of a ‘yes or no’ response.  Finally the objective of this lesson appears to be simply to engender open-ended 
debate among the learners.  However, this begs the question: with what end in mind?  If the aim is simply to 
encourage a debate in the classroom, what makes this philosophy?

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Once the question is asked, the debate can begin and this is where the philosophy can happen, 

because the students will begin to construct arguments.  As soon as we have arguments on 

the table, we can start the process of refining arguments and making them more and more 

successful. (p.60)

      From this extract it would appear that Morris regards both debating and the construction of arguments 
as essential to philosophy.  However, once again no reasoning is provided to support this view.  In any case, 
neither aspect is sufficient to distinguish a philosophy lesson from say, a politics or a history class.  For 
example, history teachers might ask their students to engage in a debate on the question ‘What were the 
causes of the Second World War?’  They could invite the students to work in groups and to develop a set of 
arguments, which would be presented to the class as a whole.  A decision as to which group presented the best 
arguments could be arrived at by means of a vote.  However, these features, by themselves, do not constitute a 
philosophy lesson.  In the context of Morris’s book, Turgeon’s comments (p. 69) are apposite: 

There are isolated texts available which introduce the idea of philosophy with children and 

young people and celebrate its enriching power but without a clear pedagogical path, these can 

serve as inspiration but can ultimately fail a teacher in the classroom environment.

With much of the literature that discusses philosophy with youth there is little reference to... 

a sustained study of philosophic issues.  Philosophy is deemed a natural human activity to the 

point of being viewed as instinctive.  This unfortunately is often the view proposed by well-

meaning proponents of philosophy with children... To properly prepare the classroom teacher to 

engage her students in philosophic reflection it is a disservice to overemphasise the naturalness 

of the philosophic perspective.

      In contrast to using isolated texts to introduce philosophical inquiry, Turgeon refers to Lipman’s 
Philosophy for Children (P4C) program as a paradigm of what she refers to as “one of the more sustained 
methodologies” (p.69), since it incorporates a broad range of teaching materials that may be used from 
preschool to high school.  In addition, would-be teachers of P4C undertake a series of workshops that focus 
on the program’s content and methodology. Yet, even in this case, Turgeon (p.69) asks “... is this enough”?  
She refers to the extensive training undertaken by professional philosophers, both at undergraduate and 
postgraduate level, involving close study of the key areas of philosophy: epistemology, metaphysics, logic, ethics 
etc., and argues that “The failure to prepare teachers to some level of basic competence in philosophy as a 
technical craft... runs the risk of losing the philosophic perspective and can ultimately result in the teacher’s 
loss of interest and focus in using the particular materials designed for this educational experience.” (p.70)

      I agree with this view and it pertains also in the UK. So what is to be done and how can we make progress, 
given that initial teacher education and training (ITET) programs are so full of prescribed content that there 
appears to be little room for anything more than, if students are lucky, a seminar or two on teaching thinking 
skills (which may or may not include the teaching of philosophy for and with children)? In my view, there are a 
number of fruitful avenues to explore and I will discuss five of these.  

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Educational resources to support the teaching of philosophy in schools

To begin with, when considering curriculum issues with students (this is, after all, a substantial aspect of 
ITET programs) teacher educators need to utilise to best effect opportunities to introduce and discuss the many 
educational resources that now exist to support the teaching of philosophy in schools.  For example, in the UK, 
the Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education (SAPERE) (http://
sapere.org.uk), Dialogue Works (http://www.dialogueworks.co.uk) and the Council for Education in World 
Citizenship – Wales (http://cewc-cymru.org.uk), offer training courses and resources for teachers.  The success 
of these organisations is linked, in part, to the increasing attention now being paid by policy makers to develop-
ing children’s thinking skills.  In the context of a revision of the school curriculum, the Welsh Assembly Govern-
ment (WAG) has implemented a ‘Developing Thinking and Assessment for Learning’ programme, in partner-
ship with schools and local education authorities. In its document Why Develop Thinking and Assessment for 
Learning in the Classroom?, WAG (2007, p.4) suggests that  ‘Metacognition (thinking about thinking) is at the 
heart of the learning and teaching process’ (Costello, 2010a; WAG, 2008a; 2008b; 2008c).  

      SAPERE is an educational charity that was founded in 1992, with the aim of advancing “education for 
the public benefit, in particular amongst those young persons up to the age of 16 years, by the promotion of 
the development of their skills in logical thinking and other philosophical techniques so that their personal 
and social lives are enriched” (http://sapere.org.uk).  SAPERE provides P4C courses at three levels, as well 
as in-service training for schools, local education authorities and other organisations.  Members of SAPERE 
receive a regular on-line bulletin, containing details of courses, conferences, resources, calls for papers for 
academic journals and news items.  I would argue that this range of provision goes at least some way to meet 
the requirement for systematic training and on-going development in philosophy for which Turgeon argues.

Developing critical thinking skills

Second, let us now turn to the issue of developing critical thinking skills both in ITET programmes and 
continuing professional development courses for teachers. As Turgeon (p. 71) suggests:

We would like to assume that all teachers have already achieved a high degree of proficiency 

in thinking skills such as constructing sound and strong arguments, recognizing and avoiding 

fallacious reasoning, using logical patterns of reasoning in ethically asture ways, etc. However, 

we recognize that this is not always the case.  Familiarity with Bloom’s taxonomy, De Bono’s 

thinking skills or Piagetian stage theory does not constitute a rigorous and sustained ability to 

think clearly, compassionately and creatively within a philosophical context...But how might we 

best introduce or nurture our teachers in the conscious awareness of and focused development 

of these aspects of thinking?
 
      Turgeon offers two suggestions for appropriate texts to use with teachers (Weston, 2009 and McCall, 
2009) and these are also recommended by lecturers in university Education departments in the UK. I would 
also wish to commend Morrow and Weston’s A Workbook for Arguments: A Complete Course in Critical Thinking 
(2011), Bonnett’s How to Argue (2011); Moseley’s A to Z of Philosophy (2008) and Baggini’s Philosophy: Key 
Themes (2002) in this context. Undergraduate students in the UK, across a range of academic disciplines, 

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are introduced to study skills at the beginning of their programs of study and Stella Cottrell’s The Study Skills 
Handbook (2008) and Critical Thinking Skills (2011) are widely used. In addition to McCall’s book, contributors 
to the discussion about developing philosophical inquiry in the classroom include Bowles (2008), Haynes 
(2008), and Hannam and Echeverria (2009). 

      These publications have at their core a concern that schools and other educational settings should 
provide an appropriate environment in which learners’ thinking and valuing processes may be supported and 
enhanced.  Hand and Winstanley’s Philosophy in Schools (2009) offers a sustained and convincing theoretical 
justification for this endeavour.  The book is divided into two parts, which are entitled ‘Meeting the 
Objections to Philosophy in Schools’ and ‘Making the Case for Philosophy in Schools’.  Having asked ‘Is it 
time to put philosophy in the school curriculum?’  (p.x), the editors suggest that the contributors to the volume 
“…are united in the conviction that exposure to philosophical ideas, questions and methods should be part of 
the basic educational entitlement of all children.” (p.x)

      Although this is an interesting collection of essays, written from a variety of educational and philosophical 
perspectives, its main deficiency is that it omits teachers’ accounts of their own experience of teaching 
philosophy.  Given the book’s title, and that the teaching of thinking skills in schools is now being undertaken 
in the UK with the active encouragement of policy makers, and within the context of an increasingly 
substantial literature base, it is both surprising and disappointing that practitioners have not authored (or co-
authored) some of the chapters.  This is especially the case since the idea of developing teachers’ research into 
the teaching of thinking skills in the UK (for example, through Best Practice Research Scholarships in England 
and Teacher Research Scholarships in Wales) is well known (Costello, 2010b).     

Professional Learning Communities

Third, and returning to the need for on-going development in philosophy, which Turgeon argues for and 
which I have referred to above, the rise in the UK of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) has the poten-
tial to make a significant contribution to this endeavour.  For example, the Welsh Government (2011, p.5), in its 
guidance document Professional Learning Communities, offers the following definition of a PLC: “... a group 
of practitioners working together using a structured process of enquiry to focus on a specific area of their teach-
ing to improve learner outcomes and so raise school standards.”  Having outlined a national model for PLCs, 
the Government suggests that such communities “have the potential to make a positive difference to learner 
outcomes as well as enhancing the quality of professional learning.” (p.5)  Furthermore it is suggested that: “If 
PLCs are to make a real difference to school performance and learner outcomes, the participants need to engage 
in collaborative and interdependent learning.  They need to: 

•	 have the responsibility to try new learning and teaching strategies in order to extend their own profes-
sional development and learning; 

•	 enquire as a group in order to generate new professional knowledge and understanding; 

•	 implement the most effective learning and teaching solutions.” (p.5) 

      In the UK, the Imaginative Minds Group (IMG) (2012) publishes a number of professional journals for 
teachers, including Creative Teaching and Learning, one of the focuses of which is to develop children’s critical 
thinking skills (including philosophical thinking).  IMG offers an on-line PLC package of magazines, journals 
and e-newsletters, subscribers to which also have access to an archive of thousands of professional development 
articles, as well as to a ‘knowledge bank’ of themed collections of papers.  The archive contains over 500 
articles on developing thinking skills and creativity in the classroom.  

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Education Studies programs

Fourth, I would argue that we need to consider the role of undergraduate programs in Education Studies in 
promoting a knowledge of philosophy and of philosophical inquiry.  Although such programs do not carry with 
them the award of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), over three years of study they do afford students many more 
opportunities to explore the theoretical perspectives that underpin pedagogical practice than are available to 
their peers who are undertaking Education degrees with QTS.  In the UK, students who complete an Education 
Studies degree successfully are eligible to undertake a one-year Postgraduate Certificate in Education to obtain 
QTS.

      Earlier this year, I presented a paper on the theme ‘Education Studies and the Foundation Disciplines: 
A Critical Evaluation of the Philosophy of Education’ at the British Education Studies Association Annual 
Conference.  I began by exploring some historical themes from a UK perspective and discussed the following 
quote from Bartlett and Burton (2012, p.5): 

As a result of political and economic pressures in the 1970s and 1980s the theoretical study 

of education as part of teacher training courses fell into disrepute.  Teacher education was 

criticised as being too removed from the classroom. It was perceived as largely ignoring the 

practical nature of teaching while also promoting progressive ideologies of education.  It was 

from the 1980s onwards that the nature of teacher education changed drastically.  With the 

emphasis becoming firmly placed on training, any traces of academic education(al) studies were 

removed from Initial Teacher Training programmes. 

      Again commenting on developments in educational policy in the UK, Oancea and Bridges (2011, p.55) 
refer to “...  the movement towards more school-based and practice-oriented training, reinforced by a national 
curriculum for teacher training, from which philosophical work was effectively excluded.” 

      Against this backdrop, I examined the current context concerning the teaching of Education Studies, 
having reviewed the content of ten undergraduate programs from universities across the UK.  The findings 
were interesting, since all the Education Studies programs included some teaching about the philosophy of 
education.  Six institutions had infused it into the curriculum as a whole; two offered whole modules on this 
theme (one in year one and one in year three); one had introduced it as part of a year one module, where it 
accounted for twenty per cent of the subject matter being taught; and one had included it as part of a module 
entitled ‘Theoretical Foundations of Education.’

      In making a case for the inclusion of the philosophy of education within Education Studies courses, I 
argued that, given the following module titles from across the ten programs reviewed, some knowledge of the 
content and methodology of philosophy was an essential prerequisite for students:

Year 1 modules

•	 Making sense of education

•	 Values, attitudes and prejudice in education

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•	 Introduction to eco-education

•	 Learning in a social and cultural context

•	 Critical engagement with equality and identity in education

•	 Human development

Year 2 modules

•	 Education and society

•	 Social policy and learning

•	 Education and equality

•	 Creativity in education

•	 Theory of Multiple Intelligences

•	 International and comparative perspectives in education

•	 Educational research: theory and practice  

Year 3 modules

•	 Education and citizenship

•	 Experiments in radical education

•	 Education and the inclusive society

•	 Globalisation and education

•	 Education and social change

•	 Informal learning

•	 Gender and difference

•	 Research project

      Similarly, I suggested that a grounding in philosophy was important in terms of: (i) developing students’ 
critical thinking, reasoning and argument skills in higher education; (ii) developing students’ reflective 
practice; (iii) enabling students to evaluate current educational policy.

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The role of professional philosophers

Finally, I suggest that we need to explore the extent to which professional philosophers can be of assistance 
in helping to promote philosophical inquiry in schools.  Turgeon (p.73) refers to the role of what she calls “the 
philosophical community” in assuring “the quality of the philosophical inquiry by both children and teach-
ers” and again I would agree with this. As indicated above, Turgeon refers to the extensive training undertaken 
by professional philosophers.  Given this, I would argue that universities should encourage much closer col-
laboration between their Philosophy and Education departments, in order to promote the effective teaching 
of philosophy in schools.  This work could include: (i) the provision of training workshops by philosophers for 
their colleagues in Education, as well as for students undertaking undergraduate and postgraduate programs in 
Education; (ii) joint teaching projects in schools, where philosophers and Education staff teach classes together; 
(iii) making collaborative research bids.  As regards the latter, lecturers in Education departments have tended to 
be much more successful than their counterparts in Philosophy in acquiring substantial research funding and so 
this type of co-operation would be beneficial to both parties, as well as to their universities.     

Endnote

I am grateful both to Wendy Turgeon for raising important issues that are of concern to those who are attempting to promote 
philosophical inquiry in schools and to Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis for the opportunity to contribute to the 
discussion.   

References

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Lipman, M. Sharp, A.M. and Oscanyan, F.S. (1980). Philosophy in the classroom (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Tem-
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Address Correspondences to:
Patrick J.M. Costello
Glyndwr University
Wrexham
Wales 

p.costello@glyndwr.ac.uk

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