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Meaning at the Margins: The Case for Meaning Education in 

K-12 Schooling 
 
Daniel John Anderson 

 
 

Abstract: Across Canada, provincial education mandates cite intellectual development, 
socialization, and vocational preparation as some of the central goals of public schooling 
(B.C., 1989; Ontario, 1990). Within Alberta's Guide to Education (2024) yet another 
objective is offered, which is that schooling ought to promote the leading of “meaningful, 
fulfilling lives.” To date, little guidance has been provided on what educating for meaning 
might look like, nor how to achieve this laudatory goal. This paper makes the case that 
meaning education can be realized through the use of the Community of Philosophical 
Inquiry (CPI). This is the case because this model (1) makes thinking visible (2) promotes 
taking ownership of one's values and behaviours (3) exposes youth to the viewpoints of 
others, and in so doing bolsters their emotional resilience, and (4) provides an interpersonal 
arena for value recalibration. 

 
Introduction 

 
cross Canada, provincial education mandates cite intellectual development, socialization 
and vocational preparation as some of the central goals of public schooling (B.C., 1989; 
Ontario, 1990). However, with the exception of Alberta, provinces have failed to explore 

meaning as yet another possible goal of public education. Alberta's education mandate is unique in its 
prescription to teach students to “think critically as they become active and informed citizens leading 
healthy lives of meaning” (2024). This laudable imperative raises an important question, namely: how 
exactly does one accomplish such a task in K-12 education?  
 

Dewey (1930) claimed that “the ultimate aim of education is nothing other than the creation of 
human beings in the fullness of their capacities” (p. 289). Here, it is argued that such an aim cannot be 
realized if educators fail to attend to their students' need for meaning. This argument is echoed in the 
works of Frankl (1946) and Fromm (1941) who together argue that the modern individual is unsettled 
by their own capacity for self-creation, and inclined to try and “escape” this predicament through 
suboptimal means. In response, it is suggested that education systems ought to try and allay these 
anxieties by equipping youth with the tools they need for meaning-making. Communities of 
Philosophical Inquiry (CPIs) hold particular benefits in this regard. More precisely, this pedagogical 
model is uniquely equipped to cultivate the cognitive, attentive and affective capacities needed for 
meaning-making.  
 

CPIs can provide students with a conceptual space in which their existing values can be both 
challenged as well as critically evaluated. This offers participants the novel opportunity to both refine 
their values or potentially revise them in light of unconsidered viewpoints. CPIs also help model the 
inextricable relationship between meaning-making and practical reasoning by visibly demonstrating the 

A  



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power of reason to help guide and determine action.  All of these processes will help students by 
preparing them for the interpersonal marathon, not solitary sprint, that characterizes meaning-making. 

 
Two Senses of Meaning 

 
Humans have a need to make sense of, and navigate, the world around them. In order to operate 

in the world effectively, humans must map their environment in motivational rather than objective 
terms, constantly evaluating what is deserving of their action and attention. Meaning constitutes what 
is relevant within this motivational interface. That is, for something to have the quality of meaning, it 
must have an implication for one's emotions and/or behaviours. In psychological terms, meaning is “a 
prism of mental representations of expected relations that organizes [people's] perceptions of the world” 
(Heine & Proulx 2006, p. 1), and “the configuration of interpretive schema that produces or guides 
action” (Peterson, 1999, p. 1). Without such a framework, one would find themselves unable to make 
sense of the world and incapable of taking action, i.e., the world would present itself as unintelligible 
chaos. 

 
In his book Man's Search for Meaning, psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (1946) offers a different 

conception of meaning. While Frankl recognizes our inbuilt need to make sense of the world, he argues 
that meaning constitutes more than just a psychological mechanism for satisfying our drives (pp. 99, 
103). Crucially, for Frankl, humans have a will to live purposefully in the world and achieve a 
“worthwhile goal” (p. 105). Frankl argues that this view of meaning is existential in the sense that it is 
“the striving to find a concrete meaning in personal existence” (p. 101). It is that constant “tension 
between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what 
one is and what one should become” (pp. 104-105). Thus, for Frankl, meaning is not just about what is 
currently relevant within one's environment, but critically, the personal choices that make one's life 
worth living (p. 118). 

 
It thus seems that there are two senses of the term meaning: the first might be termed meaning as 

relevance, while the second might be termed meaning as purpose.1 Clearly our survival depends more upon 
the former sense of meaning than the latter, as Al Gore (2017) cheekily remarked to this end, “When 
our evolutionary predecessors gathered on the African savanna three million years ago and the leaves 
next to them moved, the ones who didn’t look are not our ancestors” (p. 21). Yet, this does not discount 
meaning in the latter, existential sense, as it is still of fundamental concern for self-conscious entities. 
Critically, in order to achieve this latter sense of meaning, one is often required to resist the pull of 
meaning in the former sense, i.e., one is required to resist the urge of immediate gratification in the 
pursuit of higher level goals. It is this latter definition of meaning, which concerns searching for a “why” 
to live for (Frankl, 1946, p. 104), which is the focus of this paper. 

 
 

 

 

 

 
1 Karmon (2021) makes a similar distinction and terms these “meaning as understanding reality” and “meaning as 
significance of and reason for living” (p. 162).  



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The Search for Meaning is Dynamic & Intersubjective 

 
The notion that one might suddenly discover “the meaning of life” mischaracterizes meaning as 

something universal and static. In reality, the search for meaning is something personal and iterative. 
In Fear and Trembling, Søren Kierkegaard (1843) refers to the 'earthquakes of existence' when describing 
his journey of faith. This metaphor is apt. Just like the earth itself, meaning is tectonic in nature, and 
must constantly shift and readjust. Such recalibration may be catalyzed by the flow of experiences, 
revelations, or encounters with the unknown. For instance, if one had built their life around their 
athletic ability, only to be permanently paralyzed by a motor vehicle accident, meaning must necessarily 
be renegotiated (i.e., one must revise their future plans). As Frankl writes, “the meaning of life differs 
from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour” (p. 108). This is the case because the world, 
and one's place in it, is constantly undergoing change (Peterson, 1999, p. 238) 

 
Frankl (1946) describes the dangers of anchoring oneself to static or fragile sources of meaning. 

Frankl offers the example of fellow concentration camp prisoners who hitched their hopes to the idea 
of being liberated and returning home by Christmas. When the anticipated day came and went and 
they found themselves still imprisoned, they fell into despair and died (p. 76). Importantly, Frankl 
suggests that it was the mindset of the prisoners that needed to change. He writes, 

 
…we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but 
rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and 
instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. 
[...] Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems 
and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. (p. 77) 

 
This passage illustrates something fundamental about the search for meaning: it requires a 

“reorientation,” or shift in perspective, towards life itself (p. 105). Critically, this reorientation involves 
approaching life from a paradigm of personal responsibility, rather than a paradigm of fatalism (p. 56). 

 
The passage above also conveys that one cannot approach life in a bullheaded manner and simply 

decide for oneself where meaning will come from. Instead, one must respond to the situations that life 
puts before them. A story that nicely illustrates this principle comes from psychologist Jordan Peterson. 
Peterson recalled an email dialogue he engaged in with a reader of his. The correspondent was grieving 
at the sudden loss of his father. Peterson saw that the man's world had fallen apart—he was in the depths 
of despair and understandably experiencing a crisis of meaning. Instead of merely commiserating with 
him, Peterson focused on something the young man might do to reclaim meaning during the tragedy—
he advised him to strive to be the strongest man at his father's funeral—to be someone others might rely 
upon in the midst of their heartbreak. The truth is, we often do not get to decide how opportunities 
for meaning will manifest themselves, but we do always have a choice in how we respond to life. 

 
A second, equally damaging misconception that surrounds meaning is that, because it is personal, 

it is solipsistic. In his book Homo Deus, Yuval Harari (2015) argues that humans “live in a triple-layered 
reality”: the objective, the subjective and the intersubjective. While the objective level of reality exists 
independent of one's beliefs and emotions, and the subjective level of reality is dependent on one's 



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beliefs and emotions, the intersubjective level of reality exists by virtue of communication and 
coordination among many agents (p. 181). Money is a good example of such a phenomenon, because it 
only holds value due to the collective beliefs and coordinated behaviours of many individuals. Similarly, 
language could not exist unless multiple communicators worked together to reference something in 
their shared environment.2 

 
In the same way that a private language is incoherent, and minting one's own private money is not 

valuable, solipsistic meaning is a nonstarter. Individuals subscribing to such shallow doctrines will 
quickly find themselves disillusioned, if only because not all behaviours are regarded as worthwhile or 
laudatory. To this point, Harari points out, “If somebody protests that 'The degree certificate is just a 
piece of paper! and behaves accordingly, he is unlikely to get very far in life” (p. 199). In a similar vein, 
Charles Taylor (1989) pokes fun at the idea that one might simply decide that wiggling one's toes in 
mud is significant, or admirable (p. 36). Taylor goes on to say that the value of our behaviours are 
compared against “horizons of significance” (p. 37). Crucially, such horizons are negotiated with others 
and not the purview of any one individual. Thus, while meaning may look different for each individual, 
by virtue of their unique circumstances, this is not the same thing as saying that meaning is whatever 
the individual decides. What will be argued later is that robust interpersonal dialogue is needed to clarify 
such horizons for youngsters.  
 
The Case for Meaning Education 
 
 The meaning that was once supplied by rigid and predictable social systems has waned during 
modernization. As Viktor Frankl (1946) notes, for thousands of years, animal instincts and cultural 
scripts performed the legwork of meaning-making on humanity's behalf (p. 106). In speaking of the 
Middle Ages, Erich Fromm (1941) likewise observes that during this period “man was rooted in a 
structuralized whole, and thus life had a meaning which left no place, and no need for doubt” (p. 41). 
What the rigid social order of the time lacked in personal freedom and social mobility, it made up for 
with “primary ties” which granted individuals a strong sense of security, direction and purpose. 
However, as Medieval society was overtaken by the atomizing forces of industrialization and 
individualism, these ties were weakened and people were left to find alternative sources of meaning 
themselves. As Frankl (1946) points out, most of us now have the means to live but no meaning to live 
for (p. 140). 

 
Fromm (1941) argues that these modern conditions have given rise to an intense sense of 

insecurity, helplessness and angst in individuals (p. 35). In turn, individuals have attempted to alleviate 
this anxiety by trying to “escape” their freedom, i.e., rather than shouldering the responsibility of self-
authorship, individuals have instead sought to abandon it. In other words, the very freedom that makes 
personal meaning possible is often experienced as a burden rather than a gift. Stomaching the burden 
of one's freedom is a challenging prospect because it entails that one is responsible for their blunders, 
as well as all the aspirations one fails to realize or achieve (Peterson, 2021, p. 101). That is, in accepting 
that one could live a meaningful life, one simultaneously must accept that one is capable of squandering 
it. 

 
2 This argument can be attributed to Wittgenstein (1953).  



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In an effort to rid themselves of the anxiety associated with the search for meaning, individuals 
will often try to escape via conformism or totalitarianism (Frankl, 1946, p. 106). While this strategy may 
offer temporary emotional relief to the individual, it is a Faustian bargain that ultimately promises peace 
of mind in exchange for surrendering one's own autonomy. As Peterson (1999) notes “the price paid 
for absolute security is freedom and individuality, and therefore, creativity. Sacrifice of individual 
creativity, by choice, eventually deprives life of pleasure, of meaning—but not of anxiety or pain—and 
therefore renders life unbearable” (p. 378). Fromm (1946) similarly observes that by “being essentially 
a reflex of other people's expectations of him, he has in a measure lost his identity” (p. 203). Thus, the 
individual who successfully escapes their freedom is ultimately left with the worst of both worlds: 
nagging insecurity and a diminished self. 
 

It might thus be argued that one reason meaning education is so pressing stems from the 
consequences that it has for individuals. If educators abdicate the calling to enhance meaning by leaving 
it to chance, or relocating it to other social institutions, they run the risk of leaving insecure youth to 
convenient, yet personally-costly, alternatives. These alternatives often take the form of conformity, 
totalitarianism, materialism and self-indulgence (Frankl, 1946, pp. 106-107). This results in a twofold 
negative impact: individuals are both deprived of genuine expression, and consequently, the world 
misses out on the valuable contributions such expression might have otherwise afforded. 
 

A second, equally important rationale for meaning education concerns the consequences that it 
may have for the collective. Alluring, low-resolution ideologies promise simplicity and security but 
necessarily contain baked-in blind spots that lead the collective into trouble and misdirect our energies 
(Peterson, 1999, p. 217). More concerning yet, there may be dire outcomes if the mass movements 
promising reprieve from the burdens of meaning-making turn inhumane and destructive, as was 
witnessed repeatedly in the middle and latter half of the 20th century (Hoffer, 1951). What fuels the rise 
of both myopic ideologies and mass movements are the frustrated and the disaffected (p. 59). Meaning 
education may play a pivotal role in turning off the tap of discontent. 

 
Educating for Meaning 

 
Frankl (1946) argues that man's search for meaning “is unique and specific in that it must and 

can be fulfilled by him alone” [emphasis added] (p. 99). The questions facing the concentration camp 
prisoner differ from those facing the German guard or the American marine. By its very nature, the 
search for meaning resists standardization. Yet, this fact seems to stand at odds with the impersonal 
nature of most education systems. For the most part, these systems specialize in teaching content and 
skills to large numbers of pupils in a more-or-less formulaic manner. In light of this, it would seem a 
much more personalized intervention is in order. Indeed, Frankl advocated for precisely that: 
logotherapy. 

 
While therapeutic interventions undoubtedly have value, the education system can still play a 

pivotal role in supporting meaning education by cultivating the cognitive, attentive and affective 
capacities that the search for meaning requires. Emotional resilience is needed because, as Frankl (1946) 
notes, there is a persistent tension that accompanies taking responsibility and searching for meaning (p. 
105). Likewise, exercises built to enhance thinking and attentiveness can help ensure that one is capable 



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of perceiving opportunities for meaning in their environment and equipped to think through how to 
respond. In adopting such a goal, education can hope to become more empowering to students and 
future-focused. Dewey (1916) articulated a similar goal when he remarked, “The aim of education is to 
enable individuals to continue their education [...] the object and reward for learning is continued 
capacity for growth” (p. 107). 

 
Efforts to promote meaning in education have picked up steam during the last decade (Karmon, 

2021; Malin, 2018; Nash & Jang, 2014). While there is general convergence around the nature of this 
goal and its importance, there is a lack of consensus regarding how to best achieve this laudable 
objective. Educational strategies aimed at promoting meaning range from assessment design (Malin, 
2018), to teacher behaviour (Karmon, 2021), and even the theoretical frameworks that guide schooling 
(Kizel, 2016). 

 
In his paper Education for Meaning: What Is It and Why Do We Need it?, Amnon Karmon (2021) 

makes the case that recent societal changes have raised the need for a new educational concept. He 
argues that this concept should be education for meaning. Interestingly, Karmon points to the creative 
arts as a promising venue for meaning-education, on account of their capacity to increase self-
understanding and carve out space for student choice (p. 163, p. 166). Notably, Karmon also argues 
that meaning education can exist outside the arts through differentiated assignments since these 
opportunities allow students to pursue personal areas of interest and their passions (p. 166). In order 
for meaning education to succeed, Karmon suggests migrating to a mentorship paradigm, where 
teachers function more as guides and coaches rather than as subject-experts (p. 168). 

 
In their chapter Education for Meaning Making authors Nash and Jang (2014) likewise point to the 

possibility of educating for meaning. The two remark: “We think of meaning-making as a process and 
purpose-finding as a product” (p. 4). The authors contend that this meaning-making process is best 
pursued through storytelling and dialogue. They suggest that asking students to share their personal 
narratives prompts them to evaluate what holds significance for them, while simultaneously 
acknowledging the influence of their surrounding circumstances on their stories (p. 10). Similarly, 
conversations are emphasized because meaning emerges through collaborative engagement rather than 
in isolation (pp. 10-11). 

 
Here it is argued that another educational strategy for promoting meaning-making exists in 

Philosophy for Children (P4C). P4C is a pedagogical intervention aimed at cultivating critical, creative, 
and caring thinking in its participants. The program teaches youngsters how to make progress on hard 
questions by leveraging the power of interpersonal, critical reasoning. Facilitators of the program 
typically use a dialogical model called a Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CPI) to achieve these 
aims. This model involves participants sitting in a circle and unpacking a central question while a 
facilitator corrects logical fallacies, clarifies muddy communication, tracks the development of the 
conversation, and ensures balanced participation from all those involved. 

 
In his paper Philosophy with Children as an Educational Platform for Self-determined Learning, Arie Kizel 

(2016) notes that Lipman, the founder of P4C, originally conceived of his pedagogical model as a way 
of helping children find meaning. Lipman designed P4C as a means of addressing some of the deficits 



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in traditional education, particularly the tendencies of educational systems to demoralize and 
disempower students and erode at their curiosity (p. 9). Importantly, Lipman thought that the crucial 
ingredient that was missing from traditional education was meaning: “If children find the education 
they are being given meaningless, they will come to distrust it [...] The children need to be motivated—
not to think, but to think in ways that increase the measure of meaning in their lives” (1973, p. 9). 
Lipman thought that philosophy was worthwhile for youngsters precisely because it provided the tools 
they needed to investigate life, and thus aided in their search for meaning (1988, p. 108). According to 
Kizel (2016), “Philosophy for Children is thus designed to provide students with an opportunity to 
embark on a search for meaning that is largely guided by self-determined learning and thinking” (p. 9). 

 
Philosophy for Children is a powerful tool for fostering dialogue that promotes self-authorship. 

P4C can help cultivate self-authorship in youngsters by exposing them to forms of dialogue that are 
often absent in schools—dialogue which emphasizes their personhood and responsibility (Gardner & 
Anderson, 2015). Crucially, such dialogue focuses on asking questions “that will elucidate whether there 
is a discrepancy between their ideal and their current actions” (p. 4), and questions that help identify 
who students are “trying to become” as persons (p. 11). 

 
Moreover, unlike the other models discussed above, P4C emphasizes the importance of critical 

thinking in meaning-making. Roland Case (2005) notes that Matthew Lipman, the founder of P4C, 
considered critical thinking and criterial thinking to be synonymous ideas (p. 46). That is, to think 
critically is to consider multiple criteria and to weigh the importance of each in relation to a specific 
problem. This type of contemplation, which requires deeply assessing the relative value of different 
considerations, helps one achieve what Iris Murdoch (1970) refers to as “clear vision,” that is, a “refined 
and honest perception of what really is the case” (pp. 36-37). On this point, Frankl (1946) repeatedly 
spoke of the importance of “awareness,” “reorientation,” “consciousness,” “point of view,” and 
“perception” with regard to the search for meaning (pp. 98, 103, 120, 144).  If an individual is incapable 
of seeing a situation from multiple angles, of considering an alternative path for themselves, then the 
world necessarily presents itself as a fatalistic bulwark. As Lipman correctly saw, critical cognitive 
strategies, such as questioning, distinguishing, and forming inferences are tools that can help individuals 
chip away at that bulwark, and help them perceive opportunities for meaning in their experiences 
(Lipman, 1988, p. 100).  Critical thinking's capacity to help one remodel the world more accurately, as 
a space of possibility and choice, is thus integral to meaning-making. 

 
However, while critical thinking is necessary to meaning-education, it is by no means sufficient, 

which is why Lipman proposed a thinking community. Left to one's own devices, individuals risk 
stagnated thinking, remaining shallow, missing important considerations, and falling prey to illogical 
missteps and fallacies. As Case (2005) notes, students “may use very narrow and dubious criteria, such 
as whether a course of action is easy and in their immediate self-interest, neglecting criteria such as long-
term benefit, fairness to others, consistency with life goals, and safety” (p. 46). In light of this, it is 
essential that such thinking occur in (1) an interpersonal space and (2) be facilitated by a person on the 
lookout for such shallow thinking. This is where the skillset of teachers is most needed. 

 
Communities of Philosophical Inquiry (CPIs) offer particular benefits with regard to meaning-

education as they (1) make thinking visible, (2) demand that participants take ownership of their values 



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and behaviours, (3) expose youth to the viewpoints of others and healthy idea conflict, thereby bolstering 
emotional resilience, and (4) provide an interpersonal arena for value recalibration. 

 
CPIs Make Thinking Visible 

 
As noted earlier, a pitfall surrounding the topic of meaning is that it can become too solipsistic. 

Solitary attempts at meaning-making predictably result in the proliferation of shallow and 
underdeveloped thinking (Case, 2005). CPIs address this worry by requiring students to expound on 
their thinking out loud, and thereby transform what is typically intrapersonal into something visible and 
interpersonal (Sharp, 1987). This is because students are meant to learn as much from their own 
dialogical contributions as those of their peers. This helps ensure that one is not the victim of their own 
self-interested delusions and is a safeguard against everyone's blind spots. 

 
Importantly, students may benefit from seeing the thinking processes of their peers in real time. 

This is true in both the positive and the negative sense. By bearing witness to thinking that is structured, 
articulate, and clear, students can better hope to emulate such approaches. Likewise, by seeing a fellow 
student err in their thinking, by perhaps engaging in fallacious reasoning, students can in turn examine 
their own thinking for such logical missteps. 

 
CPIs Demands That One Take Responsibility for Their Values and Behaviours 

 
In speaking of the concentration camps, Frankl (1946) notes how many prisoners actively avoided 

making decisions (pp. 57-59). It seemed far easier not to choose and just to let fate take its course. 
However, Frankl notes that the moment he ceased doing this and began “making up his mind” he 
experienced a profound inner peace because he finally stood for something. 

 
A benefit of having students vocalize their thinking is that it forces students to take ownership of 

their values and their behaviour. By requiring learners to articulate, explain and justify their viewpoints 
and behaviour to others, students naturally begin to treat themselves and other participants as being 
responsible for those positions. This is crucial, for as R.J. Wallace (1994) notes, a prerequisite for moral 
responsibility is to be treated as if one were morally responsible (p. 159, p. 231). CPIs create the context 
for such treatment. 

 
In his book Antifragile (2012), author Nassim Taleb divides the world into three categories. Things 

that are fragile (i.e., break under minor stress), things that are robust (i.e., break under major stress), 
and things that are antifragile (i.e., benefit and improve under stress). For instance, a glass vase is fragile, 
a granite boulder is robust, but an immune system is antifragile. Taleb argues that we all ought to be 
trying to pursue habits that make us antifragile, as this makes us formidable in the unpredictable world 
we occupy. 
 

As Fromm (1946) observes, there are negative downstream consequences when individuals, driven 
by a sense of fragility/insecurity, scramble for an external source of reassurance. Troublingly, Lukianoff 
& Haidt (2019) observe that this sense of fragility is precisely what is being promoted across American 
universities and secondary schools. Educators are increasingly reticent to challenge students' emotional 



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responses to content, and are now shying away from exposing them to ideas that might upset them (pp. 
33-51). As they observe: “There's an old saying: “Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the 
child.” But these days, we seem to be doing precisely the opposite: we're trying to clear away anything 
that might upset children” (p. 23). This can result in educators sheltering students from small harms 
that would have otherwise tempered them for higher stake events in their future (Taleb, 2012, p. 37). 
While such measures may create temporary peace and harmony in the classroom, they are setting 
students up for a rude awakening later in their lives. 

 
While it is increasingly tempting to avoid high-stakes conversations in the classroom, this does a 

disservice to youngsters who would benefit from perceiving themselves as antifragile. In order to 
negotiate meaning, one is highly likely to experience tension (Frankl, 1946, p. 105), and to experience 
conflict with others. Almost all discussions worth having, and choices that need to be made, exist in 
contested territory. Given that fear of social exclusion ranks so highly in one's psyche, it is no wonder 
that tough conversations are often avoided by individuals. However, educators must recognize that while 
the tendency to stick with the crowd has had evolutionary benefits, it is a tendency that now must be 
eschewed for youth. 

 
Part of the power of the CPI model is that it embraces discomfort and asks students to voluntarily 

wade into the unknown. It does this primarily through cultivating dialectic thinking (i.e., thinking that 
does not shy away from the conflict of opinions in social space). By CPIs exposing youth to the crucible 
of uncertainty, this model helps galvanize them for future exposures to similar experiences. Moreover, 
by equipping youth with the tools to repeatedly expose themselves to unpredictability, CPIs send the 
message meaning is not a one-and-done phenomenon. 

 
CPIs Facilitate Value Refinement Through Exposure to Critical, Interpersonal Dialogue 

 
The interpersonal nature of CPIs plays a key role in value recalibration. Ideals and values are 

intersubjective phenomena that are shaped by both our biology and culture (Harari, 2015), but given 
this fact, intensive communication is required to make sense of their implications for behaviour in a 
given context. This idea is spelled out in Jürgen Habermas's (1981) Theory of Communicative Action, in 
which he argues that the power of reason is located in the power of social rather than solitary thinking. 
Critical interpersonal dialogue helps facilitate the collision of worldviews, counteracting the blind spots 
of each, overcoming subjectivity and bias and, in the process, helping stabilize normative validity. 

 
CPIs provide students a venue to both test and question their values, as well as the chance to 

consider if their behaviour is consistent with their professed ideals. While such an exposure to the 
“other” and their thoughts can sometimes temporarily threaten one's sense of meaning (Peterson, 1999, 
p. 249), it ultimately helps challenge one's own makeshift understandings, thereby igniting the process 
of reconstruction and landing participants with “more truthful descriptions” (Harari, 2015, p.195). As 
an added benefit, an exposure to the viewpoints of others may allow participants to expand their own 
internal audience after they depart the CPI (i.e., they may be able to conjure up perspectives other than 
their own in later intrapersonal dialogue). 

 
 



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A Guide for Facilitators 

 
Facilitators Should Keep CPIs Focused on Practical Reason  
 

CPIs, in and of themselves, are insufficient for meaning-education, as one could have a CPI about 
any number of specious or irrelevant topics. Therefore, the content of CPIs must remain focused on 
topics relevant to students' lives and related to their behaviour. Inquiring whether everyone is living in 
a simulation, or whether Zeno's Paradox can be resolved may be cognitively engaging but ultimately has 
little bearing on one's life. Worse yet, exercises that only stimulate theoretical reason may 
unintentionally backfire. As Peterson (1999) notes, “the capacity for rational thought is a dangerous 
force, without doubt, because it is a powerful force—and the conditions under which thinking plays a 
purely destructive role are not well comprehended” (p. 313). Facilitators should thus prioritize the use 
of reason for evaluating viewpoints and behaviors, rather than simply promoting reasoning for its own 
sake. 
 

As a starting point, educators might get students to consider the forces that interfere with meaning 
in their lives, such as those that disconnect them from the world surrounding them. For instance, 
teachers might use thought experiments such as Nozick's (1974) experience machine or novels, such as 
Huxley's (1932) Brave New World, to open up a relevant topic facing students in their everyday lives: the 
amount of time they spend on screens. In both written works, individuals spend the majority of their 
time in altered states of consciousness. Teachers might have students calculate their total screen time 
across devices and then divide the resulting sum by the number of waking hours in their days, forming 
a percentage that represents their time spent in digital environments. Teacher and students could then 
inquire as to whether it is meaningful to be spending so much time in cyber space. 
 

Stories are another vehicle that facilitators might use to great effect. In speaking about the search 
for meaning, Charlotte Bühler (1971) remarks, “All we can do is study the lives of people who seem to 
have found their answers to the questions of what ultimately human life is about as against those who 
have not.” Studying stories to help students achieve meaning is a promising entry point for those 
teaching English and History. An added benefit might be that this approach is slightly less personal, 
since the discussion is centred around the narratives of others. There are many poems, novels and films 
that are ideal candidates for this task. As an example, consider the following moment from a recent 
film: 

 
In David Lowery's (2021) cinematic adaptation of The Green Knight, the final sequence centres 

on Gawain, the protagonist, facing a supernatural knight in a chapel. Gawain is ready to honour the 
deal he made with the knight a year prior and be beheaded.  As he is about to meet his end, Gawain 
succumbs to cowardice and flees. The narrative continues and follows Gawain back to his life at the 
castle, where this act of cowardice permeates every facet of his existence—eroding at his relationships 
and undermining his leadership. Just as everything falls apart, the film suddenly shifts perspective and 
returns to Gawain at the chapel: the viewer realizes that the castle sequence was not real—they have 
witnessed Gawain's projection into a hypothetical future, a stark imagining of who he would become 
should he betray his own values. In a  moment of realization, Gawain undergoes a profound 
transformation and revises his decision, bows his head, and prepares to meet his end. 



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A moment such as this is ripe for discussion. The class might discuss Frankl's (1946) claim that 

man is sometimes even able to “die for the sake of his ideals and values” (p.99). Students could then 
inquire about whether Gawain's chivalric honour was something he should die for. This conversation 
could then be used as a springboard to have them reflect upon what values they hold most dear. 

 
Facilitators Should Be Active in Dialogue 
  

During dialogue, facilitators can tactfully interject, drawing students' attention to the way thought 
is developing. This might look like pointing out fallacies (e.g., false dilemmas), conceptual moves (e.g., 
agreement, disagreement, reframing), and even model the development of the conversation using a 
whiteboard by charting the arguments. By providing this structure, it helps ensure that students are 
aware of progress in thinking and come to see it as worthwhile instead of a waste of time. This runs 
counter to some suggestions that facilitators ought to fade into the background during CPIs (Kennedy, 
2004). 

 
Facilitators Should Reframe Dialogical Contributions in Agentic Language 
  

Students will often be tempted to speak about themselves in a deterministic, bad faith manner 
(e.g., “Sarah makes me so angry”). However, in order to educate for meaning, it is essential that students 
view themselves as agents—as free and responsible for not only their behaviour, but their values and 
attitudes. A facilitator can assist with this by reframing statements (e.g., “So what you mean is that you've 
decided to be angry with Sarah because of her behaviour”). 

 
Facilitators Should Keep Dialogue Focused and Moving  
 
 Conversations can easily become sidetracked, devolve into semantic debates, or drift into other, 
equally-interesting topics. Moreover, conversations can become paralyzed by political correctness, 
emotional outbursts, inflammatory language, or false consensus. Facilitators can help overcome these 
roadblocks by playing devil's advocate when needed, supporting unpopular opinions, and strategically 
bracketing tangential ideas for revisiting later. 

 
Facilitators Should Conclude CPIs with Lily Pads Not Limbo 
  

The capacity to subject one's behaviour to critical reasoning is a double-edged sword. While this 
can solidify ownership over one's decisions or facilitate one changing their mind, such dialogue is also 
capable of paralyzing the agent, as excess consciousness can result in endless analysis and cascading 
doubt (Peterson, 1999, p. 264). The benefit of CPIs comes in modelling how to encounter chaos—
represented here as the destabilizing viewpoints of others—and transform that chaos, via dialogical 
synthesis, back into something coherent and actionable. Thus, it is paramount that inquiry drives 
towards implication for behaviour, and does not conclude in an entangled state. To this end, having 
students fill out sheets that track their viewpoint prior to, and after, an inquiry can help them perceive 
progress. Alternatively, have students complete reflection exercises that ask them to identify the points 
that shifted their view or made them think. 



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Facilitators Should Avoid Placing Their Thumb on the Scale and Beware Indoctrination 

 
Fromm (1941) observed that individuals are constantly tempted to slough off responsibility and 

all the headaches it causes, often by seeking a strongman or mass movement they can lose themselves 
in. Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan countered such tendencies in his therapy patients by trying to shatter 
their romanticized views of authority. He did this in bizarre ways, such as by cutting his therapy visits 
short and still demanding full payment, or by arranging his office into bizarre configurations, with the 
phone sitting in the middle of the floor (Allouch, 2009). Importantly, Lacan wanted to disrupt his 
patients' longing for a messiah figure and have them look to themselves instead. 

 
CPI facilitators ought to have a similar ideal in mind: they should be wary of being mistaken for 

a shaman or spirit guide and instead always direct students back to themselves. In order for this to work 
in practice, it is essential that facilitators stay neutral in inquiry. It will be a constant temptation for 
facilitators to present their own worldviews to pupils in the process of facilitating CPIs. However, this 
can be dangerous, for the aforementioned reason that the goal is not the adoption of any one particular 
vision of the world, but instead to provide the tools students need to take responsibility for their own 
views and behaviours. While being up front about one's own biases and present understandings is 
encouraged, meaning education is not character or moral education, and should not be confused with 
them. To ensure this remains the case, facilitators ought to focus their own dialogical contributions on 
the structure of communication and less on policing, or offering commentary, on what is being 
communicated. 

 
Conclusion 

 
If Brad is perfectly content smoking weed and playing video games with his pals most of the time, 

and Olivia is perfectly content scrolling social media and performing TikTok dances with her girlfriends, 
then why disrupt a good thing? What is the point of rousing happy sleepers? After all, educators have 
limited bandwidth and perhaps their job should just be to concern themselves with imparting the 
relevant content; that is, teach the youth that the mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell, instruct 
them on how to perform algebra, equip them with the skills they need to write a spiffy essay and relay 
the importance of civic participation. 

 
Here it has been argued that the reason to educate beyond the textbook is in fact meaning. In our 

short and limited time on this planet, we ought to make sure that life has not lived us, but that we have 
lived life. This means that we must depart from a paradigm of fate (Frankl, 1946, p. 56), where we are 
hapless victims riding the roller coaster of life, to one of agency, where we take ultimate responsibility 
for the lives we lead. 

 
Neil Postman (1996) lamented that “Without meaning, learning has no purpose. Without a 

purpose, schools are houses of detention, not attention” (p. 7). For far too long, meaning has sat at the 
margins of education. In all likelihood this has stemmed from a misunderstanding regarding what 
meaning is, and a lack of guidance regarding how to cultivate it. Here it has been argued that meaning 
education necessarily requires more than the accumulation of facts, and must include, as part of its 



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program, engagement in critical, interpersonal dialogue. In turn, it has been argued that Philosophy for 
Children's CPI model offers particular benefits with regard to achieving this goal. 

 
Sadly, there is no shortage of meaning “service providers” ready to do the legwork of meaning-

making on our behalf. These prepackaged programs—whether they be found in crowds, mass 
movements, or hedonism—often market themselves as cheap, expedient, and come highly reviewed by 
friends and family. What's more, there is something romantic and desirable about adopting a single 
vision that will serve you the rest of your days, which is why so many have fallen prey to such a promise. 
Educators face an uphill battle if they wish to gift their students meaning, because it requires that they 
ask students to take the road less travelled and, in turn, equip them for the comparatively more difficult 
task of facing the unknown. But maybe an uphill battle is exactly what any worthwhile education should 
be. 
 

 

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Address Correspondences to:  
Daniel John Anderson 
Vancouver Institute of Philosophy for Children 
ORCID ID: [DAN} 0000-0002-5205-0902 
email: danjohnanderson@outlook.com 
 

mailto:danjohnanderson@outlook.com

