Abstract
Since 1986 we have practised philosophy with children
in the Swedish primary school. In 1989 we launched a research project which
ended in 1996. We have in an account for some years evaluated the long-term
effects of philosophy lessons a period of three years of regular philosophy.
Here we make some remarks on our findings as to the group dynamics in the philosophy classes. The findings might be important to those teachers of philosophy who are interested in improving the dialectics of dialogue in the classroom B among other things by identifying some categories of driving pupils: the truth seekers, the creative ones, the story-tellers, the mind-builders, the dogmatic ones, the active listeners, and the questioners or the critical ones. With these categories we try to explain why a class with philosophy in school twice a week had more active pupils and were much more related to each other than to the teacher, than in other respect equal or superior classes. (See that part of our report in Thinking, Vol.12, No 4, 1996.)
Two other themes come along. I point to some observations of differences between boys and girls, and also to categories of pupils that seem to gain the most of philosophy.
In the end there are two quotations from our tapes. They provide examples of the dynamics of pupils in philosophy classes.
Our experience of philosophy with children
Since 1986 we have practised philosophy with children
in the Swedish primary school: 1986 - 1989 in one school from the fourth
to the sixth grades, where we had one lesson a week about 70 minutes long.
In 1989 we launched a research project "To Stimulate the Philosophical
Thinking of Children", which ended in 1996. During the project we worked
twice a week in the experimental class and once a week in a class of reference.
In another school we also philosophized for five years once a week 1989
- 1994 in two classes. The lessons were 40-70 minutes. Those classes were
of the grades one to three. From 1989 to 1994 we also documented our activity
by recording almost all lessons on tape.
All the classes except the class of reference have worked with stories and material from the manuals from the IAPC - The Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children. The texts used are Matthew Lipman's Pixie, Kio and Gus and Elfie, translated into Swedish and adapted to Swedish conditions. In the class of reference we have used other material, above all Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince.
We have evaluated the long-term effects of philosophy one to three years after the philosophy lessons took place, and make some reflections about them in our book: Filosofi med barn. Reflektioner över ett försök på lågstadiet. (Carlsson, June 1999, Stockholm ) ("Philosophy with Children. Reflections about an experiment in elementary school.) By investigating the traces there being left of the three years of philosophy in the classroom and the differences between the classes that might be due to the differences in the material or methods used in philosophy, we make some conclusions.
Here I’m only going to make some remarks on our findings as to the group dynamics in the philosophy classes. The findings might be important to those teachers of philosophy, who are interested in improving the dialectics of dialogue in the classroom.
Some dynamic features of our philosophy classes
Philosophy in school is a process. It is not a subject
for teaching, not even if you put the word "Philosophy" in the curriculum
or on the timetable. With what shall the children compare the philosophical
work? It's not like math (with relatively clear methods and rules for what's
right and wrong – but good math reasoning makes of course philosophizing
easier), it's not like learning to read (even though we do a lot of reading
in a philosophy class and also try to understand a text), and is not like
handicraft (because your tools are not that concrete and the product not
made by your hand alone). Philosophy makes things problematic, funny or
astounding, which the children very early and easily notice. The individuals
meet that experience in different ways. That meeting initiates the philosophical
process and gradually forms attitudes to our course. All those meetings
constitute the philosophy class.
First I will describe some typical attitudes of pupils we meet in our philosophy classes. They will be personified as pupils. I'll especially look at those pupils who carry off a lot of the lessons and make the work meaningful to most of the other children (and mostly, but not always to themselves). I call those pupils "driving" or "pushing". Then I shortly point at some actual interaction patterns.
Next I make some remarks on some differences between boys and girls – especially on our finding that girls in our philosophical classes seem to develop some of the playfulness of the boys in reasoning: they make more intellectual experiments. They learned to be distant observers, to deliberate. (Contrary to that, boys in one of our control classes seemed to express a heavier feeling of personal guilt: they learned to engage more personally in the moral problems.)
Thirdly I state some hypotheses (extracted out of our research) of what types of pupils that gain most of philosophy in school.
Types of pupils
I will now describe some typical driving pupils we meet
in our philosophy classes. It is the truth seekers, the creative ones,
the story-tellers, the mind-builders, the dogmatic ones, the active listeners,
and the questioners or the critical ones. With these categories we try
to explain why our experimental class had more active pupils and were much
more related to each other than to the teacher, than in other respect equal
or superior classes. (There are of course other kinds of individuals, i.e.
the ironic type, whose comments cannot so easily be transformed to bricks
in the building of a community of inquiry.)
Our truth-seekers looked all the time for an overall meaning: "What is philosophy? What are we actually doing in a philosophy class?" the typical girl wondered. I’ll give you one example of one of the answers of our most eminent exemplar, Astrid. Already at the beginning of the first term she exclaimed, "I've got it!" – What, the teacher asked. "I've got the meaning of everything!" – How do you mean "everything"? "You know, the Swedish language is so difficult. We are going to learn difficult words and understand and so."
That truth-seeker had a sort of religious longing for the truth that would explain everything we did and that gave the reasons for having philosophy in school. Our work didn't seem to fit in with the other topics in school, nor with the expectations she brought from pre-school (kindergarten) or those derived from her parents. She was not content or satisfied with the standard answer – "We are here to learn to think" – like most of the kids. "I already can think," she said. And of course Astrid is right, the concept of reflection is just about to be grasped in those years. (Some of the silent listeners tried to formulate that concept in words in the third year in the following way: "We learn to think of a thing and think again of that thing – afterwards." I interpret his Swedish statement as: "We learn to reflect and reflect upon." More literally translated he says: "We learn to think and think later/after(-wards)." There is a long searching for the last word.)
Because of some of Astrid's dogmatic tendencies she now and then had rough times, especially in cases of sloppy thinking (as you will se in the long quotation from our journal below). Still she learns a lot in those confrontations. And sure she makes other children eager to argue.
The spontaneous imaginative (or creative) type goes in for the fun of the philosophical problems and mysteries – he (yes, always a male in our material) makes the lessons fun. This is very provoking for the truth-seeker. He can’t see the playing with elements of mind as constructive, but as a teacher I’m thrilled with excitement over what I experience as typical philosophical intellectual experiments. In that way he really starts many lessons by examining systems of thoughts or relations of concepts.
So also the mind-builders do. They are the constructive ones. We had an ideal complementary pair of those in our experimental class, in second grade. One boy was of the imaginative type (Robert) and the other (Fredrik) was a logician with lots of general knowledge. Both were needed to build. One alone would not do. That was also their own opinion, when arguing for sitting next to one another: "We build thoughts so well together. We have been thinking to beat Bosse's record! I and Fredrik build giant thoughts!" Fredrik: "It's the mixture of two personalities; that's great 'cause then you [alone] can grasp a little bit more, like two people can do." They addressed the philosophy teacher. In order to state their view more clearly, they made one drawing each on the blackboard (Picture 1 and 2) describing the content with the accompanying words.
Picture 1. Robert: "Our thoughts match so well, … like pieces of a puzzle."
Picture 2. Fredrik: "It is like two halves of a brain go together or two heads."
Even some silent boys and girls looked at our work in the same way. Sixten says: "It's fun and you learn to think and so." Lilian continues: "You learn … The mind builds more." And Jan is finishing off: "I think as Lilian, 'cause you like think right, in the right way, when you are [here]. In [ordinary] class it's sort of more noise and you think wrong. Here you think, ah, … [– – –] Yes you can think upon things. You are more concentrated and so, when you are here. It's sort of more quiet and you can concentrate."
Maybe he has time to think and reflect in philosophy class. The ways he and Lilian were looking at every speaker and their comments often showed appreciation and understanding of different viewpoints. You should not underestimate the importance of the behavior of those pupils.
So with the story-tellers, too, even though he or she almost all the time lose the connection with the topic in question and sometimes not even get to the point. But they make almost every time a great job. They make our topics concrete and relevant. The girls often relate to authentic family examples and the boys to remarkable heroic or vulgar experiences (their own, big brother's, comrades' or pure fictional).
This type (especially the boys) is the ones that profits less on philosophy, except emotionally. They are so egocentric in their feeling of dispersing and spreading of joy. And we all like them in almost the same way. We laugh with them and the teacher or some child draws the conclusion of their story. Unfortunately some of them are so overwhelmed that they are totally lost to our community of inquiry.
Interaction
The complementary pattern of the above types is obvious
and some common interactions are already stated. The responsible truth-seeker
irritates and is irritated by the spontaneous types.
I think that the presence of all the types above is necessary to make a working community of inquiry. You can't rely on one or two types alone. The story-teller needs the mind-builder, who can state the point of the story, while the former brings ordinary or fantastical things to be used by the latter. Maybe the philosophical story or the manual exercises can compensate the loss of one type, but it is at the expense of the community of the pupils.
If the mentioned types not come in naturally in the philosophy class, you have to invent them. The provocation or the fitting thought experiment might do that: wake the dogmatic ones in every class. But then the teacher becomes the one who sets the agenda. It'll bore the students. You could of course try to give roles to the pupil, to make disputes, and it can work fine sometimes, but again: you state the agenda.
However, in our five philosophy classes the types above regularly showed up, most flagrant in the experiment class, but they were also clearly seen in our first and our last classes where we had more time for philosophy (than we had in the reference class and in the class where we started philosophizing in second grade). So my conclusion is that when the students have time sufficiently to get aware of a genuine philosophical problem, the truth-seeker, the dogmatic one, the questioner and the mind-builder or the creative type turn up. This might look as an analytic true sentence, but after such experiences the pupils begin to take the mentioned roles and in that respect they urge their mates to contribute to the inquiry. May our example below convince you?
Boys and Girls
Girls in our philosophical classes seemed to develop
some of the playfulness of the boys in reasoning: they made more intellectual
experiments than girls and even boys in comparable classes. They took the
roles of more distant observers, i.e. learnt to deliberate. (Contrary to
that, boys in one of our control classes seemed to express a heavier feeling
of personal guilt: they learned to engage more personally or as private
individuals in the moral problems. That was made clear in some interviews.)
Some girls react negatively to philosophy: the boys get too fanciful or there are other causes for lack of social relevant meaning. In spite of that – or because of that – they bring examples of everyday life and relationships to the agenda, mostly by story-telling (family anecdotes) but also by references to pictures, movies or literature. Maybe that's why these girls develop playfulness even in connection with tough questions (as you see in our last example).
Who gains by philosophy?
The ones that gain the most by philosophy in school are
mostly girls. It is the good listeners who also are carefully thinkers
and the socially experienced boys and girls who connect the abstract terms
to their reality. Swoops dare not try. Those developed (mostly) by listening
and (in some extent) by building some new logical structures, which fitted
their needs. Their bonus was the distancing overview. Fragments of their
experience made at last a recognisable pattern.
A few boys, who from their close environment mostly used their fists to solve an argument, now more often found alternative ways for arguing and being listened to. We have even an example of an almost autistic boy who learnt the meaning of arguing. One of his more verbal class mates started to interpret his mostly incomprehensible exclamations, at last when he tried to do what he thought we did. And gradually he grasped the point: there was some kind of exchanging of standpoints. It was possible to get a message more and more distinct. At the end of the first grade we could hear and understand him arguing.
In respect of arguing we have a striking exemplar of a development of the spontaneous and creative type, Måns. Having jumped into several almost impossible positions and managed to climb up by more precise and complex arguments, he in test three years later expresses a tremendous logical skill and a consistent reasoning. Especially the girls, among them Astrid, lead him to make his standpoints socially relevant.
Examples – quotes from the journal
Example 1
The pupils in our experimental class have also managed
to acquire the method of thinking by means of hypothetical cases, which
lots of grown-ups have difficulty in practising. Maybe it's easier for
children to say "Suppose! Let's play make believe!"
Here the children's arguing declines to quarrel. Måns
thinks that Astrid is stupid, but is not able to explain his reasons. So
Astrid turns back: "I think Måns is so awfully ugly, just because
he's black."
Stefan replies: "Ah! Just what you are! You ass!
/– – –/ … he can't be blamed for being black. And how do you think they
would like you, if you arrived in their country, then?" And then there's
an uncontrolled quarrel.
Måns: "She [Astrid] looks like a baboon."
Stefan and Sixten: "Yes!"
Astrid: "Don't you think you look like one?! Baboons
aren't white, they are brown!"
Måns: "She's a baboon, who's been walking in
the fjelds [mountains]!"
Astrid: "Baboons don't live in the fjelds!" She
also insists on being ugly and being a fool go together: "If you're
an ugly one, then you have to be a blockhead."
Here Sixten and Stefan make an objection with an intellectual
experiment: "If he gives hundred crowns and if he is ugly – damned ugly
like this – then you'll think his alright."
Stefan: "/– – –/ If you [Astrid] got a million
from Måns, would you think he was a blockhead then?"
Astrid: "No, I would not." After a while Astrid
modifies her consent: "… he won't give me a million."
The boys: "But it is only an example!"
This fragment shows that the children even when exited use methods modelled in a philosophy class. And they are doing it well. Their discussion focuses then on the question if it is better to be beautiful than to be nice and the possible connections between those properties. One of the story-tellers takes over: "I don't think it matters what they look like. They can be ugly or beautiful, sit in wheelchairs, but it is important that they are nice, like they don't tease you and say that you are ugly. I know one that is awfully nice, and who can throw balls and things like that…"
The ugliness you can perceive of people's looks, but to grasp their kindness you have to see what the people think. Måns is thinking of an apparatus for reading people's thoughts. But someone replies that it's not possible. So the discussion continues.
Example 2
In four classes in the 11th and four in the
12th grade we talked about the possibility of oneself becoming
a murderer. Many in those in philosophy untrained classes rejected that
intensively. But listen to two girls in one of our philosophy classes.
It is in the third grade, the third year of philosophy. They are talking
with the teacher about their thoughts when confronting the following sentence.
"You're good if you do what I like."
Lena starts to interpret the statement: "What you like
yourself, then?"
Sadaf supports the importance of the former question:
"Yes, but it can be wrong 'cause if you are the only one to like it,
then it may be wrong to others. If you for example…"
The girls are orchestrating each other. Lena: "…ah
… 'I should like to kill Olof Palme', something like that…"
Sadaf: "Yes, that's right…"
Lena: "… Someone didn't like that…"
– Aren't you good then, if you do what you
really think is right?
Sadaf: "No."
Lena: "Well, … yes, ah … or…"
Sadaf: "But it can be wrong."
Lena: "… it is wrong sometimes..."
Sadaf: "… and sometimes it is right, 'cause all will
agree. But it can be wrong. For example: 'If I kill Olof Palme',
like Lena said. It's wrong."
– But you would never do that?
Lena: "No."
Sadaf: "No, you wouldn't."
Lena: "No. It's like saying: 'I have become a
murderer. Now I'm going to kill Olof Palme.'"
– But would you be a murderer?
Lena: "Yes, everyone can become a murderer."
Sadaf: "Though I would never become one anyhow."
Lena: "No."
Sadaf: "It's like…"
Lena: "Everyone can become one!" She emphasizes.
– Why do you think so?
Lena: "Everybody can become one, you…"
Sadaf: "… you will become one of those…"
Lena: "… freaks, like… 'HA! OH!' Like that.
'Ah, dear me, what's about to happen?'"
The fact that Lena repeats and stresses that anybody can become a murderer shows that she is serious and doesn't only play with the thought. A gruesomely heavy idea to be borne by a lonely person. But others supported this child's thought, surely she shared it with her friend Sadaf.
References
Malmhester, B and Ohlsson, R: Filosofi med barn. Reflektioner
över ett försök på lågstadiet. (Carlsson,
June 1999, Stockholm) ("Philosophy with Children. Reflections about
an experiment in elementary school".)
Niklasson, J., Ohlsson, R., Ringborg
M., "Evaluating Philosophy for Children", Thinking, Vol.12, No 4, 1996
E-mail:
bo.malmhester@telia.com
E-mail: Bo.Malmhester@vg.upplandsvasby.se