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What is 'Philosophy for Children' (P4C) / 'Enquiry and Dialogue in the Classroom'?
"This is an important teaching and learning initiative that has the potential to really raise levels of pupil motivation and achievement."
(LEA advisor Oxfordshire Heads of Science P4C training)
P4C is used in UK schools to:
- Enhance the quality of dialogue, questioning, reasoning and engagement in lessons across the curriculum.
- Provide for structured ownership of learning
- Delivery of primary and secondary SEAL
- Enhance PSHCE provision
- Enhance student links between secondary and primary schools
- Facilitate positive role modeling of learning between year groups
P4C develops both students thinking skills and emotional literacy. P4C is not additional to the curriculum but a method that many teachers and students find helpful and reinvigorating in the delivery of curriculum requirements. In a P4C lesson pupils reflect on a stimulus and from this develop open questions for dialogue. The group / class then choose one question which forms the basis for a 'Community of Enquiry' and an in depth dialogue.
The role of the teacher is to act as a facilitator enabling students to own their learning, providing a role model of interested, independent questioning as well as clear logical thinking. Having developed their own questions students consider not just the subject under discussion but also how they are learning. Research shows that such a meta-cognitive element is central to successful thinking skills strategies.
Philosophy for Children enables the teacher to create and facilitate a caring, collaborative, linguistic and concept rich environment in which students are guided in the practise of reasoning, allowing reflection on issues arising from the students experience and learning.
Teachers find that the P4C pedagogy is a powerful tool in creating a positive ethos for learning, improving behaviour, achievement and motivation through the development of:
- Questioning
- Reasoning
- Reflection
- Independent learning
- Emotional literacy
- Open mindedness
P4C nurtures and values:
- Equality
- Respect
- Democracy
- Freedom of expression
- Inclusiveness
Through the development of questioning, independent and logical thought, P4C gives students structured ownership over their learning. The method can be used to deliver lessons across the curriculum and at all Key Stages, extending learning for all students from the Gifted and Talented through to the less able and works well in a mixed-ability setting. Many schools also find that the community approach is highly effective in the development of emotional literacy.
P4C was developed by Professor Matthew Lipman (Montclair State University) and draws on the work of the developmental psychologist Vygotsky. A central theme of P4C, derived from Vygotsky, is that children's cognitive development occurs predominantly through reasoned dialogue and that this is appropriate at all stages.
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