Teachers’ Perceptions in Implementing “p4cHI” in Japan: A Case Study in Miyagi

• In Event: Internationalization of education in Japan: challenges and opportunities

Proposal

In “philosophy for children Hawai’i (p4cHI)”, students and a teacher sit in a circle together in order to see each other’s face, and have an inquiry about wonderings from the participants. This inquiry is not intended to find ‘correct answers.’ Instead, it is an opportunity to build community and learn from each other by sharing their thoughts and thinking freely together regardless their roles in the classroom such as ‘teacher’ or ‘student’. This style of teaching appears to be progressive compared to the traditional teacher-centered and knowledge based practice.
“Philosophy for Children (P4C)” was first created in 1960s by Matthew Lipman, who recognized weak thinking skills in his students at Columbia University, created textbooks for grades K-12 in order to develop reasonable thinking skills in younger students (Jackson, 2012). Thomas Jackson, a philosopher and educator in Hawai’i, brought Lipman’s P4C to Hawai’i, but school teachers in Hawai’i had no time for adding Lipman’s textbooks to their curriculum. Moreover, in response to Hawai’i’s diverse culture, Jackson began to put more importance on creating “Intellectual Safety” in communities through philosophical inquiries (Jackson, 2012). “Intellectual Safety” is defined as a quality of community wherein “All participants in the Community feel free to ask virtually any question or state any view so long as respect for all community members is honored” (Jackson, 2017, p 6). This notion was seen as important not only by schools in Hawai’i, but also by educators in Miyagi.
After the natural disaster of 2011, educators in Miyagi turned to p4cHI to provide students with an “intellectually safe” place, so that p4cHI help them to heal from the post-traumatic stress by sharing their own feelings and thoughts. They have practiced p4cHI activities over the last 5years (Nozawa, 2017). In this paper, I would like to examine how implementing p4cHI influenced teachers’ perceptions of relationships with students in Miyagi prefecture in Japan.
While p4cHI became very popular in public schools in Miyagi, according to my experiences, educators in Japan have tended to perceive p4cHI as a more rigid method that has clearly defined ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. This, however, is contrary to the spirit and intention of p4cHI, which is simply “doing philosophy,” which refers to let people think freely without pressure to find correct answers, or assumptions that the teacher expects certain answers.
In order to gain a deeper understanding of educators’ experiences regarding to p4cHI in Miyagi, I would like to conduct interviews with three teachers who are practicing p4cHI activities in public schools in Miyagi prefecture this December. I’d like to ask questions about the challenges and opportunities that have arisen since they began implementing p4cHI. I think we can gain a clearer understanding of how teachers’ perceptions of relationships with students have been affected by this practice from the interview. In the presentation, I will introduce the findings of the interviews and discuss some implications.

Author

• Aya Watanabe, Educational Foundations at University of Hawaii at Manoa