A Philosophy for Teachers Program Based on Philosophy for Children

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Teaching as Philosophical Practice: From Philosophy for Children to Philosophy for Teachers

Abstract

Aims

Philosophy of education has largely disappeared in teacher education, due in part to the perception that it failed to prepare novice teachers for classroom challenges (Crook, 2002). This paper aims to construct a more practical approach to philosophy for teachers, based on insights from philosophy for children and building on recent work of Orchard et al. (2016).
 
Materials and Methods

The paper gathers and critically analyses key findings from the teacher education literature and the recent literature on philosophy for teachers. 
 
Analysis

Teacher education aims to prepare novice teachers to structure activities, plan lessons, and engage in instructional exchanges while maintaining classroom order (Sanders & Mccutcheon, 1986). Novices’ tend to be ineffective (Kini & Podolsky, 2016., partly because their generally learner-centered ideas about teaching (Ryan, 2008; Edlin, 2013) rarely match their habitual teaching behaviors (Argyris and Schön, 1974). They grow by gaining distance from these behaviors through reflection, dialogue and research - practices that are not natural and must be learned (Van Manen, 1977; Bengtsson, 1993). 
 
Philosophy can contribute directly to this learning. Educational structuring makes use of practical aesthetics. Reflection and dialogical thinking draw upon informal logic. Philosophy of science, mathematics, literature and history clarify norms of reasoning in school disciplines. Philosophical interventions have the greatest impact during supervised teaching, as novices attend from survival to practical concerns. Philosophical texts are useful when candidates recognize themselves in them and gain practical lessons to try.   
 
“Philosophy for teachers” (P4T)  offers an alternative to the philosophy of education course. Originally proposed by Garcia-Padilla (1993), the idea has recently been re-imagined (Orchard, Heilbron and Winstanley, 2016) by borrowing elements from P4C: an initial stimulus; questions raised and selected by participants; a ‘community of inquiry’. In P4T time is spent “drawing connections, clarifying meanings and going deeper into the issues raised.” They add, “Values are explored allowing insights and thoughts to be shared, leading to new perspectives, disparate directions and a deepening of understanding (p.49). 
  
Results and Significance

In this paper I reconsider and build upon this vision of P4T based on P4C. I find that (i) a weekly P4T seminar during the period of supervised practice can contribute more directly to teacher effectiveness than pre-service philosophy of education courses; (ii) P4T as proposed (Orchard et al 2016), however, lacks concrete steps from philosophy to practice. Teachers may “develop argued positions,” but no opportunities are provided to try new behaviors. To assist in achieving the goals of teacher education, P4T will require philosophers to team up with other teacher educators and supervising teachers; (iii) The philosophy of education literature is not readily accessible by novice teachers; it must be supplemented  in P4T by new work similar to the special publications used in P4C. 

Author

• Leonard J. Waks, Hongzhou Normal University