CHAPTER 1

Overview of the WashingtonElementary School Philosophy ProjectM. Evans, A Bassiri

The idea of introducing philosophy and critical thinking to theelementary school curriculum has received great attention recently.Most teachers however are not trained in philosophy and the fieldis plagued with difficult, indeed at times impossible to decipherliterature. Even if one has a grasp of philosophy it is difficult toknow just how to make the subject interesting to elementary schoolstudents. Inspired by the work of Thomas Wartenberg, Maria Evans(principal of Washington Elementary School at San Jose) and AliBassiri (a physician with a strong interest in education) broughttogether three philosophy professors (Drs. Anand Vaidya, KarinBrown, and Carlos Sanchez), two school teachers (Allison Pruitt andStacy Mascitelli-Morey), along with over ten volunteers that includedcommunity members, parents, and philosophy students, and createdthe Philosophy Committee of the Washington Elementary School.The goal was simple: to discover how to implement philosophy inelementary school classrooms. We eventually discovered that thesolution is to (1) transform the role of the student from passivelearner to the active participant by using active learning methods,and (2) transform the role of the adult from the knowledgeableleader who knows the answers to the `uninformed participant' whomingles with students seeking answers (ie. plays `dumb').

The basic idea behind designing a classroom philosophy sessionis to pick an appropriate topic and a related question (What doesit mean for something to be fair? What is happiness? Why do wemake mistakes? Is it ever OK to lie? etc.), select a story that exploresthe topic, and create a lesson plan that recreates the question inthe classroom. For example, on the topic of justice, the kids readEmily's Art, a story about an unfair art contest. We then held anart contest in the class and the children chose a winner by majorityvote. An adult role-played a judge and picked a lesser drawing bysome obviously irrational criteria (mimicking the events in Emily'sArt). The students uniformly protested and there was an excellentdiscussion about the criteria the judge used and whether they werefair.

The Committee implemented this project during the 2011-2012and 2012-2013 school years for 2nd and 3rd grades. The storiesused were either chosen from Thomas Wartenberg's websiteteachingchildren philosophy.org or found while browsing throughbookstores. The professors would provide a philosophical synopsisof the story which the Committee would use to create a lessonplan. The volunteers would then implement the lesson plan duringclassroom sessions under teacher supervision. A feedback formwas created which the teachers completed at the end of everysession. This assessment became the basis of the project's qualityimprovement efforts. Once a month, the Committee would meet,review the feedback, and discuss methods to improve subsequentlesson plans. During the first year the sessions comprised of twoadults who read the story and lead the classroom discussion. Duringthe second year we abandoned this format for active learningmethods and the focus shifted to dividing the class into smallergroups where students can all voice their opinions. The adult rolewas changed to participant rather than discussion leader and thenumber of adults per session increased to at times as many as eight.The result was a much more interactive session which is describedin Chapter 2. Through a process of trial and error we formalized aprocess that became the basis of our operations. This process issummarized below and forms the basis of this manual.

1) Create age-appropriate philosophical questions:

The task of analyzing the story for its philosophical contentnaturally falls to the professors. The professors read the books andidentify the philosophical questions. The members of the committeethen transform the questions into age-appropriate syntax and findits relevant application to the student's lives.

Take the question "can we trust our senses to perceive trueknowledge?" This question is too abstract for young children (andin fact most adults!). The question needs to be transformed intoa sentence such as "why do we make mistakes?" The latter maynot be the exact same philosophical question but addresses thesame philosophical subject, namely epistemology (the study ofknowledge).

Another example is the transformation of "What is happiness?",which is too abstract for most children, to the more graspable "Whatmakes you happy all the time?" The idea is that an activity likeeating ice cream only makes you happy while you're doing it, whilea concept like self-satisfaction or family affection creates happinessthat is present all the time (and theoretically closer to the abstractconcept of `happiness').

A significant portion of the committee meeting time is spentdiscussing the phrasing of questions. Many of our proposedsentences failed to engage the children, so we modified them untilwe found a version that resonated with the students. In Chapter3, Professor Brown will overview philosophical questions derivedfrom children's stories. In Chapter 4, Dr. Bassiri and ProfessorVaidya provide tips on how to steer everyday conversation to moreabstract levels.

2) Prepare the class for philosophical discussion

Sessions are more productive if students have read the storiesbeforehand. The more exposure children have to the story the easierthey can delve into deeper abstract issues. It is also imperative thatchildren have their own copy of the book to follow along. This mayincur a significant cost but the benefits are well worth it and thebooks can be used the following year. Midway through the projectteachers began to read the story to class beforehand and thissignificantly improved discussion quality and student attention.

Teachers are also the most appropriate persons to reiteratethe rules of conversation. Such rules include active listening,not interrupting, raising one's hand when wanting to speak, andlooking at the person you're talking to. In Chapter 5 teacher...