Big Ideas for Little Kids includes everything a teacher, a parent, or a college student needs to teach philosophy to elementary school children from picture books. Written in a clear and accessible style, the book explains why it is important to allow young children access to philosophy during primary-school education. Wartenberg also gives advice on how to construct a "learner-centered" classroom, in which children discuss philosophical issues with one another as they respond to open-ended questions by saying whether they agree or disagree with what others have said.
This book allows philosophers, literary theorists, and education specialists to come together to offer a series of readings on works of children's literature. Each of their readings is focused on pairing a particular, popular picture book or a chapter book with philosophical texts or themes. The book has three sections--the first, on picturebooks; the second, on chapter books; and the third, on two sets of paired readings of two very popular picturebooks. By means of its three sections, the book sets forth as its goal to show how philosophy can be helpful in reappraising books aimed at children from early childhood on. Particularly in the third section, the book emphasizes how philosophy can help to multiply the type of interpretative stances that are possible when readers listen again to what they thought they knew so well. The kinds of questions this book raises are the following: How are children's books already anticipating or articulating philosophical problems and discussions? How does children's literature work by means of philosophical puzzles or language games? What do children's books reveal about the existential situation the child reader faces? In posing and answering these kinds of questions, the readings within the book thus intersect with recent, developing scholarship in children's literature studies as well as in the psychology and philosophy of childhood.
The Posthuman Child combats institutionalised ageist practices in primary, early childhood and teacher education. Grounded in a critical posthumanist perspective on the purpose of education, it provides a genealogy of psychology, sociology and philosophy of childhood in which dominant figurations of child and childhood are exposed as positioning child as epistemically and ontologically inferior. Entangled throughout this book are practical and theorised examples of philosophical work with student teachers, teachers, other practitioners and children (aged 3-11) from South Africa and Britain. These engage arguments about how children are routinely marginalised, discriminated against and denied, especially when the child is also female, black, lives in poverty and whose home language is not English. The book makes a distinctive contribution to the decolonisation of childhood discourses. Underpinned by good quality picturebooks and other striking images, the book's radical proposal for transformation is to reconfigure the child as rich, resourceful and resilient through relationships with (non) human others, and explores the implications for literary and literacy education, teacher education, curriculum construction, implementation and assessment. It is essential reading for all who research, work and live with children.
Contemporary picturebooks open up spaces for philosophical dialogues and offer unique opportunities to explore ideas and to create meaning collaboratively. Through a lively exploration of children's responses to picturebooks, the authors paint a way of working philosophically based on respectful listening and creative and authentic interactions, rather than scripted lessons.
A new, interactive approach to storytime, The Whole Book Approach was developed in conjunction with the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and expert author Megan Dowd Lambert's graduate work in children's literature at Simmons College, offering a practical guide for reshaping storytime and getting kids to think with their eyes. Traditional storytime often offers a passive experience for kids, but the Whole Book approach asks the youngest of readers to ponder all aspects of a picture book and to use their critical thinking skills. Using classic examples, Megan asks kids to think about why the trim size of Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline is so generous, or why the typeset in David Wiesner's Caldecott winner,The Three Pigs, appears to twist around the page, or why books like Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express and Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar are printed landscape instead of portrait. The dynamic discussions that result from this shared reading style range from the profound to the hilarious and will inspire adults to make children's responses to text, art, and design an essential part of storytime.
Teaching Off Trail describes the transformation of Peter Dargatz, a national board-certified teacher, and public school coordinator, from an anxious assessor to a fair and fun facilitator of learning. It shares his personal professional journey detailing his evolution as an educator while simultaneously offering strategies for readers to implement Peter's unique teaching philosophy to increase opportunities for play, creative expression, and personalization in both the indoor and outdoor classroom. In his own classroom, Peter brought learning outside by creating a nature kindergarten program that emphasizes community partnerships, service learning, and meaningful and memorable experiences in the outdoors. Teaching Off Trail aims to inspire educators, administrators, and parents across all levels to turn their outrage for today’s educational system into outreach that promotes passionate and purposeful problem-solving. He incorporates techniques often seen in private educational settings like Reggio and Montessori—student-centered, self-directed experiential approaches to learning) and shows how they work within a public school system.
This is a textbook for teachers that demonstrates how philosophical thinking can be used in teaching children. It begins with the assumption that what is taught in schools is not (and should not be) subject matter but rather ways of thinking. The main point is that the classroom should be converted into a community of inquiry, and that one can begin doing that with children. Based on the curriculum that Matt Lipman has developed at the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children, which he heads, this book describes the curriculum and explains its use. The text is self-contained, however. This revision is thorough-going and incorporates new chapters, as well as new material in old chapters. Part One focuses on the need of educational change and the importance of philosophical inquiry in developing new approaches. Part Two discusses curriculum and teaching methodology, including teacher behavior conducive to helping children. Part Three deals with developing logic skills and moral judgment. It concludes with a chapter on the sorts of philosophical themes pertinent to ethical inquiry for children: the right and the fair, perfect and right, free will and determinism, change and growth, truth, caring, standards and rules, thinking and thinking for oneself. Education, in this sense, is not a matter of dispensing information; it is the process of assisting in the growth of the whole individual.
Imagine a one-stop shop stacked to the rafters with everything you could ever want to tap into young people's natural curiosity and get them thinking deeply. Well, this is it! Edited by professional philosopher Peter Worley from The Philosophy Shop and with a foreword by Ian Gilbert, this book is jam-packed with ideas, stimuli, thought experiments, activities, short stories, pictures and questions to get young people thinking philosophically. Primarily aimed at teachers to use as a stimuli for philosophical enquiries in the classroom or even as starter activities to get them thinking from the off, it can also be used by parents for some great family thinking or indeed anyone fed up of being told what to think (or urged not to think) and who wants a real neurological workout. The proceeds of the book are going towards The Philosophy Foundation charity.
Can you be brave if you’re afraid? Why do we “know better” and do things anyway? What makes a family? Philosophers have wrestled with such questions for centuries. They are also the stuff of playground debates. Ethics for the Very Young uses the perplexities of young children’s lives to spark philosophical dialogue. Its lessons scaffold discussion through executive function games (Telephone, Red Light Green Light), dialogic reading of picture books and Reggio Emilia’s art-based inquiry. In the process, children develop skills of dialogue and critical thinking through increased selective attention, self-control, cognitive flexibility and perspective taking. While the elements of this method are familiar, they are here fused into an organic whole grounded in the history of philosophy and defended by current work in developmental psychology. Building on Wartenberg’s Big Ideas for Little Kids, the present curriculum uses a series of 23 picture books to frame discussions of character, bravery, self-control, friendship, the greater good, respect and care. Its goal is not to “teach morals” but to help children articulate and develop their own perspectives through dialogue with each other. Each lesson presents teachers’ reflections on how this exploration of life's enduring questions transformed their school’s culture.
The Fox is after Rosie, but Rosie doesn't know it. Unwittingly, she leads him into one disaster after the other, each funnier than the last. To enjoy Rosie's walk as much as Rosie does, just look inside!
