Philosophy for Children
I was busy last week with a Philosothon competition. “What’s that?” you cry. The official answer is:
A philosothon is a friendly competition in which students work together to reach a set of philosophically satisfying ideas. Students score points by making high quality contributions to the discussion and also by helping others to contribute. Those who advance the thinking of the group will score well. The aim is not to point score off each other but to work creatively with ideas as a group.
In other words, if debating is like all-in wrestling, then philosothons are more like croquet.
The students really enjoyed the evening, partly because the texts they looked at were intellectually challenging, and partly because they got to discuss them without being directed by a teacher. That’s not to say that teachers are unimportant but there is definitely some merit in allowing students to explore ideas first before teachers dive in later.
What also works well is that students work in mixed age groups of ten students from Years 9 through to 13, which means that 14-year olds are expected to (and do) hold their own in discussions with 18-year olds.
But what do they actually talk about? Here’s an example:
The Disappearance of Rituals: a Topology of the Present – Byung-Chul Han
For Hannah Arendt it is the durability of things that gives them their ‘relative independence from men’. They ‘have the function of stabilizing human life’. Their ‘objectivity lies in the fact that . . . men, their ever-changing nature notwithstanding, can retrieve their sameness, that is, their identity, by being related to the same chair and the same table’. In life, things serve as stabilizing resting points. Rituals serve the same purpose. Through their self-sameness, their repetitiveness, they stabilize life. They make life last. The contemporary compulsion to produce robs things of their endurance: it intentionally erodes duration in order to increase production, to force more consumption. Lingering, however, presupposes things that endure. If things are merely used up and consumed, there can be no lingering. And the same compulsion of production destabilizes life by undermining what is enduring in life. Thus, despite the fact that life expectancy is increasing, production is destroying life’s endurance.
A smartphone is not a ‘thing’ in Arendt’s sense. It lacks the very self-sameness that stabilizes life. It is also not a particularly enduring object. It differs from a thing like a table, which confronts me in its self-sameness. The content displayed on a smartphone, which demands our constant attention, is anything but self-same; the quick succession of bits of content displayed on a smartphone makes any lingering impossible. The restlessness inherent in the apparatus makes it a non-thing. The way in which people reach for their smartphones is also compulsive. But things should not compel us in this way.
Questions for discussion
1. What is a ritual?
2. What is the point of a ritual?
3. Are things which endure more valuable than things which don’t?
4. Is Byung-Chul Han right to argue that “if things are merely used up and consumed, there can be no lingering. And the same compulsion of production destabilizes life by undermining what is enduring in life”?
5. Is lingering over something (or someone) a sign of its (or their) value?
6. Is a smartphone a thing? Or does the “restlessness inherent in the apparatus” make it “a non-thing”?
7. Do phones demand our constant attention or do they constantly demand our attention? Does the difference matter?
8. Are smartphones any different from small children in their demands for constant attention?
9. Are you compelled by your smartphone? If so, are you free?
10. Is the value of rituals that they can help you to become free?
Students can use as many or as few of the questions as they like and it’s interesting to hear which ones they home in on and which ones they ignore.
Here’s another example:
Some Thoughts Concerning Education – John Locke
Section I. A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this world. He that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be but little the better for any thing else. Men's happiness or misery is most part of their own making. He, whose mind directs not wisely, will never take the right way; and he, whose body is crazy and feeble, will never be able to advance in it. I confess, there are some men's constitutions of body and mind so vigorous, and well fram'd by nature, that they need not much assistance from others; but by the strength of their natural genius, they are from their cradles carried towards what is excellent; and by the privilege of their happy constitutions, are able to do wonders. But examples of this kind are but few; and I think I may say, that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education. 'Tis that which makes the great difference in mankind. The little, or almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies, have very important and lasting consequences: and there 'tis, as in the fountains of some rivers, where a gentle application of the hand turns the flexible waters in channels, that make them take quite contrary courses; and by this direction given them at first in the source, they receive different tendencies, and arrive at last at very remote and distant places.
Section 3. How necessary health is to our business and happiness; and how requisite a strong constitution, able to endure hardships and fatigue, is to one that will make any figure in the world, is too obvious to need any proof.
Section 7. I will also advise his feet to be wash'd every day in cold water, and to have his shoes so thin, that they might leak and let in water, whenever he comes near it. Here, I fear I shall have the mistress and maids too against me. One will think it too filthy, and the other perhaps too much pains, to make clean his stockings. But yet truth will have it, that his health is much more worth than all such considerations, and ten times as much more. And he that considers how mischievous and mortal a thing taking wet in the feet is, to those who have been bred nicely, will wish he had, with the poor people's children, gone bare-foot, who, by that means, come to be so reconcil'd by custom to wet in their feet, that they take no more cold or harm by it, than if they were wet in their hands. And what is it, I pray, that makes this great difference between the hands and the feet in others, but only custom? I doubt not, but if a man from his cradle had been always us'd to go bare-foot, whilst his hands were constantly wrapt up in warm mittins, and cover'd with hand-shoes, as the Dutch call gloves; I doubt not, I say, but such a custom would make taking wet in his hands as dangerous to him, as now taking wet in their feet is to great many others. The way to prevent this, is, to have his shoes made so as to leak water, and his feet wash'd constantly every day in cold water.
Questions for discussion
1. Are we truly happy if we have a sound mind in a sound body?
2. Should it be the aim of education to ensure that children have a sound mind in a sound body?
3. Should our education be equally divided between physical and academic activities?
4. Should children’s shoes be made to leak water (and should children have their feet washed in cold water everyday) to ensure they have a sound body?
5. Is there any difference between wet hands and wet feet?
6. John Locke wrote: “I shall not need here to mention swimming, when he is of an age able to learn, and has any one to teach him. 'Tis that saves many a man's life; and the Romans thought it so necessary, that they rank'd it with letters; and it was the common phrase to mark one ill-educated, and good for nothing, that he had neither learnt to read nor to swim.” Was Locke (and were the Romans) right?
7. Is there any difference between swimming lessons and leaky shoes?
8. John Locke also argued that “another thing that is of great advantage to every one's health, but especially children's, is to be much in the open air”. Was he right? Should every school promote outdoor education?
9. Should we be holding this Philosothon outside?
10. Descartes famously argued that “I think, therefore I am.” If that is true, do our bodies matter?
I’m going to resist the temptation to give my thoughts about the two passages or to answer any of the questions, but I’d be interested to know what anyone else thinks. Happy reading: happy thinking!