Thinking Allowed

Thinking Allowed: Philosophy for children at Gallions Primary School (DVD, Gallions School, London 2007)

Philosophy or 'thinking skills' as it is otherwise known is becoming more important to schools. The movement of doing philosophy -- or practicing thinking skills -- with children was started by Matthew Lipman in the 1970s in the United States and became known as P4C, philosophy for children. Lipman has written extensively in the area over the space of a lifetime. One key theoretical text is Thinking in Education (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991; 2nd edition, 2003). Lipman, based at Montclair State College in New Jersey developed the 'community of inquiry' idea as the way of doing philosophy, or practicing thinking skills.

Lipman followed the American tradition, particularly John Dewey (1859-1952) which has a strong pragmatic rather than speculative or history-of-ideas character, saw philosophy as doing something and doing something for society. What the community of inquiry does is to foster critical and creative thinking. This means, thinking that is self-reflexive, in other words, thinking that has a sense of its criteria, that is sensitive to the opinions of others and their right to differ, and that is creative in the sense of not fixed, but self-correcting. This is the kind of thinking required in a democracy. Critical and creative thinking is good democratic thinking.

Why is this approach more and more pertinent to contemporary education? The reasoning goes as follows. With the rationalisation of education we have tied learning to outcomes, and mapped the curriculum to these outcomes. In assessing whether the outcomes have been met we have developed marking criteria. At the upper end of these marking criteria, across the curriculum, developed learning is judged to be that which is analytical. At the lower end of the marking criteria is learning which is descriptive. The difference here is between a student that can remember and describe information they have been given in lessons, and a student that can pick that information up and do something with it; analyse, assess, evaluate, appreciate, in a word, show they understand it.

Modern technological democracies need the latter kind of person who can do something with what they have been given, which is responsible, reflective and relevant.

The world is awash with information, but do we have the young people coming through that know what to do with it? It is one thing to know how to access information, it is another to be able to judge whether the information is worth accessing. The one is a passive mind, the other an active judgement. It is the latter modern technological democracies need.

But can we expect such 'higher order' skills of our young people? In the democratic spirit, the answer is a resounding yes. Being a philosopher is for everyone. When should you start? The earlier the better. Lipman started working at the younger end with primary school children and then extended his work into secondary schools.

The DVD under review here is entitled 'Thinking Allowed'. There is a pun on aloud, but the title is nevertheless provocative. Are we getting our school children thinking out loud among themselves in an engaged and intelligent manner, or do we shut their thinking in on them and deluge them with information. Are they allowed to think? Do our educational planners, our school leaders even really know what thinking is? There are political questions here. Thinking is dangerous, as Plato recognised, because once people begin to think for themselves things can start to change in unplanned ways.

Gallions Primary school is in East London. It is multi-cultural, in fact primarily non-Anglo. I'm just guessing, but I don't imagine the parents of these children are London's middle class. They are mainly (I'm guessing) kids of migrant parents trying to make a way in the new society. This is important because it shows the democratic importance, strength and potential of embedding philosophy into school. There are two ways of doing it. One is having philosophy as an add-on to an already packed curriculum or under the gifted and talented budget, the other is to embed it right through the school as the way to process what is being taught. By 'process' I mean the students really working with the materials they get given in lessons and playing with it. Gallions Primary has followed the second, more adventurous route.

Thinking Allowed mainly shows footage of the community of inquiry, showing how it works, how students process work, how they work together and how the teacher operates as a facilitator. The DVD manages to show the developmental aspect of this, by which I mean how, over time, the community of inquiry develops like a team that knows how to work together. Also the DVD gives us at least a glimpse of how embedding community of inquiry style learning through the school changes the school culture in ways that have huge positive impact over time.

Thinking Allowed is most useful for those who are thinking of venturing down the path of philosophy in school and want to see what it looks like; it is less useful for those already thoroughly versed in the ways of community of inquiry.

On the point about embedding school-wide philosophy or critical and creative thinking skills, it is true that the culture of the school will improve, enrolments will improve, and the outputs will improve (i.e. student's achievements). Of course there is a circular relationship between these, once one improves, that has influence on the others.

The story of Buranda State High, a primary school in downtown Brisbane is often cited in this part of the world. Burunda had failing enrolments on the back of its poor reputation and performance and was going to be closed down. A new Principal took the school on and said she would turn it around. She introduced philosophy in school across the classes. She sent teachers off for philosophy in schools training. The school completely turned around and begun to compete as one of the best primary schools in the state, both for its learning culture and the quality of students it produced. The measure of success, surely the result of philosophy in school, was the minister of education in Queensland picking Buranda as school of choice for his child.

In the DVD of Gallions, similar improvement in culture is mentioned. They cite the complete drop in incidents at play-time, with students being able to sort through their problems by talking about them. This is spontaneous and not set up by or monitored by teachers on duty. It is simply a marked improvement in the school's culture that is a benefit, they believe, of introducing philosophy in school to all classes and developing a thoughtful culture out of that base.

I will not go into how the community of inquiry works, for children or from the point of view of the facilitator, who is the teacher; and it is facilitating, not teaching, which is big shift for some staff. You can see all this if you obtain the DVD.

I thoroughly recommend this DVD to anyone whose interest has been aroused by this review. As a practitioner of philosophy in schools here in Australia I know the information is accurate. It is also well presented. The DVD is realistic and down-to-earth, showing that philosophy in school is not something for elite schools but for all schools that truly value learning.

More information on Philosophy in School in UK can be obtained from the leading organisation SAPERE (Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education) http://www.sapere.net.