Philosophy for Kids—Part 1 (1/17/15)

OK, so here goes yet another blog posting on philosophy. I've written several times about my struggles to grasp the philosophical opuses that deep thinkers have created over the centuries. I find their ways of thinking rather foreign to my mind, which was trained in the sciences. I keep plugging at it, however, because I sense that there is significant value in pondering the “fundamental nature of knowledge,” as my dictionary defines philosophy.

I recently read a couple of articles that added a new dimension to the study of philosophy. According to these articles, there are several elementary school teachers in the US and UK who are bringing philosophy to their young students. What!? Are they trying to cram the esoteric teachings of Kant, Wittgenstein, Aristotle, and Nietzsche into the naive noggins of these youngsters? Why that seems to be a worse form of torture than forcing kids to endure those incessant standardized tests!

No, that's not the approach these teachers are taking. They are not trying to get their kids to grasp ancient philosophers' esoteric arguments or ponder obscure subjects such as how many angels could be stuffed on the head of a pin.

What these teachers realize is that philosophy is all about ruminating on the true nature of things—or what our brains take to be truth—and that it's a natural thing for kids to do. Kids are inherently curious. When encouraged to, they have all manner of questions they come up with; questions that probe the very depths of existence. Kids wonder about everything; indeed, these teachers realize that their students are natural philosophers.

The teachers have discovered that, when given the opportunity to do so, kids love to discuss and share their thoughts on open-ended questions. Questions such as: What's the most treasured object in the world? Who should have power? Can you be a good person if you've done bad things? Is the Earth a coincidence? If our deep ancestors could not speak, how did we learn language? Since you can have dreams inside of dreams, how do you know when you're dreaming?

Additionally, kids enjoy kicking around open-ended, fuzzy topics such as environmental ethics, interspecies communication, the existence of free will, the limits of knowledge, and even artificial intelligence.

More on child philosophy next time...