SAPERE Handbook

to accompany the
Level 1 P4C
Foundation Course

6th Edition
SAPERE
Level 1 Handbook
Contents
5
Introduction
5
About SAPERE
6
P4C origins and P4C principles

7 A. Communities of Enquiry
7 The aims and processes of a Community of Enquiry
9 The 4C thinking model
10 Introducing children to philosophical enquiry
12 The 10 step model of enquiry
18 Guidelines for setting up a Community of Enquiry
19 Starting strategies
21 Table of skills and dispositions

22 B. Questions and Concepts (Developing the Philosophical)

22 Philosophical questioning
26 Questioning activities
28 Thinking with concepts

33 C. Developing Facilitation
33 The role of the facilitator
34 Key elements of thinking and facilitation
36 Further ideas for facilitating and building a Community of Enquiry
41 Philosophical Teaching – a pedagogy for all teachers in the 21st century

44 D. The Planning/Review Cycle

44 Choosing stimuli
45 Reviewing
48 Planning
48 Systematic practice

© SAPERE [Link]
Appendices
49 Appendix 1. Sample Resources

49 The Professor and the Ferryman by Robert Fisher

52 Extract from Elfie by Matthew Lipman
56 Extract from Lisa by Matthew Lipman

60 Appendix 2. Further Resources

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / INTRODUCTION 5

Introduction

Welcome to the sixth edition of the SAPERE Level 1 course handbook.

Here you will find tools, models, stories, samples and signposts that will help you get started and sustain
your early practice in P4C. In it, SAPERE trainers and facilitators also share their reflections on practice
and give advice based on reflective experiences that have built up within the collaborative SAPERE
community over more than 25 years.

We hope you will find this a useful, thought-provoking and enjoyable resource with which to start your
journey as a P4C facilitator.

The SAPERE team

About SAPERE
SAPERE is the Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education.
Founded in 1992, and registered as a charity in 1993, it supports and brings together a network of people
and organisations practising and promoting philosophical enquiry in communities of enquiry — P4C.

In P4C, learning takes place within communities of enquiry. Philosophical thinking and dialogue is
stimulated by philosophical questions and exercises that are meaningfully related to experience. The
process is facilitated by teachers trained to enable deep learning that is meaningful and brings out
the philosophical dimension. SAPERE’s model of P4C encourages participants in dialogue to share
responsibility for provoking thinking — by generating their own challenging philosophical questions,
by co-facilitating dialogue, and by reviewing and improving their own practice. SAPERE uses a 10 step
enquiry model and a 4C thinking model to structure genuinely practical philosophical learning.

SAPERE supports participants, teachers and organisations to develop philosophical thinking, dispositions,
practices and cultures. Our growing network now extends beyond schools to a range of educational
settings, including partnerships with teacher training institutions and universities.

Whatever your setting, this handbook will support you in developing your early practice. It will help
you become skilled in the techniques of P4C, knowledgeable about the models we use, and help you
plan P4C sessions. Moreover, this handbook aims to help you to become a more philosophical educator
yourself.

To find out more, visit our website at [Link] which has lots of information about SAPERE’s
mission, training, resources, projects and research. And while you’re there, do consider becoming a
SAPERE member and supporter.

Copyright © July 2019 by SAPERE. All Rights Reserved.

“For I spend all my time going about trying to persuade you, young
and old, to make your first and chief concern not for your bodies nor
for your possessions, but for the highest welfare of your souls”
Socrates, c.469 BC–399 BC

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6 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / INTRODUCTION

P4C origins
Philosophy for Children started in the USA in the late 1960s. P4C is the commonly-used abbreviation for Philosophy
for Children worldwide. It is also used in the UK to stand for Philosophy for Children, Colleges and Communities —
indicating that practical philosophical enquiry is not only for children.

Most attention in the early days of P4C focused on its efficacy as a thinking skills intervention. Tests showed
dramatic improvements in children’s reasoning and comprehension. It has since become clear, however, that the
approach also has positive effects on children’s social and emotional, as well as intellectual, development.

P4C began as the ‘trademark’ of a curriculum for 6- to 16-year-olds, developed by Professor Matthew Lipman and
his associates at the IAPC (Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children) at Montclair State University in
New Jersey. Lipman’s project, conceived at Columbia University in the late 1960s in the wake of student unrest, was
to encourage young people (citizens) to be more reasonable — that is, ready to reason and be reasoned with. Like
the Ancient Greek philosophers, Lipman saw this as the path to the ultimate goal of education: ‘practical wisdom’,
or good judgement.

Lipman emphasised the importance of questioning or enquiry in the development of reasoning. He also
appreciated, from Lev Vygotsky, the Russian psychologist, that we learn to think much as we learn to speak —
by internalising the patterns of speech and thought that we hear around us.

Putting these educational insights together, Lipman developed a new model of learning — ‘Communities of Inquiry’
— in which teacher and children collaborate with each other to grow in understanding, not only of the material
world, but also of the personal and ethical world around them.

The phrase ‘Community of Inquiry’ was actually coined by American philosopher Charles Peirce (1839–1914) to
describe a community of scientists. Lipman gave the phrase new meaning and life by pointing it in the direction of
philosophical enquiry. He was also influenced in his interpretation and implementation of the idea by John Dewey,
his predecessor at Columbia, famous for such books as How We Think (1910) and Democracy and Education (1916).

For Dewey (1859–1952), ‘an education that emphasises community, communication, intelligent enquiry, and a
reconstructive attitude can best serve the citizens of an ever-changing world.’
(Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Education, 2003)

P4C principles
Developing a Community of Enquiry requires more than just concentrating on better questioning. It is equally
important to develop reasoning and reflection, both public and private, and these bring into play, among other
things, emotions and the thoughtful expression of emotions. In short, the process is multifaceted and profoundly
personal. It presents not only an intellectual challenge to those involved, but also a social and emotional one. It
encourages open-mindedness and creates conditions for change, both for individuals and for communities.

The principles include:

• Proper valuing of each person’s interests and questions

• Acknowledgement that each person’s experience or story is unique

• Proper valuing of knowledge, along with the recognition that no-one is all-knowing or all-wise

• Appreciation of different ways of interpreting and thinking

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry 7

A. Communities of Enquiry

The aims and processes of

a Community of Enquiry
As indicated in the introduction, the idea of ‘community of inquiry’ goes back some way and Lipman, through
applying it to philosophical enquiry, noted that ‘communities of inquiry’ can — and even should — exist in every
subject/discipline.

This is not only because all subjects/disciplines aim to give general accounts of ‘how the world works’. It is also
because all of them are based on similar principles and follow similar processes — ­ valuing clarity and precision of
exposition, for example, and accuracy of reporting and reasoning.

Nor should that be surprising, since they can all be derived from the same spirit and practice of enquiry in the
academies and schools that started in Ancient Greece.

The community of scientists that became more self-conscious in the 19th century may have given more formality
to those principles and processes — but they had been integral to philosophical enquiry since its earliest practice.

A working definition of a Community of Enquiry:

A group of people used to thinking together with a view to increasing their understanding and appreciation of
the world around them and of each other.

What was not so integral to that practice was the participation of children. Many (but certainly not all) philosophers
actually argued that children were too inexperienced or unsophisticated to ‘do’ philosophy.

However, Lipman’s faith in the capacity of children to participate constructively in philosophical enquiry has been
vindicated. Not only has P4C been taken up with enthusiasm in more than 60 countries, most often starting from
a university base, but children have continually surprised their elders with their reflections on some of the most
important and contested questions of life.

Of course, developing a Community of Enquiry in which children feel safe to share their experiences and
experiment with ideas requires more than just a focus on better questioning. There needs to be an equal emphasis
on the social virtues that go towards building a community.

This point, along with further details about the principles and processes of enquiry, is made by Professor Ann
Margaret Sharp, Lipman’s principal colleague, in the extract overleaf.

“We can see how this practice can shape and influence the way
we work with young people within our creative projects.”
Theatre in Education practitioner

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8 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry

Extracts from The Ethics of Translation by Ann Margaret Sharp, Lipman’s associate
Philosophy for Children aims not only to strengthen good reasoning, inquiry and concept-formation but to
cultivate an intellectual and social virtue, to bring about the transformation of persons into more reasonable
individuals committed to the creation of a reasonable world. Another way of saying this is to say that
Philosophy for Children aims at the cultivation of wisdom.

Because it is assumed that every participant is a potential source of insight, it is vital that each member of the
community make an effort to solicit and understand the views of all the other members.

When one engages in dialogue with others, one has to:

• rehearse what others have said

• assess the relevance and significance of one’s remarks

• recognise other perspectives

• explore previously unknown possibilities in the quest for understanding of oneself and the world

Persons skilled in translation are people who understand that collaborative philosophical inquiry necessitates an
atmosphere of trust in which each person feels valued and respected. This trust manifests itself in participants
sharing — sharing their ideas, their doubts, their feelings, their hopes and their ignorance.

Such persons feel that when they do choose to share their thoughts in the group, they will be listened to and taken
seriously. To be taken seriously does not manifest itself in blanket acceptance of each and every opinion that we
voice. Rather it calls for a response of intellectual integrity.

The following are ways in which individuals can take the ideas of others seriously:

• asking for reasons

• pointing out consequences

• clarifying implications or assumptions

• offering an alternative point of view

And the following are all crucial moves of good inquiry:

• careful and sensitive posing of examples and counter-examples

• asking for criteria

• being critical of one’s own ideas as well as those of others

• allowing for silence in the group

*****

Sharp’s list of skills needed for enquiry and reflection/dialogue of this order is not exhaustive: participants will be
introduced to others during the course. But it is already challenging enough, and it may take some time before
a group can move from being a ‘circle time group’ to a ‘discussion group’ and then on to being a ‘Community of
Enquiry’. Signs of progress, however, should be clear after half a dozen sessions, and the framework on p.13 should be
helpful for overall planning and evaluating the children’s — and facilitator’s — journey. There is more on evaluation in
the course and later in this handbook, but before that, some words on the 4Cs of P4C.

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry 9

The 4C thinking model

This section identifies four aspects of P4C that certainly enhance its philosophical nature, but in effect are aspects of
thinking that one might look for in any Community of Enquiry. They are:

Caring thinking
Collaborative thinking
Critical thinking
Creative thinking
The presence or absence of thinking may be evident when looking at actions ‘from the outside’, but the thinking itself
is an invisible process — albeit one with which each of us is intimately familiar. This invisibility makes thinking much
more difficult to analyse, and then to assess, than a physical process (say, how an engine works).

Caring thinking, for example, might typically be recognised when one person speaks appreciatively of another. But
such words might be insincere, or a learned social response, and may not, after all, express real care for the other or
their thoughts and feelings.

Put another way, when such aspects of thinking are recognised as authentic, they are deemed to be expressing
attitudes or dispositions that lie below the surface, or ‘come from the heart’.

What a Community of Enquiry is deliberately trying to cultivate is not merely polite forms of thought and
communication, helpful though those may be, but genuine attempts to care and collaborate, to critique and create.
Ideally, these aspects of thinking complement each other in an holistic way, but for the purposes of planning practice
and progression, the following analysis may be helpful.

• Caring = listening (concentrating) and valuing (appreciating)

e.g. showing interest in, and sensitivity to, others’ experiences and values

• Collaborative = responding (communicating) and supporting (conciliating)

e.g. building on each other’s ideas, shaping common understandings and purposes

• Critical = questioning (interrogating) and reasoning (evaluating)

e.g. seeking meaning, evidence, reasons, distinctions, and good judgements

• Creative = connecting (relating) and suggesting (speculating)

e.g. providing comparisons, examples, criteria, alternative explanations or conceptions

Because these modes of thinking do complement each other, the facilitator of an enquiry should be aiming to keep
them in balance. If an enquiry seems to be over-critical, for example, a facilitator might suggest the need for more
creative or caring thinking. If it seems to be becoming too diffuse, with too many new ideas to hold together, it
would be appropriate to remind everyone of the need for more collaborative and critical thinking.

But it is not for the facilitator alone to be aware of these general directions and specific foci. The review session after
an enquiry should be used to reflect upon any or all of the 4Cs, and indeed can result in the community agreeing to
make a particular aspect of them, such as checking out evidence, a focus for the next enquiry. For more thoughts on
this, see the section on The Planning/Review Cycle (pp.44–59).

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10 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry

Introducing children to philosophical

enquiry
Before the first philosophical enquiry session with the class or group, the teacher/facilitator will need to prepare the
session that introduces the class to P4C. The following guidance is intended to assist teachers in this task.

Initial explanation — younger children

For younger children, philosophical enquiry can be explained as a way of thinking together and sharing thoughts
and questions about ‘Big Ideas’. For example:

‘It allows other people to see what you think and if they want to, lets them to build on those ideas. Also, they share
their thoughts, and you can add to their ideas.’

‘It is important to think your own thoughts so you don’t have to think exactly the same as other people, even if they
are your close friends.’

‘In philosophy everyone has to try to give a reason for what they think, so the word ‘because’ is very important.’

‘Sometimes people say such good things that other people change their minds because of what they have heard.
We call this “learning from each other”.’

Initial explanation — older children and students

For older children and students, the explanation would be more detailed.

The process of philosophical enquiry involves all students in considering and then questioning the concepts or
‘Big Ideas’ they identify from reading, looking at or listening to the stimulus or starting materials. These questions
are then shared, thought about carefully and explained more before the students select one that they find most
interesting to discuss further.

This discussion is linked, so that opinions and ideas build on each other and relate to each other.

Some ideas don’t link and sometimes they are different from all the others, but our work is to make sure we listen
carefully to all ideas, so we can decide on which ones we think are the strongest.

Philosophical enquiry offers children a thinking place where their opinion matters and they can make meaning
through talking to each other, and find strong reasons to support their opinions.

Creating a collaborative learning environment

When first working with children using philosophical enquiry, the collaborative learning environment encourages
the thinking and the talking to become the focus of the learning. The children and the facilitator learn to focus
differently: away from the teacher as the centre of the learning, towards sharing questions and ideas. Students
become co-enquirers: more collaborative, less competitive learners, who make meaning together through enquiry.

Early Years Foundation Stage — pre-philosophical skills, language

and disposition development
Enquiry sessions at Early Years do not usually follow the standard pattern used with older children, for obvious
reasons. The children work for short periods of time, initially at least, on learning and developing the skills, language
and dispositions necessary to support more formal enquiries.

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry 11

These skills might involve:

Speaking and listening
Observation and memory
Turn-taking and patience
Respecting others
Making connections or distinctions
Making choices
Offering reasons
Categorising
Asking open questions
In an activity where children make links between pictures, and say why they connected them, the facilitator would
model and encourage the use of the words link, connection, choice, reason, why, because, as well as perhaps,
agree and wonder, and the words used as reasons to connect them which might range from colours to textures,
styles and content, to teach the vocabulary necessary for enquiry.

The following activities would be appropriate for short 5 to 8 minute sessions with groups of 5 to 8 children:

Choices and Reasons

• Using a collection of items (e.g. pictures, toys, buttons, flowers, cars, or a mix of items) —
which do you like best and why?

• Using stories they have heard during the week — which characters would you most
like to be? What would you then be able to do?

• Using colours or shapes — which is your favourite and why? If you could choose,
what would you make that colour (clothes, room, toys, the sky, grass, streets, etc.)
or that shape? (the moon, a flower, a car, a tree, a mobile phone, a book, a climbing frame).

• Using You Choose by Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart (Corgi), select one page
and ask the children to choose what they like best or who they would most like to
look like, and give a reason why.

You will notice that the facilitator is posing the questions at this early stage and the children are exploring the skills
of choosing and finding reasons. These may need to be carefully scaffolded, with the facilitator offering a range of
possibilities for the child to choose from if they can’t think of a reason themselves. The language clarification and
repetition by the facilitator is a key element of the session, as with so much work at this stage.

Over a period of time, as the children become confident in talking to each other, they will begin to emulate the
questions, language and interventions used by the facilitator. Each of the activities suggested above may become
part of a series of sessions designed to support the focus skill, which is practised in other areas of the free flow
or group sessions during the following few weeks, so that there is an integration of specific skill building into the
general curriculum. Alongside these skill builder sessions, story-time can be structured to encourage children to
ask ‘wondering questions’, which can form the starting point for enquiry.

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12 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry

The 10 step model of enquiry

This page sets out a sequence of 10 steps that are modelled in the Level 1 course and can serve as a basic structure
for enquiries. There are three important caveats, though: 1) you might split the steps over two sessions, allowing
time for reflection on the chosen question in the interval 2) time spent on each step can be varied. In Early Years,
or early days, you might spend 20 minutes just developing skills or you can occasionally omit a step 3) the sooner
this sequence of enquiry can evolve into a ‘spiral’ of enquiry, the better. The core elements of these steps can be
summarised as Ready (Creating Ideas), Set (Creating Questions), Go (Creating Dialogue).

1 Preparation 6 Question-Choosing
This is about getting the group into P4C ‘mood/ One question is agreed upon for the focus of the
mode’. In the early days, activities might be enquiry/dialogue to follow. The question is either
geared to building a sense of community, but chosen by the community (usually by voting) or
they might focus more on the development negotiated by the facilitator (see notes on page
of thinking and enquiry skills. Don’t forget 15).
occasionally to rehearse the aims or guidelines
of P4C. 7 First Words
Getting the enquiry/dialogue started. One way is
2 Presentation of Stimulus to invite the group whose question is voted for
The stimulus should be engaging, relevant and to explain their thoughts on it. ‘Think-pair-share’
meaningful to the group. It should contain some can also be a good starter as can asking for a
‘big’ (that is, common, central and contestable) proposal/response to the question. Over time,
ideas/concepts that will inspire philosophical more critical responses can be encouraged, e.g.
questions. identifying assumptions in the question or ‘write
to reply’ (first thoughts noted in writing).
3 Thinking Time
Time for generating first thoughts on the 8 Building Dialogue
stimulus. Thinking time could be individual Once the question/dialogue opens up, the
or paired thinking , spoken or silent, verbal or metaphor of ‘building’ is key: building on each
written. The aim is to enable participants to other’s ideas, and towards better understanding
construct meaning by developing themes, of the concepts/issue(s) arising. It is good
identifying significant issues and concepts and practice to pause midway for ‘middle words’ so
connecting to experience. Thinking time is vital that participants have an opportunity to develop
preparation for formulating questions. their responses and positions on the topic.

4 Question-Making 9 Last Words

After sharing their personal responses to the A chance for pupils to say their final words on
stimulus, groups or individuals create open, what has been discussed. Often those who
discussable questions to put forward to the class. haven’t contributed during the session do so here
(Usually groups of three to five children so as to and show they have been engaged. Different foci
end up with six to ten questions.) may be suggested.

10 Review and Reflect

5 Question-Airing An important opportunity to review and reflect
Questions, prominently displayed, are on practice. Time for sharing thinking about
celebrated, analysed and compared. Ambiguities ground rules and 4C thinking. Reflection could
or vaguenesses are cleared up, links often be focused on the quality of questions, concepts,
suggested, but also significant differences noted. relationships and the progress of the community.

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry 13

Notes on the 10 step model of enquiry

1. Preparation
i) Physical The class, group or community should sit in a circle, or in such a way that every member of the
community can see everyone else’s face, and have eye contact, comfortably. The group should be able to hear each
other clearly so the acoustics of the environment also need to be considered carefully. The teacher should not sit
apart from the group (unless there is a special reason for them to do so) so that all participants can be viewed as
equally important to the success of the community.

ii) Social and Emotional Guidelines for ensuring a respectful, caring and collaborative environment should be
discussed and agreed by the group, and these should be revisited and refined at least once or twice a term.

iii) Intellectual Regularly remind the group that the best measure of success in the session is whether it ‘made us
all think’. Reinforce this message whenever possible, e.g. by connecting the starter activity to a particular thinking or
enquiry skill. But also keep in mind that brain gym or other such exercises may be helpful to refresh tired minds. (This
might apply during an enquiry as well as before.)

2. Presentation of Stimulus
The stimulus at the start of an enquiry is used as a means to providing the community with a shared experience. If
everyone can be actively involved in its presentation, e.g. by reading or singing together, so much the better. As the
class becomes more practised at philosophical questioning and reasoning, the curriculum itself increasingly becomes
a resource. For more on choosing stimuli, see p. 44.

3. Thinking Time
Pupils should be given the opportunity — and the responsibility — to reflect on the shared stimulus. They could be
encouraged to find things that interested or pleased them, or confused or puzzled them; things they might like to
talk about; things that provoked a reaction within them; or to think about their feelings regarding the stimulus.

Thinking time need not be very long in the early sessions — perhaps no more than 60 seconds — but the more
participants can learn to invest in reflection, the better. So aim to extend and celebrate this opportunity for
responding thoughtfully and imaginatively — if only as an antidote to the pressure for quick, measurable results.
You might suggest recording their reflections in the form of a drawing, cartoon, or speech bubble, or simply by
listing some ‘big ideas’ in or from the stimulus. A more advanced response might be captured in a stimulus RECCI
(Reactions, Elements, Connected Concepts, Interests).

At the end of ‘Thinking Time’ participants can be invited to offer their first thoughts to the community as shared
preparation for Question-Making.

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14 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry

4. Question-Making
In small groups, individuals share their reactions/responses to the stimulus and then move into a discussion about the
concepts and questions that they are interested in. The group then creates together one philosophical question to put
forward to the community. The questions are written either by the facilitator or the group, then displayed either on a
main board or on smaller sheets. The group usually appreciates having their names with their question, so that their
work is credited.

It takes time to get the hang of philosophical questioning, so it is helpful to provide examples and to use activities to
develop this skill. One strategy is to follow Thinking Time immediately with a plenary conversation, as follows. Elicit
responses to the stimulus from individuals, and invite the rest of the group to respond to those responses. This should
establish some common interests which can be recorded. Then invite the group to turn the interests into questions —
continually reminding them to aim for open, discussible questions on which to build some open, inviting questions.
Within a few sessions, pupils should be much more confident about creating philosophical questions of their own.

An alternative strategy for helping pupils develop their philosophical questioning is to alternate for a few sessions
between a) offering some philosophical questions of your own devising from the stimulus (which the pupils then vote
on and b) inviting them to offer questions, individually or in groups — from which you choose one yourself. Naturally,
you will choose the one you think is most promising for philosophical enquiry, but the important thing would be
to explain why you think it is promising (roughly, because it is discussible/contestable, and of common interest and
importance). Such modelling and endorsement of philosophical questions should lead to better and more confident
questioning from pupils.

As a variation on working as a group from the start, individuals might occasionally be asked to create their own
question first, and then the group negotiates which one to put forward.

5. Question-Airing
The questions should be reflected upon before any of them is chosen for closer consideration. A common approach,
called ‘Clarifying’ or ‘Thinking Behind’, is for each group/pair/author to explain or clarify their question. This would
be followed by an opportunity for the rest of the community to raise any queries or identify issues or concepts
involved within the question. Another approach, called ‘Celebration’, is for each question in turn to be ‘celebrated’
by someone other than the questioner(s), e.g. ‘I like X’s question because …’. A third approach, called ‘Connecting’ or
‘Linking’, is for the whole group to look for possible links or connections between questions.

It is best if the facilitator pushes beyond a remark such as these questions are connected because they are both
about X, since it is easy enough to spot a word or concept that appears in more than one question. The comparison
is made more interesting — and more challenging — if the facilitator then asks whether the two questions are asking
the same thing or, better still, whether we can identify any difference between the two questions.

If there is no substantial difference between the questions, it might be agreed to group them together to avoid
splitting the vote. Attempts might also be made to ‘merge’ questions, but this can turn out to be quite a challenge, if
not a frustration, if agreement on new wording is not reached quickly.

What can emerge from any such attempt, however, is that two or more questions are conceptually so close to each
other that it makes sense to discuss both of them, albeit one after the other. Then an interesting sub-discussion could
be held as to which might be discussed first. Again, though, if agreement cannot be reached fairly quickly, just find a
quick way of resolving the disagreement — even if it just tossing a coin!

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry 15

6. Question-Choosing
To start with, the group will normally vote for the question(s) they would like to go forward for the enquiry. This gives
the community a sense of ownership as well as allowing all contributions to be considered in a fair way. There is an
important qualification to this which is outlined in a moment, but if voting proceeds, the most common ways
of voting apart from OPOV (One Person One Vote) are: Omnivote (voting for as many questions as you like) and
Multivote (normally between 2 and 6 votes, sometimes distributed ‘how you like’ using ticks or tokens, or sometimes
‘ranked’, e.g. 3/2/1 or just 2/1). Voting with your Feet (standing by your favourite question) is a good variation on
OPOV, and sometimes leads naturally into TV (Transferable Voting) whereby anyone voting for a ‘minority’ question
is invited to transfer their vote to another question, and so on until one question emerges with a clear majority.
‘Immature’ communities may vote ‘blind’; ‘mature’ communities may choose a question by open consensus.

Do be aware, though, that voting needs to be tempered with judgement. Simple majority voting can lead to a
‘tyranny of the majority’ where minority positions and issues are not heard. Ensure then that the democracy gives fair
chances for a diverse and inclusive range of interests.

Moreover, it is not always inappropriate for the facilitator to put, or even push, forward a line of enquiry herself. She
may naturally do this in the course of an enquiry (for example, asking how concept X relates to concept Y, or whether
concept Z might be relevant to an enquiry even if it has not been mentioned so far). But, at the end of an enquiry,
during Review, the facilitator might suggest that a ‘road that was not taken’ could still be worth exploring. A question
that emerges in this way can be carried forward as the one to be discussed at the next session, without need for any
preliminary steps. This is what would be called a ‘negotiated’ question.

7. First Words
Consideration should be given to how these should be expressed, since the direction of the enquiry is often set by
them. A fairly safe approach is for the person(s) who formulated the chosen question to share the ‘Thinking behind’
the question (if they have not already done that) and their initial thoughts, ideas and opinions about it. Another good
way of starting is to use ‘Think-Pair(-Share)’ or ‘Talking Partners’, to give everyone the opportunity to get their
thinking going. Or you could just invite ‘Suggestions or proposals’, seeking first thoughts from at least three people,
so as to get a range of ways into the question before one of them fires others to respond. More challenging ways
of starting are to ask what assumptions or key words there may be in the question and why, or even how best to
approach the question. For those who are not afraid to write their thoughts, ‘Thoughts in Writing’ might provide a
good basis for discussion and even critique (if a couple of provisional answers are then written on the board). It can
be particularly interesting to revisit such first thoughts after the enquiry, perhaps revising or elaborating them into a
more considered piece of writing.

8. Building Dialogue
First Words are followed by an invitation to other members of the group to respond. Guidance on how to facilitate
this central part of the enquiry process — the part that is usually thought of as ‘the enquiry’ itself or is sometimes
referred to as ‘the dialogue’ — is given in the next chapter. The essential point here is that it is almost always a good
idea to pause roughly half way through an enquiry to take stock and open up the possibility of redirecting the
enquiry.

An obvious way to do the first is to ask something like: How are we doing with our answers to the question? or
Where have we got to with our enquiry so far? This could be discussed in pairs before going plenary. Refinements of
the question would invite pairs to see what they think has been agreed, what areas of disagreement there might have
been, whether the enquiry has gone off track, or perhaps even whether the enquiry has lost steam.

The last two of these refinements might point to the possibility or desirability of moving the enquiry in a different
direction. For this purpose, the obvious questions are: Should we go back to the original question? (and how
exactly?) and Where do you think we should go to next? (Perhaps pick up the question with the next highest number
of votes?)

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16 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry

Another way of framing these reflections would be to begin a public Big Ideas A-Z chart, just to establish which ‘big’/
philosophical concepts have already emerged in the enquiry. This helps boost appreciation of what important ideas
have been touched on, but can also enable a focus on which ideas or areas would be worth pursuing in the second
half of the enquiry.

There is another important angle into the reflections, focussing on process rather than content. For example, if a
‘skills target’ had been set at the start of the session, you could ask whether there has been some progress in that
respect. Or you might focus on one of the 4Cs and ask whether the general tone of the enquiry has been caring
or collaborative, or perhaps not critical or creative enough. You might even ask how people are feeling about the
enquiry as a whole so far — fully engaged? somewhat indifferent? a little frustrated? etc. Such feedback could be
relevant to how everyone sets off on the second half of the enquiry and provides a safety valve for those who might
be feeling lost or not heard.

9. Last Words
Reflection is a key part of P4C and this step is one of the most important. The group is given time at the end of the
enquiry to reflect on content — what has been said — and to offer their own latest thoughts about the question or
issue that has been discussed.

The usual understanding for Last Words is that members can frame their final contribution as they wish. Some might
wish to go back to the original question and offer their best latest answer to it; others might wish to speak to how
their views have changed during the enquiry; and others might want to pick up on one particular strand of thought
and respond to it, or elaborate upon it.

The facilitator can use some judgement as to whether she might encourage everyone towards one or another
of these frames, but it is important to let them speak freely. Often some of the more reticent members seize the
opportunity of Last Words to make a really insightful comment that no one might have expected.

There are various other alternative frames, such as inviting members to identify a turning point in the enquiry for
them — a moment, perhaps, when their thinking, or even mind, changed — or to celebrate a particular contribution
from someone else that made them think or that they had never thought of.

One other frame is worth emphasising here, namely that it is good to avoid a sense that philosophical enquiry may
be good for thinking, but does not make any practical difference. A simple way to avoid this is to use the ‘So, what?’
frame, whereby everyone is encouraged to use Last Words to say how the enquiry might change the way they act in
future, or even what they might advocate for others (remembering that advocacy is a form of action).

It should finally be noted that Last Words are not compulsory — the right to ‘pass’ is assumed.

10. Review and Reflection

Whereas Last Words are focused on the content of the enquiry, Review and Reflection is focused on process. This is
an equally important reflective step, enabling progression of skills and attitudes. It is, in effect, formative
(and self-) evaluation, and may use some of the formal evaluation tools introduced later in the course and handbook.

A less formal approach to evaluation consists of setting up some monitoring of enquiry as it proceeds. Pupils
themselves could take on monitoring roles and feed back to the community during the Review session.

Here are some specific examples of roles, and what might be monitored, recorded and reviewed.

1. Inclusion Tracking: to take note of who speaks and for how long. This need not involve the taking of names, if
that were felt to be invidious, but the general results could be helpful in reflecting on the number and length of
contributions. This will help some people, who might need to be more concise or mindful of others, become more
self-aware. Others who may be more reticent might be encouraged to speak more often or more substantially.

2. Mind Mapping or Big Ideas Hunting (or whatever other title might be agreeable!): to note big ideas/philosophical
concepts as they arise during the discussion — ideally with the names of the people who introduced them.

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry 17

3. Question Collector: to make a note — as verbatim as possible — of all questions that emerge explicitly (or even,
if they appreciate this, implicitly) during the enquiry. Ideally, these might be written up in public at the time, but
otherwise they might be revisited as possible questions to take forward to the next session.

4. Key Word Counters: to make a tally of key thinking words, such as but, because, example, so, if and thinking
verbs such as agree, disagree, add, question, etc. The value of such words in developing thinking/enquiry should
be discussed before they are tallied, and perhaps no more than two should be introduced in a session. Having an
ongoing record of pupils’ use of such language and their improving use of it, can provide a great confidence boost
for children as well as sound evidence that P4C is working as a thinking skills programme’

5. Enquiry Tracker: recording (minimally) the names of speakers in sequence, but also (with practice) their key words
(main ideas, not ‘thinking words’) can enable a focus on a key skill — following an argument or line of thinking — and
encourages the sort of ‘building’ of ideas that P4C aims for. From time to time, an enquiry could be ‘traced’ from start
to finish, improving memory and concept-forming skills. This tracking could also draw constructive attention to the
role of the facilitator in helping the enquiry to move forward.

Review may be done at the end of the day or week (if it is not too far away), rather than at the end of an enquiry
session. This can enable the enquiry to run a fuller length, but also give a little more time for reflection.

Planning should become an integral part of the Review and Evaluation step. The more mature a community is, the
more they will take responsibility for what will happen in the next enquiry session, for example, making their own
proposals for follow-up questions or activities. This might be pursuing some interesting topics and research, on the
internet or elsewhere, reporting back after some ‘hometalk’, or a suitable creative/curriculum project. They could take
responsibility for finding and presenting stimuli and, perhaps ultimately, for running whole sessions of their own. This
happens in many secondary schools and, increasingly, in primary schools.

But of course in the early stages of community development, the facilitator should help shape the plan, and suggest
follow up activities. These could include dedicating the next session to activities that practise particular skills, or
which explore more deeply the purposes and dynamics of communities of enquiry. Examples can be found in the
SAPERE resource database at [Link].

The metaphor of the ‘spiral’ of enquiry (resonant of a ‘spiral’ curriculum) suggests at least two important principles:
first, that philosophical enquiry hardly ever comes to an end — enquiries typically answer some questions but raise
further ones; and secondly, that the more one practices enquiry, the more one’s skills (intellectual, social, emotional,
etc.) develop, but also the more one sees the need to develop them further.

The vision, then, is that instead of cramming 10 steps into one session, then starting over the following week with
a new stimulus and finishing with that in just another session, the whole process becomes much less frenetic and
more organic. Just as in the philosophical life and the pursuit of wisdom, there is no expectation of instant success
and enlightenment in P4C. Attitudes, skills — and wisdom itself — take time to develop, and there should be no rush
to ‘cover’ things in P4C. Try to let the Review and Reflection of one session point naturally to the interests and needs,
and therefore plans, of the next one.

If you have presented a good stimulus — that your class enjoyed and from which they produced a range of good
questions — don’t hesitate to suggest to them that they return to the stimulus and their questions in the following
session, and dig deeper or ‘squeeze the juice’ from the previous session. If you have used an enquiry builder or
thinking exercise that went down well, don’t hesitate to use it again.

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18 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry

Guidelines for setting up a Community

of Enquiry

The process of negotiating a set of ground rules with the group is a vital part of creating a Community of Enquiry.
Anyone participating in a meaningful exploration of questions and ideas needs a safe place to work and share this
thinking work with others.

With younger groups, the rules are usually negotiated at the very start, and may be built on existing classroom or
‘circle time’ rules. With older groups, especially teenagers, ‘guidelines’ is a preferable term to ‘rules’, and it may be okay
to assume that these have already been internalised — though you might always be ready to draw attention and
discussion to any of them that do not seem to be working, e.g. OOPSAAT (Only One Person Speaks At A Time).

Most groups will admit the need for ‘good/respectful/active listening’, but this might need to be expressed more
concretely, e.g. encouraging positive body language, such as eye contact and smiling, and readiness to respond.
Other caring behaviours that keep anxiety to a minimum, such as not tolerating any type of ‘put down’, also usually
feature.

There should also be a recognition of the need to explore the unusual or unpopular — what Joanna Haynes calls
‘juggling with ideas’, and John Dewey called a ‘dramatic rehearsal’ — where it is acceptable to get things wrong,
because that is the purpose of a rehearsal.

Pupils should be encouraged to plan for what happens if someone breaks the rules, and to consider the use of ‘time
out’ or ‘extra thinking time’, for re-phrasing and reconsidering what has been said.

Finally, teachers will be aware that sensitive issues may be more likely to arise in sessions such as philosophical
enquiry when children are encouraged to speak their minds. But disclosures, mild or serious, can happen at any time,
and teachers must always exercise their professional judgement about how to deal with such cases. What might
help, in advance of enquiry sessions, is to explain that they will be encouraged to share their ideas, opinions and
even their feelings with the whole class, but not their secrets.

Other ideas worth considering

Participation: The right of every member of the group not to speak is always respected. However, it should
• 
equally be understood that ‘not bothering’ is not acceptable: there is a responsibility to engage with the group/
enquiry, at least by responsive listening. Sometimes reticent members can be encouraged to speak by having a
private conversation with them out of class.

• Self-regulation: As the sessions are less formal than some conventional lessons, much emphasis is placed on self-
regulation of behaviour and thoughtful, reasonable, respectful group interaction. This may involve many stages
of development, where turn-taking, eye contact and other elements of respect are practised and refined in short
activities or games, such as ‘Stand Up (one at a time)’ or ‘Sit down (in pairs)’ or ‘Change Places If (you think…)’.

Reasonableness: Everyone is encouraged to offer ideas — but not every idea is well-reasoned, or reasonable. The
• 
Community of Enquiry has a duty to pursue stronger or better arguments, and recognise weaker arguments, in its
pursuit of good judgements. It may be important, then, to reflect on the very idea of reasonableness and on what
counts as good reasoning.

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry 19

Starting Strategies
A.‘Big Questions’
Philosophy is often thought of as an attempt to answer ‘big questions’ in life, such as ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What is the right
thing to do?’. P4C encourages young people to engage with such questions, but not necessarily using the particular
wording above, which is rather stylised. The question, ‘Who am I?’, for example, may not stimulate enquiry well. But
there are many other questions which relate to the big question of identity, and which children can easily engage
with: for example, ‘What does a name (not) tell you about a person?’ or ‘How well do your family know you?’

More often than not, philosophical enquiries with children start with such ‘indirect’ questions, arising from a stimulus
that captures their interest.

The facilitator, then, has in mind at least three steps:

1. helping participants clarify their various interests

2. helping them turn their interests into good questions for enquiry

3. helping them connect those questions with others, especially ‘bigger’ ones.

B. Common interests
One way of helping to clarify interests is to ask participants to think of something they would like to talk about — in
short, a ‘talking point’. Or you could ask directly for ‘something that interests you in the story’, ‘something you like or
dislike about the story’, or ‘something that pleases or provokes (or even puzzles) you in it’.

Then invite individuals to tell the whole group what they were thinking, and facilitate short plenary conversations in
response. If an interest is ‘common’, it will usually be articulated clearly enough during the conversation but, if not, you
should clarify it at the end, preferably condensing it into a summary, word or phrase.

You could proceed to turn the interest into a ‘question for thinking’ yourself, to provide a model, but, better still, try to
facilitate whole, or small, group question-making. Ultimately, of course, the aim is for every individual to be able to
formulate a question for themselves.

C. ‘Big Concepts’
The process outlined above can be supported or speeded up by encouraging children to look for ‘big concepts’ in
the stimulus, that is, ideas/words that they think most people would find interesting to talk about. For example, big
concepts in the first three paragraphs of Robert Fisher’s story, The Professor and the Ferryman, (see p. 49) might
include: poor, family, grumbled, rushing, time and think.

Most children develop an intuition quite quickly for what counts as a ‘big concept’, but if there is a need to explain it,
here is an exercise that might be useful. Present the following pairs of ideas and ask the children to discuss in pairs or
small groups which of the two concepts is ‘bigger’, in the sense of Which idea is more interesting or important to
talk about? Animals, Ankles; Buds, Buddies; Curry, Courage; Drains, Dreams; Excellence, Examination, and so on.

D. From Big Concepts to Big Questions

Once any big concept (or ‘big idea’) has been identified, a next, simple, philosophical move is to put it directly into a
question of the form, ‘What (exactly) is X?’ (‘What is it to be poor?’, ‘What is a family?’, ‘What exactly is it to grumble?’,
etc.) This, in fact, was a classical move in philosophy, modelled on Socrates’ own enquiries.

However, this practice could become rather repetitive, and ‘What is X?’ questions aren’t always productive — they
encourage a resort to the dictionary for a definition. The object of enquiry is not to find an equivalent form of words,
but rather to connect the big idea with experiences. So, other ways of ‘questioning’ big ideas should be modelled and
encouraged, e.g. using the ‘big’ question words, ‘‘Why are some people poor?’ and ‘How do you feed a family?’, or
looking for causes or consequences, as in ‘What causes people to grumble?’ or ‘What happens if people are rushing?’

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 20 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry

Note, also, that the questions suggested here are general ones (i.e. not particular to the stimulus) which provide more
scope for enquiry. If the children spontaneously ask questions directly about the stimulus in the early days, they are
not to be discouraged — far from it. But a text-based question such as ‘What did the ferryman think about when he
had time?’ can simply and helpfully be ‘moved’ by the facilitator into a wider question such as, ‘What do people who
have time usually think about?’ The word ‘usually’ and the more advanced phrase, ‘in general’, are especially useful
for this. This move, from the specific to the more general, is a good one to practise in conjunction with the Question
Quadrant, broadening questions of comprehension or speculation into questions for reflection.

E. ‘Big Concepts’ display

Another way of introducing ‘big concepts’, or of consolidating their use, is to make space on the classroom wall for a
‘Big Concepts’ display. Put a few examples of your own up, preferably written large in felt-tip, on post-it notes. (This
will enable you to move them around later, perhaps grouping or ranking them.) Then encourage the children to listen/
look out for big ideas, not just in P4C sessions, and to post them. You could also add big concepts to existing displays.

The ‘Knowledge and Understanding’ focus of learning can be planned and framed around big concepts — so, this is a
way of bringing together key concepts from across the curriculum. You could also build up a separate A-Z chart of big
ideas in general, or of ideas related to a particular topic or field of enquiry.

F. Concepts behind
Sometimes a stimulus may point to a big concept without actually mentioning it. For example, the following ideas are
not explicit in The Professor and the Ferryman, but certainly lie behind it: happiness, tradition, needs, peace, home,
friendliness, showing off, teaching/learning, educated, nature, VIPs, rudeness, common sense, panic, help, life and
death, precious, and, as Fisher himself noted, wisdom.

The simple question, ‘What (big concepts) does this (story/stimulus) make you think of?’, helps children make
suggestions of big ideas arising from the stimulus. A good variation of this question, at least for older children, is:
‘What concepts lie behind this stimulus?’

G. Discussion plans
A series of questions that explore different aspects of a key concept under investigation can be very useful. They could
be used, for example, as a 5 to 10 minute starter activity, to give children a feel for open questions and a good early
experience of building dialogue, or groups of three could be given different questions at random and asked to discuss
them for just a minute or two, though such discussion should not regularly take the place of enquiry based on the
children’s own questions. Alternatively, discussion plans can be used as a follow-up activity after an enquiry, with a
view to widening or deepening understanding.

The following plan, for example, could be used to stretch the concept/theme of ‘skills’, which people often draw out
of The Professor and the Ferryman.

1. Which of these seems more of a skill (or skilled), and why: riding a bicycle or reading a book?

2. Are there really such things as ‘thinking skills’, and if so how do they differ from other skills? In particular,
(how) do they differ from ‘academic’ skills? Use examples in your reasoning.

3. Are there any skills that are purely physical, that is, in which thinking plays no part?

4. By considering a few examples of ‘life skills’, try to reach an agreement on what makes a skill a ‘life’ skill.

5. Does gardening count as a skill? Does it count as a ‘life skill’? In any case, is it a single skill, or more than one?
If more, analyse it into its component skills.

6. Follow the same sequence of questions for cooking as for gardening in the previous question.

7. To what extent could filming be counted as an important life skill, now and in the future?

8. Does asking questions come naturally? Does that make it not a skill? If it is a skill, how complex is it, and how
can it be developed?

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART A / Communities of Enquiry 21

Table of skills and dispositions

Facilitator focus Skills Dispositions

Willingness to listen and be interested in others

Making it obvious that trust
(between facilitator and children as well
Willingness to care for and about what other
between children) and risk (intellectual and Respectful listening
people say
emotional) are balanced through respectful
interaction between facilitator and children
Curiosity

Sharing ideas
Using open genuine requests and offering Letting go of ownership and engagement with
plenty of thinking time Reflecting on ideas from all ideas regardless of ownership
sources

Encouraging children to offer Courage to offer ideas or possibilities to others

suggestions and supporting their for scrutiny
confidence to speak aloud — Suggesting
small group work can decrease children’s Self-confidence to offer ideas that would
inhibitions normally remain thought but unsaid

Offering the responsibility to the Confidence to make a choice and search

Choosing
children, supporting their individuality for a justification

Being involved in wonderment, taking time Curiosity and interest in asking and framing
Questioning
to wonder with the children questions and finding out more

Highlighting the purpose of

connected thinking and meaning-
Connecting Valuing of meaning-making through linking
making and supporting any evidence of
connections

Valuing the use of reasons to support Engagement in intellectual challenge of

Using reasons
suggestions searching for a reason

Valuing alternatives, showing through

Identifying different Recognition and appreciation of the significance
own behaviour, that a wider range of
perspectives of other people’s views
perspectives offers greater choice

Showing by using examples, how

they can help with understanding and Endeavour to search through own experience
encouraging children to reflect on good/ Using examples for relevant examples and recognition that they
not good examples and how they can help enhance understanding
in enquiry

Supporting the relevance of

distinctions through using them and Valuing of sorting and categorisation to help
Making distinctions
drawing attention to them and the way make meaning
they enhance understanding

© SAPERE [Link]
 B. Questions and Concepts:
developing the philosophical

Philosophical questioning
Professor Karin Murris
When starting school, children quickly learn that there is a ‘right answer’ to questions. Moreover, the answer has to
be given at the right time, and usually in writing. Most of the time, the teacher who asks the question knows the
answer. Questions in schools are not only generated by adults, but are, on the whole, of a factual or empirical nature.
That is, they can ultimately be answered by ‘look-and-see’, by using our senses (even if it would involve complicated
scientific experiments). Set procedures exist to find the answers to those questions and much of our education is
taken up by learning the correct procedures (e.g. deductive (maths) or inductive (science) methods). Teachers are
under enormous pressure (e.g. from testing, textbook approaches) and the Level 1 course aims to support those who
courageously try to change their practice and model thoughtful questioning.

No right or wrong answers?

So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that when students’ own questions are collected and analysed in P4C, they are
often, disappointingly, found to be lower-order questions related to classroom routines and rules. The challenge for
children and teachers alike is to become skilled and comfortable with questions that do not necessarily have one
right answer. However, this is very different from saying that philosophical questions are questions that have no right
or wrong answers!

For example, to the question ‘Do people have a body and a mind?’ the (partial) answer to the question ‘People don’t
have a body’ is obviously wrong. In contrast, the answer ‘People do have a body (or a mind)’ is right or wrong,
depending on the reasons and justifications given, although in an open-ended enquiry a final conclusion may
not be reached. In a Community of Enquiry, time and space is made by the teacher for such rigorous dialogical
disagreement and exploration of the strength and validity of reasons. Although all contributions deserve equal
attention initially, it certainly is not the case that an enquiry is like a polite conversation where ‘anything goes’.
Contributions are challenged respectfully and collaboratively, in order to develop a better answer to the original
question.

What sorts of questions encourage people to be more philosophical, prompt higher-order thinking and thinking
‘outside the box’? Take the following question asked by a child:

‘Does the mind grow old in the same way as the body?’

How should we respond to this question when asked in class? A difference between methods of answering questions
helps to distinguish between various disciplines. A scientist could argue that there are empirical methods to measure
brain activity and the degeneration of brain cells could perhaps count as evidence of the mind growing older.
Psychological methods may involve introspection. Individuals could consult their own experiences and, for example,
argue that they feel as young as ever despite an ageing body. Their experience of shock and surprise when seeing
their own reflection of a middle-aged person in a shop window could perhaps count as evidence that their mind has
stayed young.

How does this differ from a philosophical response? What are the criteria? Before addressing these questions
(philosophical questions also!) it may be helpful to first pause and reflect on the distinction between psychological
and philosophical responses.

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART B / Questions and Concepts 23

Psychological responses to questions

When introduced to P4C, teachers often find it difficult to distinguish between psychological and philosophical
questions. For example, it may be tempting to ask learners how they would feel if they put themselves in the
shoes of a particular character in a picture, story, or nursery rhyme used for an enquiry. Imagine if they — like poor
Humpty Dumpty — fell off a wall and were broken. But would this be a good facilitation move when the community
has chosen the question ‘Once broken can we be fixed?’ (a real example from a Level 1 training session). Inviting
members of the community to give individual accounts of what it feels like to ‘be broken’ may lead to a very
interesting sharing of experiences, but is unlikely to lead to a philosophical investigation. Personal accounts cannot
be disagreed with, although they can easily lead to philosophical conversations if the right follow-up questions are
asked in a Community.

A possible philosophical response

One philosophical way forward would be to question the validity of assumptions in the question. What seems to
have been taken for granted by the questioner(s)? Certainly that ‘we’ can be ‘broken’. But is it indeed true that we can
be ‘broken’? And who is the ‘we’ referred to in the question? Matthew Lipman stipulates that philosophy ‘…begins
when we can discuss the language we use to discuss the world’ (in: Thinking, Vol 17, No 4, p.26). In other words,
philosophical enquiries are conceptual enquiries. Members of the community problematise the meaning of the
core concepts in a particular question. Here, good facilitation moves would be to ask: ‘What does it mean for a self
to be ‘broken’?’, ‘Does a self need to be ‘whole’ before it can be ‘broken’?’, ‘Where or what is this self?’ Even when a
procedure has been agreed upon to answer these questions (e.g. conceptual analysis), this procedure itself can also
be questioned on its sufficiency or validity.

The Big Questions?

So what makes the response above philosophical? Some would argue that a question such as ‘What is Self?’ is one of
those typical ‘Big Questions’ associated with the discipline of philosophy. One way of deciding whether a question
is philosophical is to ask whether it fits into one of the traditional branches of philosophy. These are listed on the
SAPERE Student and Trainer Portal and most people have an intuitive sense of them. They can generally recognise
an ethical question (about what is right or wrong), or a metaphysical one (about what is real), or an aesthetic one
(about beauty).

More than a technique

In P4C, people are quick to learn to identify abstract philosophical concepts and to generate philosophical questions
with a ‘what is…?’ structure. Abstract concepts with a social or personal theme are particularly popular: e.g. ‘What is
friendship?’, ‘What is happiness?’ However, one has to be careful that this new-found knowledge does not become a
simple technique, a superficial tool to help tell the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ philosophical questions. This
could make people who ask the more unusual questions (often young children) feel inadequate and could easily
become a new-found security in the uncertain world of philosophical exploration, with the adult who knows all
and the child who knows little. It can be tempting to use this new knowledge to reject some children’s questions as
un-philosophical, but the challenge is to stay with the ambiguity and complexity involved in their questions and to
make enquiries more philosophical through your own questioning. The challenge here is related to a central feature
of the practical judgements involved in P4C.

“Her enthusiasm for learning has shone through, in particular in those

subjects that involve some philosophy...”
Parent

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24 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART B / Questions and Concepts

Meaningful education

In the Humpty Dumpty example, the follow-up philosophical questions became ‘what is “fixed’’?’ and ‘what is
“broken’’?’ But the extent to which philosophical enquiries are meaningful depends on the connections and links
made by the community between abstract concepts or ideas, and the interests and personal experiences of its
members. Teachers can be anxious about not knowing the topic in advance, and can be reluctant to regard children
as experts of their own experiences. A willingness to experiment and play with new ideas demands philosophical
steps from the known to the unknown in which the teacher needs to resist the urge to ‘translate’ what is being said
into the more familiar public knowledge embodied in the curriculum. In P4C, the teacher is as perplexed as the
learner. Asking philosophical questions can never be a mechanical exercise, but is an expression of a genuine wonder
and interest about the meaning children bring to the central concepts involved in an enquiry.

Real questions

In P4C the space for learning is well-structured and carefully prepared, but the direction and the goals are less
tightly controlled by teachers. Teachers need to be prepared for the uncertainty and worry that sometimes arises
when giving children greater control over the content of enquiries. Students’ personal experiences and questioning
may lead into topics such as loss and death. In such cases it is important to be aware of our own anxieties without
depriving students of rich opportunities to help each other make sense of the awesome nature of human existence.
It is then that students might ask ‘real’ questions, the questions that genuinely puzzle them. We need those questions
in order to make education meaningful. Questions are the ‘hooks’ when we ‘fish’ for new knowledge. We need to be
aware of what we don’t know and have a desire to know more. Children need adults as good role-models — teachers
who respect students’ own questions and are
co-enquirers without rushing to find answers.

Open philosophical questions

Closed questions are information-seeking (you ask the person you think knows the answer) or rhetorical (you know
the answer yourself). Open questions resist closure through single answers, but open up further questions. They
sometimes have abstract concepts that are central to our thinking and our actions. In the question ‘Does the mind
grow old in the same way as the body?’ an enquiry may focus on the meaning of mind, body, growing old and same.

Other examples of concepts that arise frequently in dialogues with children are friendship, life, fairness, honesty,
death, space, time, and animal. The abstract nature of philosophical concepts makes them contestable as their
meaning depends on the context in which they are used. Drawing on our everyday experiences, definitions are
tested, adjusted and reshaped using examples and counter-examples. This connection between the theoretical
and the experiential, the concrete and the abstract, aids deep understanding of the issues to be investigated
philosophically. The meanings we bring to common, everyday concepts then inform our actions.

The 4Cs of Philosophical Concepts

Common: we all use philosophical concepts on a daily basis and from the moment we speak a language.
Central: they are at the heart of how human beings think of themselves, other people and things. They structure
our thoughts and actions. They include big concepts such as jealousy, anger or family, but also small ones, such as
same, cause and different.
Contestable: they are so abstract and encompass so many instances that their meaning is ‘fuzzy’ at the edges
and depends upon situation and context. Not only is there disagreement about their meaning, but often people
disagree about their value.
Connecting: they need to be connected to our own experiences and practices in order to be meaningful.

From: Splitter, L. and Sharp, A. M. (1995) Teaching for Better Thinking; The Classroom Community of Enquiry (Melbourne, Acer) and
Splitter, L. (2006) Training teachers to ‘teach’ Philosophy for Children, in: Critical & Creative Thinking, Vol 14.

[Link] © SAPERE
 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART B / Questions and Concepts 25

Open procedural questions

Sometimes we need to try and take a back seat as far as answering questions is concerned and concentrate on ways
of helping children to search for meaning and to develop their ideas. A useful strategy is to ask more open procedural
questions that invite enquiry. Matthew Lipman calls these ‘open procedural questions’ (Matthew Lipman, Philosophy
in the Classroom, 1988).

The following open procedural questions extend thinking and help to address thinking skills. If teachers model these
questions, then young people will soon begin to use them. These questions are not content-specific, but they can
help to add rigour to discussion by inviting further enquiry. It helps to focus on one group of questions each week
and to add variety to the questions.

Information-processing questions (listening and clarifying)

Could you explain what you mean?
Can someone give an example?
I’m not sure I understand, are you saying…?
Can you tell us a little bit more about your thinking there?

Reasoning questions (expanding and probing)

What are your reasons for saying that?
Do we have any evidence?
Why do you think that is the case?
How do you know?
How could we answer that?

Enquiry questions (connecting, generalising, making distinctions)

So you agree/disagree with…?
What is the best question to ask?
Can you give an example/counter-example?
If you say that, does it follow that…?
Is that always the case or only sometimes?
What are the exceptions?
Is that the same as…?
Are you saying exactly what you were saying before?
Does your idea connect with…?

Creative thinking questions (speculating, exploring implications and larger context)

What if…?
Does…imply…?
Is it possible that...?
Is that relevant to what we are saying here?
Does this change our perspective?
Can we think of other reasons to support this view?

Evaluation questions (evaluating, reviewing, concluding, summarising)

Has anyone changed their mind?
Have we reached any conclusions?
What made us think of…?
Can anyone summarise what we have said so far?
Do we all understand the differences of opinion on this?
Has anyone changed their mind in this discussion?
Have you learned anything new?

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26 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART B / Questions and Concepts

Questioning activities
A) Questions and Answers

Invite students to put questions into groups. You could use some of the questions above. Ask them to consider
whether any of them can be answered or not. You might end up with groups such as:

• questions we can answer here and now

• questions we can find answers to in a book or online
• questions we can answer by thinking about
• questions we can ask people about
• questions nobody knows the answers to
• questions we can never know the answers to

(From: Victor Quinn. Critical Thinking and Young Minds. David Fulton, 1997)

B) Conceptline

A useful activity here is the use of a conceptline. On one end of the line (drawn on the board, a piece of paper or
represented with a rope on the floor) write ‘answer’ and at the other end ‘no answer’. Go through their own or a
carefully selected list of questions (e.g. the list above) and invite the students to place each question somewhere on
the line and to give reasons why. In pairs they can reflect together on the correct answer to each question. It will
soon emerge which questions are more philosophical than others.
(From: Karin Murris. Conceptlines. In: Teaching Thinking, 2001)

C) Mad Hatter’s Teaparty

Ask participants to arrange their chairs in two lines ‘knees to knees’. It sometimes helps when explaining this strategy
that another name for this activity is ‘speed dating’. Select a series of questions, write them on an A4 sheet of paper
and use them in turn. In pairs (with the person opposite) people should try and answer the question. Move on when
it becomes obvious that the discussions are ‘drying up’ (usually three or four minutes).

After each question has been aired, ask people to stand up and move on one chair to the left (clockwise). They will
now have a new partner. Read the next question to the group and so on. Continue until all the questions have been
covered or time has run out. Evaluate which questions were difficult to stop talking about: they are bound to be
more philosophical than the others!

(From: Roger Greenaway see: [Link])

For a collection of such kinaesthetic strategies adapted for P4C, see Karin Murris, Thinking Moves, available from
[Link].

D) Spot the Concepts

Choose a very well-known narrative such as a fairy tale, a nursery rhyme, or a short film clip. Tolkien’s Lord of the
Rings is a good source. Divide the group into small groups of three and brainstorm the abstract concepts in the
narrative. Explain first the difference between abstract and concrete concepts. Concrete concepts refer to things in
the world, such as ‘chair’ or ‘chocolate’. Abstract concepts refer to ideas, feelings, or thoughts, such as ‘love’ or ‘the
world’. Invite the small groups to write some of their findings in a plenary ‘concept web’. In new groups, suggest
making philosophical questions that combine one or more concepts selected from this ‘concept web’.

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART B / Questions and Concepts 27

E) Categorising Questions

Choose an everyday object (such as a phone or some keys) or select concepts from the examples above.

Organise break-out groups with, ideally, five seats around a table. Put one piece of flip chart paper on each table with
one felt tip. Ask the groups to brainstorm as many questions as they can. Tell them not to think about it too much
and just get a wide variety of at least 10 questions down on paper.

Now ask the groups to classify their questions. If a question is factual, ask them to put a symbol of a book next to the
question. If a question is an open question, ask them to put a smiley face next it. If a question is closed, ask them to
put a tick next to it. Finally, for philosophical questions, ask them to use a smiley face with a question mark on top.
More important than anything is the discussion they will have about the criteria for distinguishing between these
four categories.

Take the completed flip chart sheets with questions and symbols and pass them down one table (clockwise). Ask the
groups to look at the questions and symbols from the other groups and see if they agree with their classifications. If
they don’t, they can put their own symbols beside the others on the sheet. Each group needs to identify at least one
question they want to ask the other group. This question needs to focus on their reasons for disagreeing.

In plenary, spend time (at least 10 minutes) on the questions they pose each other. Pull together the various ideas
that emerge about the differences between open, closed, factual and philosophical questions. Start developing a
working definition of what a philosophical question is.
(From: Sara Stanley with Steve Bowkett, But Why?: Developing Philosophical Thinking in the Classroom, 2005)

F) The Question Quadrant

An Australian teacher developed the following useful quadrant. The teacher wanted to develop her children’s
questions away from closed questions that were directly about the stimulus towards more open and general
questions that invited discussion and enquiry. The quadrant (as in a graph) has two axes. The horizontal one runs
along from ‘closed’ to ‘open’. The vertical one runs from ‘about the story’ down to … ‘from the story’.

Particular (stimulus) questions

Speculation or
Comprehension ‘use your
or ‘look and see’ imagination’

Closed Open
questions questions
General
knowledge Philosophy or
‘think it over’
or ’ask an expert’

General (life) questions

(From: Phil Cam, 20 Thinking Tools, ACER Press, 2006)

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28 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART B / Questions and Concepts

Thinking with concepts

Steve Williams
We don’t just think about concepts, we think with them to identify, gather, categorise and value experience. It is
good to offer concepts to children. For example, in conversation with a group of four and five-year-olds,
I was suggesting things that might not be important to them. I said, ‘shoelaces’. One boy replied that shoelaces were
important to him. I asked ‘why?’ He said: ‘because I can’t tie mine.’ I offered the concept of abilities: ‘Ah, so things
we can and can’t do are important; our abilities. Is that right?’ ‘Yes.’ He said he would be able to tie his shoelaces
when he was five and so I asked the children to think about the abilities they would have in the future that they
didn’t have now. The concept of abilities became a tool for them to think with because it gathered experiences and
gave them a name.

Another example concerns a time I was talking with ten-year-old children about the concept of fairness. One
example they gave of unfairness was ‘getting blamed for something you didn’t do.’ I asked them for a reason why
they thought this was unfair. Several children repeated the example as if the reason for the unfairness was self-
evident. I offered the concept of deserving. ‘Was it unfair because they felt they didn’t deserve the blame?’ ‘Yes’. The
concept of deserving enabled the children to develop one criterion for unfairness: getting what you don’t deserve
(if bad) or not getting what you deserve (if good). It also enabled us to generate and judge further examples using
the same criterion. The concept deserving was thus helping us to think about our target concept of fairness. It is the
part of the facilitator’s role to be sensitive to opportunities for using concepts that can enhance the dialogue and be
used as a future resource.

Joan Tough has a good way of putting this in her book Talking and Learning (Ward Lock Educational, 1977).
She says: ‘In dialogue, each participant must project into the other’s meanings, trying, as it were, to judge the
possibilities for meaning that the speaker has left unrecognised...We look for the possibilities of meaning for the
child in any particular context and help him to extend the interpretation he is making of it.’ We do that work by
introducing them to new concepts or by showing them how a familiar concept can add meaning to their thinking
in a particular context. We could call this strategy overlaying — we overlay our own conceptual language onto the
children’s language and ask them if our interpretation makes sense.

While it is important not to jump in too quickly and do the work some children in the class could do for themselves,
it is equally important not to allow children to flounder when the simple introduction of a new concept could
transform the quality and depth of the dialogue.

Preparation for enquiry

When you prepare for enquiries with children and you expect certain concepts such as fairness to come up,
consider what other concepts children will need in order to explore the target concept. So for fairness, you might
consider concepts such as: deserve, needs and equality. Help the children by relating their comments to these
concepts if they can’t do it for themselves. This will enable you and the group to consider important questions such
as:
• If a teacher helps everyone for exactly the same length of time, would that be fair?
• Would it be fair if everyone got the same marks in an exam?

In the first case there is a conflict between equal treatment and need, in the second, between equal treatment and
deserts. Using the concepts need, deserve and equality allows a level of generalisation that would otherwise be
impossible.

Suggestion: Write out some related key concepts on separate sheets of paper and place them in the middle of the
circle for all to see. They act as a reminder to you and to the participants that these concepts are relevant to the
discussion and could help make it deeper and more precise. In the example mentioned above the central concept is
fair and the related concepts could be deserve, need, equal, same and different.

[Link] © SAPERE
 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART B / Questions and Concepts 29

The language of reasoning

So we think with concepts as well as about them. But some concepts are essential in almost all the thinking we
do. In fact, we could hardly think in any kind of depth about anything without them. These concepts are like atoms
that combine to make up the molecules that are the moves we make in thinking and conversation — moves like
comparing, justifying and clarifying. In helping pupils to think for themselves, it makes sense to start with the atoms
rather than the molecules. If they know how to use essential concepts in a language of reasoning such as similar,
different, category, example, alternative, opinion, reason, consequence and important, the moves will often come
easily to pupils. Without this knowledge, they will not be able to make appropriate discussion moves and will
certainly not know what you are talking about when you ask them to ‘build’ on what others have said in a dialogue
(a common piece of advice given to teachers and children doing P4C). Consider what someone might have to do in
order to disagree with someone else. They would need to understand that someone had expressed an opinion and
decide whether they think similarly or differently; they would have to know that a reason was given and reflect on
how important that reason was in relation to other reasons. One common kind of reason is that the consequence of
something is either good or bad.

Essential language
This list is by no means exhaustive but it includes many of the concepts it is hardest to do without if one wants to
think with any degree of depth.

• Degree: all/some/none, always/sometimes/never, more/less important, better/worse, impossible/possible/

probable/likely/certain, degree
• Kind: quality, attribute, criterion, all/some/none, is/isn’t, if … then, group, class, is/are, part/whole, example,
alternative, addition, kind
Relation: cause, effect, consequence, if … then, same/similar/different, opposite, part/whole, important,
• 
significant, best/worst, before/after/at the same time, certain/possible/probable/impossible, means/end/
purpose, connection, relation
Discourse: question, answer, statement, proposition, hypothesis, opinion, reason, premise, argument,
• 
grounds, principle, maxim, assumption/presupposition, evidence, conclusion,
if … then, unless.

Many of these terms are best thought of as concepts rather than just particular words you are encouraging
the children to use. That is because they refer to ideas that can be expressed in different ways using different
combinations of words. For example, when a child says: ‘I’ve got another idea,’ she might mean that she’s got an
alternative, different idea or that she’s got a similar idea she wants to add to someone else’s. I wouldn’t necessarily
want to make the child use a different expression but I do want her (and other pupils) to be able to recognise
whether or not she has got an alternative idea. This raises two important points:

The key concepts can be used as a vocabulary for direct expression — we can use words such as alternative, cause
and kind to express essential connections as in:

• Smoking causes cancer

• An alternative cause of some cancers can be found in a person’s genetic make-up
• Cancer is a kind of disease (or ‘Cancer is a disease’)

The concepts also serve as useful terms in a metacognitive vocabulary. They allow us to clarify other expressions and
appreciate the nature of the work they might be doing in a dialogue. If a pupil says: ‘I’ve got another idea...’ we can
ask ‘Is that an alternative idea? Is it a different one?’ If a pupil says: ‘I think friends should be loyal,’ we can ask ‘do you
mean always loyal?’ The concepts are effective metacognitive tools because they help us to identify, by using a single
word, the nature and implications of a contribution to the dialogue.

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30 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART B / Questions and Concepts

How to enhance children’s conceptual capacities

1. Use the overlaying strategy described in the first section above. So, for example, when a child, speaking of
unfairness, says ‘That’s like when my mum makes me do the washing up every night,’ you might say ‘That’s an
interesting example.’ You could do something similar with many of the concepts listed above.

2. Use any of the listed concepts to structure a small-group dialogue within the larger enquiry. So, for example,
you could choose an appropriate moment to say: ‘let’s get into groups of three or four and list some examples of
fairness’ or ‘...some reasons for or against x’ (where x is an opinion put forward by a member of the class). This kind
of activity is useful because it gives pupils the opportunity to become more involved in dialogue and also provides
end products that can be analysed by the whole class, thus giving a focus for agreement and disagreement.

3. The concepts important, significant and category are often required after any listing activity. So you might ask:
‘Which reasons are the most important?’ or ‘Are there particular kinds of reasons?’ (e.g. ones based on principles,
consequences or evidence)

4. Display children’s ideas on lists, structured by any of the concepts, in the classroom. Examples might include:

• A list of examples of courage

• A list of reasons in support of an opinion offered by a pupil during dialogue
• A list of differences and similarities between pupils’ relationships with their parents and friends
• A list of the most important or significant questions they discussed in the last couple of weeks
• A list of statements beginning with all, some, none, (many or few) and related to a particular topic they
have been discussing. Or you can provide pupils with some statements, such as ‘All things we can think
about are real.’ Ask them to tick which they think are true. Spending time discussing the results will
give them the opportunity to discover the important principle that, if they can think of an example that
contradicts an all or none statement, then it can’t be true. So if the statement is: ‘all singers are talented,’
then if children can come up with an example of one that isn’t, then the statement must be false. When
children are used to the concept, and its implications in use, you can make a big difference to the quality
of classroom discussion by asking, and encouraging them to ask: ‘do you mean all..?’ This kind of move
not only leads them to be careful in their generalisations, it also prompts them to make judgements about
contexts and criteria. So for example, all singers might be talented if you set standards low enough or you
rely on the singers’ own opinions of themselves.

5. Have a ‘talk corner’ in the classroom where you can display questions or statements for discussion by pupils in
pairs or threes. Have a big roll of wallpaper, divided into two columns, for pupils to write on. With older children
you could do a similar thing by asking them to write their answers in journals and collating them yourself. Here
is a real example of work with nine-year-olds. The spelling mistakes have been corrected, but all the writing (on a
large roll of paper in the talk corner) is authentic.

This week’s discussion is: All animals are dangerous. What do you think?
Yes because they all have claws and teeth
No because fish can’t harm you
Yes because anything can harm you in some way
No because all animals aren’t dangerous
No because some fish are harmless and don’t kill you
No because fish just swim about
No because some animals are scared of you

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART B / Questions and Concepts 31

No because not all have claws and teeth

No because snails and penguins can’t harm you
No because fish and insects can’t harm you

There are obvious opportunities here for further discussion that would include the concepts of category and fact, for
example ‘Are all fish really harmless?’ and ‘What categories of fish might be harmful?’. Having read this, what other all,
some and none activities can you think of?

6. Concentrate on reason-giving by providing children with statements they, or you, have created. You could focus
all the statements on one topic, such as fairness, or allow for a range of topics. Use a variety of methods for small-
group discussion, such as paired talk, lines and so on. Make sure the focus of the discussion is on the reasons
pupils give for agreeing or disagreeing with the statement(s). Compare the reasons and look for similarities. Ask
which reasons they think are most important. Here are some statements. You might choose one or two for an
experimental small-group exercise in reason-giving.

Concepts into discussion moves and sequences of moves

When pupils understand the essential concepts and know when to use them in statements and questions, then it
will be easier for them to make appropriate moves to deepen both whole class and small-group dialogue. At first
they may need prompting but you can continue to encourage them to make the moves for themselves. You may be
surprised how, by having in mind a relatively small number of words like similar, alternative, consequence, reason, all,
example and important, pupils can create complex webs of thinking in a dialogue.

Concepts and question stems

Many of the question stems that are given to teachers for use in classroom dialogues depend on the essential
concepts for understanding and discourse that we have been discussing.

• ‘Could you give me an example?’ The connection to the concept is obvious. But children need to
know the significance of the concept of example in a given conversation. In a conversation involving
generalisation (all, some, none), an example could undermine a whole line of argument. Pupils need to
know, from experience, what the concept example can do.

• ‘What do you mean by...?’ Such a question can be confusing for children (and adults). It may be better to
be more specific and ask: ‘Is what you are saying the same as...?’ or ‘What would be an example of that?’
or ‘How is that different from what John said?’ or ‘Do you mean all or just some?’

• ‘Do you agree with...?’ Agreement and disagreement can be complex moves in a discussion. We need
to know the nature of the agreement/disagreement. A pupil might have a different and alternative
view. Another might agree with part of a statement but not the whole of it. Another might agree with a
statement but think something else is more important. So it is up to the facilitator to probe the children’s
agreements and disagreements and help them to probe each other’s.

These are just some of the examples of how questions depend on conceptual capacities. If the conceptual capacities
are in place, the questions will often take care of themselves with the support of modelling and encouragement by
the teacher. If they are not, then the questions will not be very fruitful. Another advantage of working on conceptual
capacities rather than simply repeating question stems is that children are able to be more flexible in their use of
language. As I argued earlier, the concepts can be expressed using different words but the act of referring to the
concepts helps children recognise what is going on in the dialogue.

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32 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART B / Questions and Concepts

Example from a dialogue

I was talking to a group of six-year-olds. I had brought a book to read with them called The Important Book, and I
asked them to think of three ideas about what important things the book might contain. They told me some of their
thoughts which I wrote on pieces of A4 paper and laid on the floor. Here are some of the responses:

1. Pages
2. Precious things
3. Fairies
4. Pushing
5. Beliefs
6. Tigers
7. Animals
8. Birthdays
The items were interesting but I wanted to get to a deeper level of meaning. Here are some short snippets from the
dialogue that followed:

Precious things
Me: Precious things. That’s interesting. What is an example of a precious thing?
Girl: Precious jewels.
Me: Ah...precious jewels. That’s interesting. Any others?
Boy: Precious coins.
Me: Is precious the same as saying something is worth a lot of money?
Girl: No...memories can be precious.

Pushing
Me: Pushing...Jane, why is pushing important? What’s your reason for saying that?
Jane: You might hurt someone.
Me: Do you mean that if you push them you might hurt them?
Jane: Yes.
Me: So things might be important if they have good or bad consequences...if you do something and then something
bad happens or something good happens because of it. (Some nodding). Can anyone think of things people might
do that would have good consequences...good things would happen.
Boy: Being kind.
Girl: Helping someone.
Me: (to Jane) Jane, what do you think? Is being kind as important as pushing?
Jane: No.

Jane wasn’t convinced but we can see that, in a dialogical situation, the starting list (based on the concept important)
gathers meaning when placed in a framework of other concepts such as example, reason, cause and consequence.
This was the first time I had talked with this class so I was giving a lot of support and using the strategy of ‘overlaying’
that I mentioned earlier. Over time, I would encourage pupils to ask each other the kinds of questions I was asking as
they come to understand that questions of this sort will help them to develop meaning together.

Time for reflection

Now you have read this section, think for yourself about how you could build children’s conceptual capacities
through exercises, small group work and whole-group discussion.

[Link] © SAPERE
 C. Developing Facilitation

The role of the facilitator

The title ‘facilitator’ is used to try to differentiate the role from the traditional one of the teacher as the fount of
knowledge. In phrases coined by an ICT educator, teachers in the 21st century should no longer see themselves as
‘the sage on the stage’, but as ‘the guide on the side’.

GUIDE is, in fact, an established metaphor for one of the roles that a philosophical facilitator takes on: guiding an
enquiry towards better understanding of what to believe or do.

Literally, of course, a ‘facilitator’ is someone who makes things easier for others (Latin: ‘facile’ = easy), and certainly
philosophical facilitators want to help others, particularly children, to think things out for themselves. But it is worth
noting that this could involve, from time to time, the need to be challenging, and not to take the ‘easy’ path of just
enabling everyone to say whatever comes into their heads. (At times, then, one might conceive the role as being
more that of a ‘difficilitator’!)

Not only is a Community of Enquiry a group of people who think together — which requires a careful discipline of
its own — but also they are trying to think critically and creatively.

Clearly, then, if an enquiry lacks criticality (the questioning of criteria for good judgement) or creativity (the
expression of different ways of thinking) the facilitator has prime responsibility for ensuring that contributions are
relevant and constructive. He/she should naturally encourage children to listen carefully to each other, and indeed
should at all times model what it is to be a good LISTENER.

This does not mean that he/she has to inject critical comments or creative solutions of his her own: the aim is to
elicit these from the community. Some explicit models/examples may be necessary in the early days, of course, and
there is an ongoing need for good thinking skills or ‘moves’ to be made explicit, as explained in the section ‘Thinking
with Concepts’ (see p.28) — for example, calling for examples to enrich meaning.

There are plenty of other ways of eliciting good ideas from the community and further recommendations are given
in the next few pages.

Returning to the general picture briefly, it will, of course, always be some part of a teacher’s role to impart
knowledge, but, with information, and indeed misinformation, now more available than ever via the internet, it will
increasingly be teachers’ responsibility to assist children in processing information. Developing the role of facilitator
as philosophical ‘guide’ will enable teachers to model and encourage appropriate practices, such as questioning,
reasoning, evaluating and generating alternative interpretations and ideas, in other lessons across the curriculum.

One other point to emphasise at this stage is that a prime responsibility of the philosophical facilitator is to cultivate
the social and emotional security that will enable members of the group to contribute their best to the enquiry. This
is the need for careful discipline just mentioned. The role is similar to that of a chair or REFEREE who is charged
with seeing ‘fair play’.

Another helpful metaphor is that of the GUARDIAN of the ethos of the community. But, again, it is better to involve
the whole group in trying to deal with any interpersonal problems that arise in the course of the enquiry — the aim
being for the group to self-facilitate, as well as for individuals to self-manage.

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34 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART C / Developing Facilitation

Key elements of thinking and

facilitation
from Fisher, R. Teaching Thinking, Cassell 1998
Thinking includes a number of important elements that a facilitator can model and encourage to provide forward
movement in a discussion. The facilitator is there to provide positive cognitive interventions that help take the
discussion forward.

During the discussion the facilitator needs to be aware of opportunities to focus attention on the key elements of
thinking. These include:
• Questioning — asking good questions to provide a focus for the enquiry
• Reasoning — requesting reasons or evidence to support arguments and judgements
• Defining — clarifying concepts through making connections, distinctions, and comparisons
• Speculating — generating ideas and alternative viewpoints through imaginative thinking
• Testing for truth — gathering information, evaluating evidence, examples and counter examples
• Expanding ideas — sustaining and extending lines of thought and argument
• Summarising — abstracting key points or general rules from a number of ideas or instances

Strategies to extend and develop student thinking include:

• Thinking time — encourage pauses for thought or some moments of quiet meditation on a topic.
Remember to provide at least three seconds thinking time after you have asked a question and three
seconds thinking time after a child gives an answer.
Think–pair–share — allow individual thinking time about a question, invite discussion of the question
• 
with a partner, then open up for class discussion.
• Ask follow-ups — ask children to extend or qualify what they said by asking questions that challenge
their thinking such as ’Why?’, ‘Do you agree or disagree?’, ’Can you say more?’, ’Can you give an example?’,
’Describe how you arrived at that answer’.
• Withhold judgement — respond to student answers in a non-evaluative way e.g. a positive but neutral
response such as ‘Thank you’, ‘OK, ‘That’s interesting’, ‘A-ha’, ‘I see’.
Invite the whole group to respond — encourage a response from the whole group by saying things such
• 
as; ‘How many people agree/disagree with that point of view?’ (Hands/thumbs up, down or to side). You
can also ask questions such as ‘Having heard that, what questions might we ask?’
Ask for a summary — promote active listening by asking for a summary of what has been said e.g. ‘Could
• 
you summarise Kim’s point?’, ‘Can you explain what Jane has just said?’, ‘Can you tell me the arguments so
far?’
• Play devil’s advocate — challenge students to give reasons for their views by presenting opposing points
of view, or by asking students to be devil’s advocates, ‘Who can think of a different point of view/an
argument against that?’
• Invite a range of responses — model open mindedness by inviting students to consider different view
points: ‘There is no single correct answer to this question. I want you to consider alternatives’.
Encourage student questioning — invite students to ask their own questions before/during
• 
and/or after discussion. ’Has anyone got a question about what has been said?’ etc.

A good facilitator will be aiming to develop a ‘spiral’ (sometimes called a ‘cycle’) of enquiry. In essence, these
metaphors point to the possibility/desirability of one enquiry session’s leading naturally into another — rather than
wrapping everything up in 10 steps, and then starting a wholly new sequence.

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART C / Developing Facilitation 35

The key to this transition is to develop the use of the tenth (Review) step so that it becomes more focussed on a
Plan for what to do in the next enquiry session.

There could, then, be several options to consider, for example:

• whether any particular skill might need improvement, e.g. looking for consequences, recalling aims,

making conceptual connections, drawing comparisons or distinctions, listing properties, expressing
yourself more precisely or clearly, recognising your feelings, looking at the speaker or your audience,
listening for understanding, summarising, inferring, generalising, giving reasons, etc. The plan, then,
might be to devote the best part of the next session to practising and applying the skill. If the pupils can
make suggestions for how to do this, so much the better, but be prepared to find or develop an activity
of your own for this purpose.

• whether any of the other questions that were originally voted on would be worth revisiting in the next
session — in which case you would go straight onto those, and not need to start over with the 10 steps.
The plan, then, might be to re-vote on the questions, or perhaps just go through them spending as little
or long on each one as seems productive. Advanced communities of enquiry would actually review the
questions, if not the stimulus, and consider whether they are the best set of questions to carry forward,
or whether they could be amended or added to.

• whether any questions arose during the main enquiry/dialogue that would be worth further
exploration. The plan, then, would be to prioritise these and decide roughly how long to spend on the
exploration. It helps enormously for this purpose to have any questions that emerge during the dialogue
clearly identified and listed.

• whether there are any big ideas that were explicit or implicit in the dialogue that would be interesting
to think more about in the future. The simplest, if not best, way of following this path is to make a
(collective) A-Z chart of big ideas straight after the enquiry — and then ask small groups to discuss and
recommend one or two ideas for further enquiry. You would probably look for a consensus on which
ideas to carry forward, and how (e.g. what sorts of stimuli/provocations to thinking might be available),
and for how long. This could turn into a major planning session, in which the direction of enquiry for
several sessions might be determined.

• whether there might be any interesting creative follow up to the dialogue. This could be in the form
of story-making, drama, artwork, etc., or in the form of action of ‘policy’ — such as personal resolutions
or collective decisions or demonstrations. Any of these would require planning, some in detail, and that
should include some element of reflection (as in ‘Plan, Do, Review’) if not monitoring and evaluation.
Consideration should also be given as to whether the follow up might itself lead into new areas of
enquiry, or whether to go then for the next option:

• whether it is time for a wholly new stimulus, and direction of enquiry — in which case, suggestions
of new areas of interest might be sought. The plan might be to ‘theme’ some future sessions, and could
even include pupils’ sharing responsibility for the choice of stimulus.

Whichever of these options might be chosen, the overall aim is to give the pupils a sense that enquiry is not the sort
of thing that can be confined to one or at most two sessions, and then has to wait until the following week to start
again. Rather enquiry can be seen as a way of (mental) life, with ever more questions to be raised and research and
reflection skills to be practised and developed. Philosophical questions, which have a habit of getting ‘bigger’ the
more time you spend thinking about them, are just the very best ones for helping pupils develop their own spiral
(and spirit) of enquiry.

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Further ideas for facilitating and

building a Community of Enquiry
Will Ord
There are many types, taxonomies and methods for ‘Thinking Skills’. There’s Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking (Six
Hats etc.), Somerset Thinking Skills, the CASE and CAME projects from King’s College London, Gardner’s Multiple
Intelligences, Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, Brain Gym, Mind Maps…it can get confusing!

All have something to offer in their way, alongside many other methods of teaching and learning. Techniques, like
mind mapping, can help develop specific thinking skills (comprehending, memorising etc.) very effectively. However,
few of these Thinking Skills approaches offer teachers and pupils a way of making structured progress over months,
terms and years. There’s a limit to their potential because they are either too narrow in their application (i.e. ‘memory
improvement’), or do not actively engage the communal aspects of thinking and communication (i.e. thinking
collaboratively).

One great advantage of the P4C approach is that it not only helps facilitators develop techniques to use during a
single enquiry, but also offers them a long term vision too; a point on the horizon towards which they may guide
their communities over time. Let us clarify this idea through a brief exercise:

Reflect on the nature of a particular class you may teach

What are they like? Energetic, but poorly applied? Too quiet and painfully obedient? Brimming with ideas, but too
noisy? Tired and listless? Quite likely, your class has a unique combination of these (and other) elements, with its own
particular dynamic. This is your real starting place as a community!

Now imagine what this community could be like a few years down
the road; an ‘ideal community’

Imagine that they have excellent Community of Enquiry skills. They’re curious, thoughtful, motivated, critical,
reasonable, learn lots and facilitate themselves brilliantly. Imagine how you would feel walking to the classroom
before the lesson! What might they say to you as they walk in? What’s the energy in the room like? Are you swept
along with their thoughts at all? Are you learning too? What emotions or ideas might they express at the end of the
enquiry?

This image might serve as your long-term goal as a community. How are you going to get there given your real
starting place?

First, try reflecting on the particular strengths of that community

What’s working in your favour? What — or who — could you use or build on? Also, consider what skills or dispositions
they are lacking: the more specific you can be the better! Which skills do they need to develop? Identify the most
badly needed skill (Listening? The ability to risk thinking aloud?). Make that needed skill your first priority as a
facilitator.

So, how could you target that needed skill in — or outside of — an enquiry?

What warm-up games, stimuli, ground rules, displayed messages, images, facilitation techniques, question types,
reflection exercises or evaluation tools could you employ to improve that skill? Use that ‘skill need’ to guide your
planning and facilitation.

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Imagine, for a moment, that your community has actually improved on that needed
skill

Celebrate it! Then consider which skill you might target next. You could ask for their suggestions: ‘What do we need
to improve most about our community or enquiries? Any solutions?’ This will help to shift the responsibility for
learning and behaviour to them more directly.

Step by step, or skill by skill, work your way towards that community ideal
Of course, skill development in a community is not always a linear process, but it may make your planning clearer,
and the process more efficient and enjoyable!

Is it philosophical dialogue, or interesting chat?

For the most effective practice of P4C, facilitators need to distinguish between ‘philosophical dialogue’ and interesting
chat’. Overleaf are some ideas and techniques that may help you, and your pupils, turn chat into good dialogue.

Philosophical dialogue (PD) differs from everyday discourse in at least two crucial ways. First of all, PD is hallmarked
by a search for truth and understanding which may not feature in classroom chat. There’s a sense of investigation
at play; the search for refined, challenged, and extended views or concepts. Everyday discourse — talking about the
pleasures of a holiday or the weather in Tibet, for example — does not necessarily include such a search.

Secondly, PD requires a degree of structure and rigour to work well. A search for something is usually much more
effective when it’s organised! We can all wonder about things, but in PD this wonder needs to lead to some sort of
progression. Different ideas can be aired and shared, but at some point participants need to engage with and develop
them further.

After the philosophical dialogue, pupils should be able to reflect and identify an advance of some sort: a developed
idea, a new question, another perspective, or, perhaps, simply an appreciation of complexity. It doesn’t have to be
an Earth-shaking revelation, but it’s important that progress is recognised in some way.

“Children in a classroom, or philosophers, will tack back and forth

like a boat going into the wind — they will go this direction, they
will go that direction. But on the whole, they go forward, and
that’s the difference between a philosophical dialogue and a mere
conversation: there’s a forward movement.”
Matthew Lipman in Socrates for Six-Year-Olds

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To help children philosophise (rather than chat) it may be helpful to do the following:

1. Ask them, after a few enquiries, to investigate the difference between chat and philosophical discussion. Perhaps
use two short scripts of people talking (one philosophical and one chatty) for them to compare. Ask them to list the
‘signs of philosophical dialogue’ (phrase as appropriate!).

2. Share — where possible — helpful terminology with them. For example, introduce the words ‘definition’,
‘interpretation’, ‘assumption’ and see if they begin to use them in discourse. Philosophical vocabulary can be learned
by surprisingly young pupils (even four- or five-year-olds), and it can significantly help them deal with their questions
and communication.

3. Ask for someone to chart the flow of a discussion on the board. It can provide children with a visual guide and
record of the discussion, and can help them stick to the enquiry question. Who might scribe? Perhaps a higher
ability pupil (structures ideas well in writing?), or a noisy one (quietens them down but keeps them involved?), or a
confident quiet pupil (models and celebrates their skills?).

4. Encourage children to link their ideas with others. Asking them to use classmates’ names can be helpful, as can
asking them to talk directly to each other rather than through the teacher. You might also get them to respond briefly
to the last speaker (summarise, agree, disagree or thank?) before they contribute their own ideas.

5. As facilitator, keep an eye on the chosen enquiry question – the ‘rudder’ as I see it. Help to keep the dialogue
developing and relevant by checking to see if the present discussion connects to the question. Ask pupils ‘And how
do you think that (excellent!) idea connects to our question?’ or ‘Can anyone see how that example, thought or
comment might help us with our journey here?’, ‘So where has our discussion taken us in relation to our question?’

6. Ensure that children get the chance to reflect on the dialogue, however short it is. Perhaps get them to discuss in
pairs what they discovered, or ask them to write down just one new idea that they heard, or a question that they
would now like to ask. These thoughts could be shared in a ‘Last Words’ round, or pinned on a Thought Wall.

Listening skills

As teachers we often ask (or command!) our pupils to ‘listen’. We recognise that without this skill, a child’s ability to
learn, communicate, collaborate and care about others is dramatically reduced. Indeed, a Community of Enquiry
that can’t listen is hardly a ‘community’ at all. So how, as facilitators, might we encourage improvements in this
essential skill? Here are a dozen practical suggestions:

Check that pupils have reflected on what ‘listening’ actually means!

It’s a simple verb, but actually it’s a complex process. Try playing the ‘odd one out’ game with the words ‘listening’,
‘hearing’ and ‘noticing’. Which is the odd one out, and why? Ask for a reason for each answer offered, and ask pupils
to summarise their ideas in a ‘definition of listening’.

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Use the Chinese symbol for listening and its translation to raise questions

You
To Listen
Eyes

Ear Undivided Attention

Heart

The left section denotes the ‘Ear’. The four sections on the right denote
‘You’, ‘Eyes’, ‘Undivided Attention’ and ‘Heart’.

Why might the eyes be involved? What role could the heart play in listening? Pupils could then create their own
symbol for listening, and display them on a ‘wise skills’ section of the classroom wall.

Ask pupils to draw facial expressions or masks

These should depict ‘how it feels to be properly listened to or ignored, a good listener or a bad listener’. Cartoons,
sketches or poems about these areas might also be explored.

Play the listening game

One pupil sits with his or her back to three others. The pupil is given an unusual shape on a piece of paper to
describe to the others who have to reproduce that shape from that pupil’s verbal instructions (no peeking!).
Compare shapes at the end of the process to evaluate both articulation and listening skills.

Say you are looking for good listening

Before an enquiry process begins, state that your special intention as a facilitator today is to look for good listening,
and that the community will evaluate it at the end of the enquiry. Perhaps ask pupils to go and stand next to
someone who listened really well, and explore why they chose that person.

Use facilitation roles

Ask for (or nominate) a participant to look out for ‘how well we are listening’, and invite them to give brief feedback
during the enquiry, or summarise their observations at the end. Challenge the community to provide their own
solutions to problems of not listening in their community.

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40 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART C / Developing Facilitation

Pause after the ‘sharing reflections’ stage of the enquiry process

After they have reflected on the initial stimulus, pause and ask ‘who listened to you best in your group, and how do
you know they listened well?’. Share the symptoms of a good listener as a community, and perhaps display them.

Beginning contributions with ‘I agree’ or ‘I disagree’

During the enquiry, ask pupils to begin their contribution with ‘I agree with’ or ‘I disagree with’. This technique
ensures both that they are listening to each other and that they are building on each others’ ideas.

Ensure visual contact

Check that participants have equal and open visual contact with each other (where possible!).

Explore why listening is important

You might use Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that ‘children have the right
to have a voice in matters that affect them’. What would life be like if they were not listened to at all? What effect do
they have on other people if they do not listen to them, or just pretend to? Perhaps they might create a drama or
role-play exercise that could be used for peer education, in assemblies, or as a class.

Give loud or dominating pupils particular roles

These should be roles which require them to be ‘quietly but fully involved’. For example, ask one of them to be a
‘scribe’ where they chart the progress of the enquiry on the board, and ask them for feedback at the end of it. If
several pupils talk a lot and exclude others from being listened to, give each participant three playing cards, Lego
pieces or similar. Each time they contribute, they use one, making them think more carefully before they ‘spend their
voice’!

Use group sizes to encourage timid pupils to speak

Quiet or timid pupils might only speak in small friendship groups to begin with, so consider the grouping (in terms
of size and how groups are chosen). Once their confidence starts to build, try enlarging the group sizes gradually so
that they work towards making a contribution in front of the whole class if they wish.

Key point

As facilitator, reflect on the successes, learning points and effects of using these tactics. Some will work well with
your particular community, and others may not. Why?

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 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART C / Developing Facilitation 41

Philosophical Teaching — a pedagogy

for all teachers in the 21st century
Roger Sutcliffe
The ultimate goal of community self-facilitation and the goal of individual self-management (both of which
characterise community of enquiry) are very consistent with the overarching aim of teaching as expressed by John
Hattie: The aim is to help students to learn the skills of teaching themselves — to self-regulate their learning. (Visible
Learning, p. 245)

There are, of course, many skills of teaching, and being able to impart knowledge clearly and engagingly is one of
them. However, with information, and indeed misinformation, now more available than ever via technology, it will
increasingly be teachers’ responsibility to assist children in processing and evaluating information.

Philosophical facilitation is an excellent way of exercising this responsibility, with proven efficacy in raising pupils’
cognitive attainment and critical thinking. Indeed, it can now be argued with conviction that teachers of any
subject and at any level can benefit by developing the various skills involved in such facilitation — skills which they
and their pupils can transfer well beyond P4C sessions.

The time has come, in short, for both teaching and learning to become more philosophical. Here is a brief account
of ‘philosophical teaching’.

The first thing to be very clear about is that philosophical teaching is not the same as teaching philosophy — at
least, not ‘philosophy’ in the conventional sense of a ‘subject’ to be studied. It is obvious enough that P4C itself
is not attempting to introduce children to classic philosophical texts — though it is certainly encouraging them
to think about some of the central concepts of classic philosophy. P4C facilitates better understanding and
appreciation of whatever concepts come in to play; and it does this by raising questions and guiding learners
towards answers that they find meaningful and memorable, and at times motivational.

In this sense, all teachers are philosophical in their purpose — to make what they teach meaningful and memorable
— and, of course, many of them succeed in this purpose, even without ‘philosophical’ training. Teachers see the
value of, and practise, ‘quality’ questioning, and challenging pupils to think more (critically and creatively) for
themselves.

(Incidentally, quality questioning does not have to be ‘higher order’ in the Bloomian sense, nor even ‘philosophical’
in the sense of being focussed on classic philosophical concepts. It is perfectly okay for teachers/facilitators
occasionally to pose information-seeking questions, since their goal — of good understanding and judgement —
relies upon good information. But this goal also relies on making connections and on good reasoning — and this is

“Philosophy for Children is a long-established and well-respected

programme. It’s absolutely brilliant that today’s results give us evidence
of its positive impact on primary pupils’ maths and reading results.
Given its low cost, teachers should use these results to seriously
consider whether philosophy sessions and promoting philosophical
thinking could work in their classroom.”
Sir Kevan Collins, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, July 2015
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why the sort of connective and critical questions suggested earlier should be part of every good teacher’s repertoire.)
There is more to be said about philosophical teaching than just its emphasis on questioning and challenging pupils.
The concept and practice is explored to some depth in an article called The Philosopher’s Pedagogy (Makaiau
and Miller, 2012). They put forward six qualities that might characterise a teacher who teaches philosophically. In
summary, this is what a philosophical teacher should be:

1. Reflective (critical of practice, especially one’s own)

2. Dialogic (engaging pupils in conversation)

3. Constructive (building of understanding)

4. Idealistic (promoting intellectual and social-emotional virtues)

5. Challenging (problem-posing)

6. Evaluative (judgement-seeking)

We have touched on qualities 3, 5 and 6 above, though it is worth highlighting that philosophical teaching, like P4C
itself, is essentially a constructivist pedagogy. But qualities 1, 2 and 4 signal other aspects of the process that make it
especially fit for the 21st century.

To take them in reverse order, ‘idealistic’ asserts a moral as well as instrumental purpose — so that the philosophical
teacher is always conscious of educating the ‘whole’ person for life in social complexes, not simply providing
individuals with qualifications to advance themselves in society. This emphasis attunes well with programmes such
as ‘Habits of Mind’, ‘Building Learning Power’, Values Based and Character Education. But it is potentially wider in
scope and deeper in resources, given the rich ethical vein of philosophical enquiry.

‘Dialogic’ asserts the need for teachers to understand pupils’ thinking as much as they expect pupils to understand
theirs — a need that virtually requires dialogue in the classroom. But cultivating an environment in which pupils
feel safe to speak, and safe when they are challenged, in which the teacher is open to question and to be reasoned
with, is not a simple matter. The didactic classroom of old — even at the end of the 20th century — was often not
conducive to such a climate. P4C, however, is a very model of dialogic teaching and learning, and it is not just skills
that transfer into other ‘lessons’ — it is positive attitudes to learning as well.

As to ‘reflective’, it seems plain enough that if teachers are to develop reflective learners then they must model
reflection themselves, in lessons certainly, but also outside of the classroom, as well as give pupils maximum
opportunity to reflect on their learning. The former is, in effect, part of living a philosophical life, not just of being
a philosophical teacher. The latter can be done by developing routines that students are used to in P4C, such as
Thinking Time and Question-Making, but also by raising the number and quality of reflective and metacognitive
questions one asks.

This brings us back to the asking of questions ‘large and small’. One of the characteristics of a good philosophical
mind is that it oscillates appropriately between ‘big’ questions (of meaning, purpose and value) and ‘little’ — often
‘logical’ — questions (of assumption, implication, exemplifications, validation, etc.).

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The philosophical teacher would, from time to time, ask pupils to stand back and look at the big picture (asking
‘essential’ questions, such as: What do we understand by X? Why are we studying this topic — or, even, subject?
How does it connect with our wider learning or our future lives? Could anyone give a summary of this session?;
but equally would ask pupils to look at the ‘little pixels’ of their learning (asking Socratic questions such as: Are
there any exceptions to that? What conclusion can be drawn from this? Does anyone have an example? What
evidence or argument can you give? These last questions, of course, are designed primarily to push pupils to think
more about their thinking and learning. They are not designed to test attention or recall of information. To end
where this section began, there is still obviously a vital role for teachers to inculcate knowledge in their pupils.
And for most of the school curriculum the knowledge that needs to be inculcated is predetermined, by syllabuses
and examinations. Teachers of ‘subjects’ are duty bound to ‘cover’ their syllabuses, and they should clearly plan
accordingly. That means they will almost always choose the ‘topic’ for each lesson. It does not, however, mean that
the approach taken in P4C is irrelevant to their purpose.

On the contrary, the whole point of this section on philosophical teaching is to show that such a philosophical
approach — with the exception of P4C’s encouragement for pupils to make and choose their own questions for
dialogue — improves and enriches both teaching and learning.

Many ‘topics’ are themselves ‘big’ concepts, that bring together many experiences and expositions, arguments and
auxiliary concepts. To understand and appreciate such concepts requires philosophical interrogation as well as
piled up information. But it is not only subject-specific vocabulary that cries out for such interrogation. Everyday
vocabulary is also full of concepts that are complex and contestable — which is why people so often misinterpret
each other. ‘Enquiry-based learning’ — that is, enquiry by learners, inspired by teachers — is the best road to the
mastery of language and the balancing of perspectives, and philosophical (meaning-seeking and judgement-
forming) teaching plays a vital part in this process.

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44 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART D / The Planning/Review Cycle

D. The Planning/Review Cycle

Firstly, it should be emphasised that, whilst the facilitator cannot predict (and should not pre-empt) the choice of
question for an open enquiry, he/she can and should do some thoughtful planning and preparation for the session.
The 10 steps model/template can be helpful for this — enabling systematic variation of foci for thinking, question-
making and choosing procedures, airing, etc.

But most important of all could be the choice of stimulus and consideration of possible pathways of enquiry within
the session and beyond. We will say more about planning ‘beyond’ the session shortly, but here are a few more
thoughts about choosing stimuli and preparing to use them well.

Choosing stimuli
For their first enquiries, most people find picture books or purpose-written stories, as recommended on the Level 1
course, give the most scope for children to begin thinking philosophically. They have the security of being familiar
with the genre, but can fairly easily be moved to start wondering for themselves.

Note that it would be unusual to use long extracts from books (or even films) as a stimulus, because there would
normally be too many avenues to follow up (and less time for shared enquiry). On the other hand, although
occasionally single sentences or even single words can be the launch-pad for enquiry, the norm is to choose a
stimulus or starter that might have some variety of themes or possible avenues to explore, without being overloaded.

Many fairy or folk tales provide ‘hooks’ or ‘pointers’ to such themes, but so do well-chosen photos or even songs or
pieces of music. In fact, after a while, both pupils and teachers find all sorts of things that stimulate their wonderings,
and they actively seek out interesting, even intriguing stimuli. All of the following have been used:

News articles Picture books Photographs Art works Dialogues

Short extracts from novels Poems Songs Sayings, proverbs, quotations Comics
Film extracts TV or YouTube clips Artefacts or objects
Essays Real events or incidents

Just to emphasise: the themes do not have to be very traditional philosophical ones, such as justice, truth, etc.
Indeed, one of the attractive features of the P4C approach is that it has considerably broadened the range of themes
or concepts that seem fit for philosophical enquiry (see Section B, pp.22-32).

It is, then, an important part of a facilitator’s preparation for an enquiry session to give some thought as to what
range of such ideas, concepts, themes or even issues might emerge from the stimulus. Even better, they might
prepare, mentally or on paper, a couple of questions that they might ask by way of exploring each concept. For more
help with how to prepare such questions, refer to the section on Thinking with Concepts (see p.28), and/or study
some discussion plans such as those that Lipman originally devised, or those developed by Professor Robert Fisher.
You will find examples in Appendix 1, pp. 49-59).

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The list of possible stimuli above indicates that it would be perfectly possible for teachers to use material from and
within the ‘ordinary’ curriculum as stimuli for philosophical enquiry, and indeed some teachers are inclined to go
down this path because they are worried about spending too much time ‘wandering’ away from the prescribed
curriculum.

Actually, of course, intellectual ‘wandering’ is not such a bad thing, and at least one session a week of P4C can provide
exactly the sort of antidote to over-prescription that many children need. But perhaps more important is to recognise
that opportunities should be provided and taken to do some philosophical — or at least conceptual — enquiry even
within the existing curriculum subjects. Such enquiry can be quite spontaneous, prompted by a chance remark or a
question that could open up philosophically, and may last for only 5 to 10 minutes. Some teachers even pause their
‘ordinary’ lessons and say ‘Let’s just P4C this a little!’ — meaning, to think a bit wider and/or deeper about it.

Returning to the idea of using material from within the curriculum as a stimulus of philosophical enquiry, this would,
of course, increase the risk of a facilitator’s steering the questions and subsequent enquiry toward particular subject
matter, and on the whole this should still be avoided. The children would probably lose their sense of freedom of
thought, which is one of the major attractions of philosophical enquiry. And even if time spent on ‘content’ is lost, it is
more than compensated for by time spent on good listening, speaking and thinking. Besides, children’s interest in the
curriculum topic or area is often, itself, stimulated by talking ‘around’ it.

If, however, a teacher has very limited time available, for example in a foundation subject or with a particular focus
(such as Global Citizenship) it may be necessary to compromise in order to do justice to the subject or focus. One
such compromise could be to negotiate with the pupils for enquiries to be alternately ‘open’ (in the usual way)
and ‘pre-focused’. In the latter case, pupils would still be asked to develop their own questions, but to cluster them
around a given theme, such as ‘environment’ or ‘difference’.

Reviewing
We move on now from pre-enquiry Preparation to post-enquiry Review and Planning. Ideally, time should be found
for reviewing every enquiry straight or soon afterwards — perhaps on return from a break. Even in a full timetable
there should be at least ten minutes available for such important reflection, though the more thoughtful and reflective
the community becomes, the longer and more productive the Review session can be.

There are many forms or devices for reviewing, and they are certainly not unique to P4C. Common to most of them
is to focus on positive and negative aspects of whatever process is being reviewed, and a popular form for doing this
is Edward de Bono’s PMI - Plus, Minus and Interesting (points or features). In P4C this is sometimes altered to PMQ —
Plus and Minus features, and any Questions arising.

A variation on this theme is ‘Two Stars and a Wish’, in which two positive comments are invited (generally from
individuals or pairs, but sometimes from the whole group after some private reflection) for every negative comment.

But perhaps the favourite such form in P4C is ‘[Link]’, which stands for ‘What went well? Even better if…’ This
clearly invites positive comments in the first instance, and then points the ‘negatives’ towards positive suggestions for
improvement. Let us be clear, however, what is being reviewed or evaluated in this way. Put another way, who and/
or what are being evaluated?

In fact, review/evaluation can focus on different people as well as many different aspects of the practice. Individuals
can self-evaluate, or evaluate their talking partners; or the group could consider how it is working as a whole; or they
could even focus on the role of the facilitator. To give you a flavour of how the facilitator could self-evaluate, overleaf
is a sample evaluation sheet.

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P4C Facilitator Review

Organising the lead up to the enquiry (Did I …)

1. choose a good time of day/week for the session?

2. choose a good exercise to start the session?
3. link the exercise to the last session? (Or: make clear how it linked with the upcoming session?)
4. choose a good stimulus for enquiry? (Or: help the participants to make a good choice?)
5. prepare for the range of big ideas that might emerge from the stimulus?
6. enable good thinking time, e.g. by providing a focus or framework for thinking?
7. organise the question-making well, e.g. by enabling good conversation in pairs/groups and
giving clear guidance about when and how to publish questions?
8. enable all questions to be aired and appreciated?
9. manage the question-choosing well, so that everyone was happy with the process?

Conducting the enquiry (Did I …)

10. help the community to focus on the chosen question(s) from the start?
11. encourage different, creative ideas, especially at the start?
12. encourage the community to build collaboratively on each other’s ideas?
13. do my best to ensure that everyone was included and interested in the enquiry?
14. (Could I have) encouraged them to listen more carefully to each other?
15. ensure that the community expressed their ideas with care, not least for each other’s feelings?
16. (Should I have) encouraged the community to be more critical of each other’s ideas, questioning their evidence
or reasons?
17. ensure that progress was made in answering the question? (Or: at least ensure that the community was
increasing its understanding?)
18. make sure that questions arising during the enquiry were addressed or at least noted for later consideration?
19. encourage the practice of any particularly useful words or phrases during the enquiry, such as agree/disagree,
but, so, etc.?
20. help the community recognise and reflect on the key concepts, during or at the end of the enquiry, e.g. by
listing, or concept-mapping, them?
21. enable good last thoughts, e.g. by providing a focus or framework for them, and perhaps a way of recording
them?

Conducting the review (Did I …)

22. provide a good opportunity for the community to evaluate the process, e.g. [Link] (what went well, even
better if)?
23. encourage them to make resolutions for how to improve their thinking, speaking and acting in the
next enquiry?
24. encourage them to make links between the ideas in the enquiry and the rest of their lives or learning?
25. check whether there could be any questions for further research or reflection, in class or out?

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This could be regarded as a useful check-list for yourself as a facilitator, but it could also, of course, point to particular
aspects of the whole process that the whole class could focus on as well. You might, indeed, enable them to focus on
their own contributions and responsibilities precisely by initially focusing on your own.

There are just a couple of caveats to using the above form as a basis for whole class evaluation. One is that the
vocabulary is, indeed, precise, and you may need to ‘translate’ it appropriately for your children. (Your course trainer
should be able to point you to other forms available that might help with this, not least from Phil Cam’s book,
Thinking Together, or Robert Fisher’s book, Teaching Thinking). But inducting the children/community into these
ways of thinking about the process is part of enabling them to take more responsibility for it themselves.

The second caveat is not to attempt to go through this list from start to finish with the children/community. At most
one might pick three or four aspects in a single review session, and use them not to get a quick ‘score’ but rather as
a basis for thoughtful reflection and discussion about the part that everybody played in the session, and could play
in future. In this last respect, item 23, on resolutions, is perhaps the most important. There is no point in evaluating
a process unless it results in ideas and intentions to make it better. That is the essence of formative (as opposed to
summative) assessment or evaluation, of which this form is an example.

There are, it has to be said, many other creative forms of evaluation that P4C espouses, including the popular ‘Blob’
trees/pictures, which are especially useful in the early days of community and confidence-building.

Here are some other ideas based on a list by Will Ord:

1. Use ‘roles’ in the Community of Enquiry. Ask one or two volunteers to keep a check on chosen areas for
assessment (e.g. listening, reasoning, fairness etc.) Ask them to give feedback and suggestions during or after the
enquiry.
2. Mystic Marge Saw It All. Mystic Marge has been floating above the community during the enquiry. What advice
would she give the community for improving the next enquiry?
3. Use cartoons with speech bubbles for participants to fill out: one might reflect on the content of the enquiry (the
question topic) and another on the process (the enquiry itself). Or use Post-it notes for written thoughts about
‘how the enquiry went’, which could be displayed on an ‘Enquiry Evaluation’ chart. The notes could be colour-
coded, say, for plus, minus and neutral.
4. Long and short term assessment. Invite the Head or a colleague in to observe the class, and then again weeks or
months later. What changes did they observe? (Give them a score sheet?)
5.  Pick three participants to focus on in particular (one quiet, one average, one noisy?), and chart their progress.
6. Where possible, involve the participants in finding solutions to difficulties in the enquiry process. For example,
what do they think would improve listening to each other?
7. Target just a few things to assess in each enquiry (there’s so much going on!) and consider sharing them with
the community before you start. Perhaps one skill, and one content aim?
8. Have a ‘Community Evolution’ time chart on the wall; a displayed record of how well they think they are
advancing as a community with good skills, atmosphere, enquiry discoveries and questions they chose.

9. Celebrate the good stuff! Ask participants to stand next to or point at someone who really listened well, gave
good reasons etc. in the enquiry. Or use certificates to recognise good P4C skills.
10. Ask participants to keep a private Thought Diary or Philosophy File (not to be marked with grades) that they
could jot their ideas in. (Useful long term evaluation).
11. Use video, transcripts or audio tapes to record part of an enquiry process. You might ask participants to evaluate
specific things on them. Transcripts take time but can be very revealing,

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48 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / PART D / The Planning/Review Cycle

Activity for developing awareness (or practice) of the 4Cs

For each of these ‘I can/do’ (or even ‘I did’) statements, decide whether it is usually a sign of:
Caring thinking
Creative thinking
Critical thinking
Collaborative thinking

1. Disagree and say why 11. Draw a distinction

2. Use ‘thinking time’ well 12. Give full attention to the speaker
3. Ask a good question 13. Ask for evidence
4. Give an example 14. Build on someone else’s idea
5. Think of ‘what follows’ 15. Try to explain myself clearly
6. Remind everyone of the question 16. Thank someone for their thought
7. Suggest a new idea 17. Name someone when I spoke
8. Make a comparison 18. Ask for an example
9. Work well with others 19. Act in a friendly way
10. Look after people’s feelings

Planning
Part of the review session could and, before long, should be focused on making plans for the future (in a ‘cycle of
enquiries’). This is most often done collectively but could also be done individually (e.g. by inviting children to write
resolutions in their ‘enquiry diaries’ or ‘philosophy files’).

Here are some questions that might guide the facilitator or the community:

Lessons about us

• Is there any action that any/all of us did in this enquiry that we should try not to do next time?
• Is there any action that any/all of us did not do in this enquiry that we should try to do next time?
• Is there any attitude that any/all of us had in this enquiry that we should try not to have next time?
• Is there any attitude that any/all of us did not have in this enquiry that we should try to have next time?
• Is there any skill that any of us used in this enquiry that we could all try to use next time?
• Is there any skill that none of us used in this enquiry that we could all try to use next time?

Systematic practice
To get the best from P4C, there is a need to have regular linked sessions of enquiry and reflection.

• What links can be made between our enquiry questions and other questions we have come across in class?
What topics or subject areas might we follow those questions up in?
• What opportunities for practising our skills can be found in our other lessons in the coming week?
•  an we turn our philosophical thinking to creative projects, such as writing stories, plays, poems or dialogues?
C
Or making displays, posters, videos or even works of art?

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 Appendix 1
Sample Resources

Stimulus for Enquiry: The Professor and the Ferryman by Robert Fisher

There was once an old ferryman who lived in a hut by the River Ganges. For as long as anyone could remember
his family had rowed boats across the river. His father had been a ferryman, and so had his grandfather before
him.

Like all the villagers, the ferryman was poor. The money he made by rowing people across the river was hardly
enough to feed his family. He had taken over the job of ferryman when he was a boy and had been doing it ever
since. Although life was hard he never grumbled, for he was pleased to be of service to
his passengers.

The ferryman learned a lot about life by talking to his passengers. He heard about life in the city, but he could not
understand why people would want to live there. It seemed that city people spent all their lives rushing about
with no time to think. The ferryman rowed slowly. He was in no hurry. He had time to talk and time to think
about things.

One day a well-dressed man with a shiny briefcase climbed into his boat. He wore a smart suit and had well-
polished shoes. He looked like a city gentleman. Slowly the ferryman began to row his passenger across the river.
After a while the man from the city spoke.

‘My good man,’ he said, ‘have you studied any history?’

‘No sir,’ said the ferryman.

‘What?’ said the city man in surprise. ‘Not studied history? Don’t you know how important history is? Are you not
proud of your country’s history? Why don’t you know any history?’
The ferryman shook his head. ‘I don’t know any history, sir. I can’t read, sir. I never went to school and so I didn’t
learn history.’

‘Didn’t learn?’ said the man. ‘There’s no excuse for not learning. That is why we are here. You surely learnt some
geography?’
‘No sir,’ said the ferryman. ‘I don’t know any geography.’

‘Well,’ said the man, ‘geography tells us about the world. Don’t you know anything about the world — the
countries, mountains and rivers...?’
‘I never went to school,’ said the ferryman, ‘I don’t know about these things.’ After a few minutes the man asked:
‘Have you studied any science?’

‘Sci-ence? No sci-ence, sir.’

‘Haven’t you heard about science?’ said the man in amazement. ‘About the sun, moon and tides, about how
things work? Scientists are the most important people in the world today. Look at me. I’m a scientist. Do you see
my briefcase? It is full of important books and papers. I’m a professor of science. If you don’t know about science
then you don’t know about the world. You have learnt nothing! And if you don’t know anything you might as well
be dead!’

The ferryman looked sad. He had never been spoken to like this before. He felt he knew nothing, so much
knowledge hidden in books that he had never learnt.

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50 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / Appendix 1 / Sample Resources

Suddenly dark clouds moved across the sky. The boat began to rock in heavy waves and there was a roar of thunder.
‘We will be caught in a storm,’ said the ferryman, ‘can you swim?’

The professor looked fearful and clutched his briefcase. ‘Oh dear!’ he cried. ‘I cannot swim. I never learnt!’

The small boat was tossed wildly to and fro by the wind and waves. Lightning flashed and the rain poured down.
Suddenly a large wave overturned the boat, and both men were thrown into the swirling waters. The old ferryman
lost sight of his passenger in the water and swam slowly to the safety of the shore. But the professor, still clutching
his briefcase, sank and disappeared beneath the dark waters of the river.

Indian folktale, from Robert Fisher (1994), Stories for Thinking, Nash Pollock Publishing, ISBN: 9781898255093.

Step/stage Title Details for facilitator Mins

Partner A pictures something in their mind(’s eye) and says,
‘I spy in my mind something beginning with …’ (as in ‘I-spy’)
Partner B has four guesses about what is in A’s mind.
1. Getting set Mind Spy After each failed guess, A has to give a clue, such as ‘animal’,
5
or ‘smaller’, or ‘last letter is Y’.
Roles alternate as long as time allows.
One or two lines or sentences are read aloud by each person
2. Stimulus Read Around in turn (though with ‘right to pass’).
5

Individuals think of one or two ‘talking points’ or ‘big

ideas’ from the stimulus — something they think would be 2
3. Thinking Time Finding Talking interesting to talk about.
2
(private, then public) Points Pairs or trios share their ‘talking point’ in conversation, and
agree for one of them to report their conversation to the -4
whole group.
Reporters are invited to share their ‘talking points’, ideally
building on other people’s if there is a ‘common interest’.

Question for Whole group invited to turn talking points/common interests

4. Question-Making 10
Thinking into good ‘questions for thinking’, i.e. questions that need
more thinking and discussion (‘discussible questions’).

Facilitator writes these on board, with names.

5. Question-Airing Questions to be celebrated in turn by someone other than

Celebration original questioners. (‘I like X because…’) 4

Omnivote ‘You may vote for as many questions as you like, including
6. Question-Choosing your own.’ (perhaps with eyes closed) 2
(maybe ‘blind’)

Break as necessary Total 30

Invite the people whose question was chosen to give some
Questioners
7. First Thoughts of their own first thoughts in response to the person(s) who 3
Kick Off
celebrated their question.
Invite the last of the questioners to speak to choose the
next person to speak, and so on, unprompted, for next ten
minutes. Advise anyone who wants to respond to anything
Speaker said to hold hands out (or on their knee/heart, etc.) or
8. Building thumbs up (on their knee/table, etc.) 17
Chooses
Facilitator becomes ‘chair’ again — focusing back on original
question to see (a) what has been agreed (b) what remains to
think about
Allow time for reflection on ‘what I learnt from the enquiry,
9. Last Thoughts Lessons Learnt and how it could change what I think/do’. 5

‘How well did we listen, and whose ideas did each of us

10. Review/Planning 2/4/6/8 appreciate?’ What to do next? 5

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Sample discussion plan for an enquiry using the stimulus The Professor and The
Ferryman, focussing on Caring Thinking (listening and appreciating)

Below are two ‘discussion/enquiry plans’ and further activities suggested by Professor Fisher, which might be used as
models for creating your own discussion plans.

Thinking about the story

Key question: What does the story mean?

1. Who was the ferryman? What do we know about him?

2. The story says he never grumbled. Do you think this is possible? Do you know anyone like that? Who?
3. Why did he not live in the city? Do you agree with him?
4. Who was the well-dressed man? Why did he ride in the ferryman’s boat?
5. Why did the man think learning history was important? Do you agree?
6. Why did he think geography was important? Do you agree?
7. Why did he think science was important? Do you agree?
8. Do you think the ferryman really knew nothing about history, geography or science? Why?
9. What happened at the end of the story? Do you think the professor drowned? What might have
happened next?
10. Is there a lesson to be learnt from this story? What do you think it might it be?

Thinking about wisdom and learning

Key question: What is worth learning?

1. Why do children go to school?

2. Do you think all children should go to school?
3. What is education? Does it only happen in school?
4. Is what you learn in school more important than what you learn out of school? Why?
5. Where do you learn most — at home or at school? Why do you think so?
6. Which lessons do you think are most important?
7. Which lessons do you think are least important — or not important?
8. Some people are said to know a lot, some are said to be wise. What does ‘wise’ mean?
9. Do you have to be old to be wise? Why?
10. Do you have to know a lot to be wise? What do you need to know to be wise?

Further activities

•  ist all the subjects you learn in school. Choose those you think are important, and put them in order of
L
importance. List your favourite subjects. Compare and discuss your lists.
• Keep a learning log (think book or journal) to write your thoughts about what you learn
• Draw a picture of your favourite teacher. Do others recognise who it is?
• Study the history of your school, e.g. invite someone to be interviewed about their school days in the past
• Design what your dream school would be like

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52 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / Appendix 1 / Sample Resources

Stimulus for Enquiry: Extract from Chapter 1 of Elfie by Matthew Lipman

Age range: Five to seven

Focus: General reasoning and enquiry

Yesterday Seth said, ‘Elfie hardly ever talks. Maybe she’s not for real!’

That just shows how wrong he can be! Maybe I don’t talk much, but I think all the time. I even think when I sleep.
I don’t have fancy dreams. I just think, when I’m asleep, about the same things I think about when I’m awake.

*******

Last night I woke up, in the middle of the night, and I said to myself, ‘Elfie, are you asleep?’

I touched my eyes, and they were open, so I said, ‘No, I am not asleep.’ But that could be wrong. Maybe a person
could sleep with her eyes open.

Then I said to myself, ‘At this moment, am I thinking? I really wonder.’

And I answered myself, ‘Stupid! If you can wonder, you must be thinking! And if you’re thinking then, no matter what
Seth says, you’re for real.’

*******

Today Steve said, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be a test pilot.’

And Diana said, ‘I’m going to be a doctor.’

I said to myself, ‘Why are they in such a hurry to grow up? I like whatever age I am. And I don’t want to get any older
until I’ve thought about everything that’s happening to me.’

I was sitting next to Sofia, so I turned to her and said, ‘Some kids think only about tomorrow, and never about today.’

She said, ‘I know.’

‘Like,’ I said, ‘I’m interested in my body. I want to know how it works. And my mind. I want to know all about that,
too, and how it works.’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And my life,’ I said. ‘I don’t care so much what it will be. I want to know now what it is. I want to be able to think
about it and examine it, the way I do my body and my mind.’

Sofia said, ‘Yes, ‘cause otherwise, if you couldn’t, would it be worth living?’

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Elfie — Forethoughts and afterthoughts

The teacher’s manual that accompanies Elfie is entitled ‘Getting our thoughts together’. In the preface Matthew
Lipman writes: ‘Philosophy is particularly concerned with the ways in which our thoughts relate to one another.
There is a myth that children are, at the start, physical beings, (and) only slowly do their minds form. But once
children have acquired language, their minds are almost instantaneously crammed with thoughts. Children think
constantly, and they reflect upon what they think. It is the promise of philosophy to help them think better and
reflect better. Children acquire knowledge constantly, and they try to use what they know. It is the task of philosophy
to help them apply their knowledge more effectively, so that they can make better judgements in the course of their
lives.’

Judgement is indeed exercised by children as well as adults from moment to moment, even — or perhaps especially
— in the choice of one’s words. But, it hardly needs saying, not all judgement is good judgement. And just as the
practice of walking, for example, can help us be better judges of space and surfaces, so the practice of talking may
help us be better judges of people and purposes.

Lipman’s whole Philosophy for Children programme, starting with Doll’s Hospital for three to five-year-olds, is
intended to nurture their natural curiosity, and to develop their language and thinking skills. Rejecting rigid theory
about child development, it challenges teachers, as well as young children, to play with language just as with Lego
— to create and explore ‘wacky worlds’, even whilst refining their use of common words to deal with perennial
problems.

The first of the follow up exercises below, slightly adapted from the manual, succeeds in being both ‘wacky’ and
practically or linguistically useful. Like any exercise in the manual, it can be presented for its potential to help children
make better sense of things — in this case not of a concept so much as a convention of printing; or it can simply be
presented as a ‘fun’ exercise in talking and thinking together.

Exercise: Different printing > Different emphasis > Different meaning

Read this sentence to the class without emphasising any of the words:

WE DON’T WANT ANY SKUNKS IN OUR CLASSROOM.

1. We don’t want any skunks in our classroom.

2. We don’t want any skunks in our classroom.
3. We don’t want any skunks in our classroom.
4. We don’t want any skunks in our classroom.
5. We don’t want any skunks in our classroom.
6. We don’t want any skunks in our classroom.
7. We don’t want any skunks in our classroom.
8. We don’t want any skunks in our classroom.

Now show the children these different printed versions and read them with suitable emphases. See if, upon
discussion, the children can recognise how different meanings emerge from different emphases.

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54 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / Appendix 1 / Sample Resources

The following might be helpful in seeing the difference:

a. You thought we did want some skunks in our classroom, but we don’t. (2)

b. We want some animals in our classroom, but we don’t want skunks. (5)

c. You may want some skunks in your classroom, but we don’t want any in ours. (7)

d. We’re happy to have skunks in the corridor, but we don’t want them in our classroom. (8)

e. We know you’re trying to put one skunk in each classroom, but we don’t want any in ours. (4)

f. Our teacher wants us to have some skunks in our classroom, but we do not. (1)

g. We don’t mind having skunks outside our classroom, but we don’t want them inside. (6)

h. We’re putting up with skunks in our classroom, but don’t go thinking we want them there. (3)

Finally, let the children practise their own reading of the different versions (with feeling!).

Leading ideas

In the manuals, Lipman refers to ‘leading ideas’ from the text. This expression could lead one to suppose that, if
the children do not choose to think and talk about these ideas, then they should be led (or even directed) to do so.
That is not quite Lipman’s intention. For one thing, there would not be time to follow up all the ‘big’ ideas that are
scattered in the text — let alone all the ‘smaller’ ones. For another, the prime emphasis is on encouraging the children
to find their own points and questions of interest, and to ‘follow the enquiry where it leads’ — in other words, to
enable them to think more widely by connecting their concepts. If they do not happen to make connections to the
leading ideas, then so be it.

All that said, it is not unusual for the enquiries to touch on at least some of these ideas, and then the ‘discussion
plans’ may be used to deepen children’s thinking as much as widening it. Some teachers manage to introduce
discussion plans during the course of an enquiry, but many teachers find it easier to use them as follow ups — for
example, to stimulate some thinking before asking children to make stories, dramas or pictures of their own, or just
as further exercises in collaborative problem solving.

Discussion plan: Talking and thinking

1. Are there things you think but do not say? (If so, give examples, and explore reasons.)
2. Do you ever say things you really don’t believe? (If so, give examples, and explore reasons.)
3. Do you talk more at home or in school?
4. Do you talk differently at home and in school?
5. Does talking with others help you think for yourself?
6. Does thinking to yourself help you talk with others?
7. Do you think when you’re asleep?
8. Can you think without talking? And can you talk without thinking?
9. What is the difference between thinking without talking and talking without thinking?
10. What is the difference between thinking about talking and talking about thinking?
Could they be the same?

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Other areas for exploration or enquiry

Wondering

Socrates is quoted as saying that philosophy itself begins in wonder, and when Elfie says, ‘If you can wonder, you
must be thinking! And if you’re thinking then, no matter what Seth says, you’re for real’, she is echoing Descartes’
famous saying, ‘I think, therefore I am’. Is there an important insight here? Perhaps the importance lies not in what
Descartes thought he was doing — saying something foolproof about some existence — but in what he was actually
doing, which was drawing attention to the peculiar nature of thoughts. Thoughts exist, of course, or these words
would neither be written nor read. But many other things probably exist that are not thoughts. Some of those other
things are pretty wonderful. But is any of them quite as wonderful as the fact that they can be thought about? You
might see how your own children respond to the question: ‘What is the most wonderful thing in the world?’

Growing up

This is a very powerful idea to children and very much part of their reality (just consider the effect of the words
‘grown-ups’). You might help your children explore how they think and feel about growing up: do they share Elfie’s
concerns about growing up too quickly, for example? Or, if you want to challenge their thinking before challenging
their feeling, you could present these ‘cognitive challenges’: Could a person be old but not grown up? Could a person
be grown up but not old? How do you know when you’re grown up? Note: In her resource manual, Storywise, Karin
Murris shows how the concept of growing up can be followed up with the picture book, The Last Noo-Noo by Jill
Murphy, and also how the concept of reality is brilliantly explored in Maurice Sendak’s picture book, Where the Wild
Things Are.

Worth

Children use the expression, ‘Worth it!’, ironically to mean something like ‘I wouldn’t bother!’ It might be fair to say
that with the abstract concept of ‘worth’ - as with the abstract concept of ‘fairness’ - adults have failed to recognise
just how rich and subtle can be the thinking even of young children. But we can all continually refine our concepts
through enquiry, and you might prompt such refining by asking, ‘Is the air worth anything?’ or ‘Is your body worth
anything?’ or even ‘Is your mind worth everything?’

Examination

One of Socrates’ most famous sayings is ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’. He did not, of course, have in mind
examinations as most children know them! Why not put the word ‘examine’ to examination, by asking your children
to give different examples of its use? Is examining a brain the same sort of thing as examining a mind?

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Stimulus for Enquiry: Extract from Chapter 1 of Lisa by Matthew Lipman

Age Range: 12 to 15
Focus: Ethical

Can We Both Love Animals and Eat Them?

‘Take it back!’ Lisa wanted to say to her parents. ‘Take it back wherever you bought it!’ She sat in front of her new
birthday gift, a dressing table with a row of little lights around the mirror, just like in theatre dressing rooms. ‘They
might as well have said to me, ‘Here, make yourself beautiful!’ ‘ Lisa thought. She was sure she’d never be beautiful,
no way.

But she’d accepted the gift with a murmured ‘Gee, thanks,’ and now she found herself searching her face in the glass.

‘Every feature’s just wrong,’ she groaned to herself. ‘Nothing’s right. The forehead’s too high, the eyes are too far apart,
the mouth’s too wide, and the nose tilts up too much. And look at these teeth — spaced apart like pickets!’ She was
even annoyed that her ears were just the slightest bit pointed at the tops. Suddenly she grinned, as she remembered
her father saying earlier that day, ‘Y’know, Lisa, with your features, you should have been a faun.’ She was still amused
by the thought when her mother entered the room. And Mrs Terry smiled too, guessing that Lisa had been using the
dressing table. ‘Dinner’s ready,’ she said softly.

Lisa loved roast chicken, and this chicken was especially well roasted, so that the meat fell away from the bone
while Lisa’s father was carving. He knew how much she liked drumsticks, so he gave her one. It was wonderfully
tender and juicy.

The thought crossed her mind of how Mickey had been trying to tease her the other day in school. ‘Lisa Terry
eats dead chicken,’ he’d said. But Lisa hadn’t gotten angry. She just laughed and replied, ‘Anybody who doesn’t
like chicken — at least the way my mother makes it — must be absolutely crazy!’ She passed her plate for another
drumstick.

After dinner, Lisa went outside. She had hardly reached the sidewalk when Mr Johnson came along with his dog
on a leash. Mr Johnson was new to the neighbourhood; Lisa really didn’t know him at all. When he and the dog got
in front of Lisa’s house, the dog spotted a squirrel by a tree and started after it. Mr Johnson pulled up on the leash
and the dog went sprawling. Then it was up again, growling and straining after the squirrel, which had disappeared
behind the tree.

Mr Johnson started to walk on, but the dog stayed put. The more the leash was pulled and yanked, the more the dog
resisted. Mr Johnson called to his dog, he shouted at it, but the dog did not move. Finally he picked up a small switch
from a nearby bush and began to hit the dog, which crouched, motionless, absorbing the blows. Lisa stared at the
two of them in horror. She couldn’t even cry out. Suddenly she sprang forward and tried to grab the switch. ‘You stop
doing that!’ she commanded furiously. Surprised, Mr Johnson snatched the switch clear and turned, saying: ‘What’s
it to you?’ Beside herself with rage, she blurted out, ‘I’m a dog too!’ He shrugged his shoulders and began pulling on
the leash again. Now the dog ended its resistance and began walking alongside Mr Johnson; soon they were out
of sight.

In school next day, Randy Garlock said, ‘Boy, did I have a great time this weekend! My father took me duck hunting.’

‘Takes lotsa guts to hunt ducks,’ said Mark sarcastically. ‘They’re always so heavily armed.’

‘Very funny,’ Randy replied.

‘You don’t even eat those birds, so why do you kill them?’ Mark persisted.

‘There’s too many of them,’ Randy snapped. ‘Unless hunters kill off the oversupply, there’ll be ducks all over the place.’

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‘Sure, sure. I’ll bet it’s only the hunters who claim to have counted how many there are, and who’ve decided there are
too many, just so they can keep shooting them. I’ll bet the hunters will keep on killing animals until they’re all wiped
out.’

‘So what?’ put in Mickey. ‘Good riddance.’

‘People got a right to hunt,’ Randy said to Mark. ‘It’s in the Constitution.’

‘The Constitution doesn’t say anything about hunting,’ Mark retorted. ‘It just says that men have a right to bear arms
for purposes of defence. Next you’ll be telling me that people have the right to hunt whatever they like, even other
people. I once saw a movie like that, and I’ve never forgotten it.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ Randy retorted. ‘Killing people is altogether different from killing animals.’

‘But if we can exterminate animals because we say there are too many of them, what’s to keep us from exterminating
people because we think there’s too many of them?’

Lisa had been listening to the conversation without saying anything. But now she remarked, ‘Right, because once we
get in the habit of killing animals, we may find it hard to stop when it comes to people.’

Randy shook his head vigorously. ‘People and animals are completely different. It doesn’t matter what you do to
animals, but you just have to remember you shouldn’t do the same things to people.’

The conversation drifted off to other topics, but Lisa was troubled. ‘Why is it,’ she asked herself, ‘that everything looks
so simple, and then when you start talking about it, it always turns out to be so difficult? Mark’s right: it’s horrible the
way we slaughter animals all the time. But in order to eat them, we have to kill them first. I don’t understand — how
can I be against killing birds and animals, when I love roast chicken and roast beef so much? Shouldn’t I refuse to
touch such food? Oh, I’m so confused!’

Lisa — Forethoughts and afterthoughts

‘Lisa’ focuses on moral or ethical enquiry, which, Lipman writes in the introduction to the Teacher Manual, ‘should
not be equated with ‘values-clarification’, ‘decision-making’ or moral dilemma programs’. In P4C enquiry is itself
a moral enterprise — that is to say, when undertaken in community with others it relies upon and develops what
are sometimes called ‘procedural’ virtues, but are better thought of as ‘dialogical’ or ‘communicative’ virtues. These
include not trying to trick people (sincerity); listening to them with a readiness to be changed by what they say
(openmindedness); allowing your imagination to prompt feelings similar to theirs (empathy), and so on.

It is assumed — but also felt in practice — that such virtues or dispositions transfer beyond the Community of Enquiry
to relations and actions in everyday life. Thus moral enquiry is not merely an intellectual process whereby one
clarifies other people’s values without being affected by them, or one goes through a technique of decision-making
(as one might go through a procedure in mathematics) without confronting basic questions such as ‘how do I feel
about this process or conclusion?’

Dilemma programs might offer more chance of educating young people into making personal and sensitive moral
choices, though as Lipman observes they are often based on a stage-theory of moral development originating with
Laurence Kohlberg that does not necessarily do justice to the diversity of young people’s intellects, or even to their
capacities to care for people and things, including abstract ideals (such as justice or fairness itself!).

The characters in Lisa do, in fact, confront a range of dilemmas, beginning with that of whether to eat animals; ‘I
don’t understand,’ says Lisa. ‘How can I be against killing birds and animals, when I love roast chicken and roast beef
so much?’ But the question is as open as it could be, and the story does not attempt, in itself, to resolve the dilemma,
and nor does the teacher manual. Instead, the aim is to develop, alongside a greater sensitivity to the issues, precisely
those intellectual processes — again, some of them might be called virtues — without which it would be hard to
make a good judgement.

© SAPERE [Link]
58 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / Appendix 1 / Sample Resources

Thus, Lipman says, a sound moral education minimally involves helping children understand:

• What criteria are and how they function (judiciousness)

• The significance of assumptions (cautiousness)
• The process of reasoning (rationality)
• The giving of good reasons (reasonableness)
• The moral character of situations (sensitivity)
•  The relative importance and proportion between parts and wholes (proportionality)
• The opinions of other people (imagination)
•  The interests of the community in which one finds oneself (identification)
• The need to take all relevant factors into account (broadmindedness)
• The need to weigh consequences (deliberation)
•  The importance of neither overestimating nor underestimating the role of the self (modesty)
•  The importance of sizing up other people’s and one’s own intentions (insight)
• The anticipation of possible harm as a result of one’s action (foresight)
•  The fundamental importance of preventing moral crises before they occur (precaution)

Lipman also gives some useful pointers as to how one might know that the students are developing such processes
or virtues. Evidence that you are being successful in the teaching of philosophical or moral enquiry is that:

• Students will begin to read more slowly

• They will begin to pore over each line with more care
• They will pay more and more attention to what they and their classmates are saying
•  They will give more attention to what you say and to their own thoughts and feelings

Meanwhile, the teacher’s ‘capacity for listening will increase, and you will begin to hear how they use their terms and
the contexts in which they use them without unconsciously imposing your adult interpretations on their terms.’

This point about teachers listening more deeply, and becoming more careful in their interpretations, is a vital one in
regard to moral education, since it is well said that ‘morals are caught not taught’ — but often, either under pressure
or out of habit, teachers do not model good listening, or do not demonstrate appreciation of the subtleties and
nuances of moral terms and situations. Many of the discussion plans and exercises in Lisa explore these terms and
situations in imaginative and engaging ways. Here are a couple of examples:

[Link] © SAPERE
 SAPERE Handbook Level 1 / Appendix 1 / Sample Resources 59

Exercise: Same and different uses of ‘wrong’

Consider the following pairs of sentences. Is the word ‘wrong’ being used in the same sense in each case, or does it
have a different meaning in each sentence? If different, can you categorise the different senses?

1a. Lila: ‘I dialled Joe, but got the wrong number’.

1b. Griff: ‘It’s wrong to break a promise.’

2a. Stu: ‘What’s wrong with wearing socks that don’t match?’
2b. Trish: ‘What’s wrong with eating peas with a knife?’

3a. Ingrid: ‘The cat looks sick. There must be something wrong with him.’
3b. Latitia: ‘Doing it this way feels all wrong to me.’

4a. Samora: ‘On my test paper I got 8 answers right and 2 wrong.’
4b. Herbert: ‘So that makes 9, because 2 wrongs make a right.’

5a. Nelda: ‘Something’s wrong with this door: it won’t shut.’

5b. Hugo: ‘Something’s wrong: I passed my spelling test today.’

Discussion plan: The word ‘wrong’

1. Can something be unpleasant to do, and still be wrong?

2. Can something be pleasant to do, and still be wrong?
3. Can something be permitted, and still be wrong?
4. Can something be forbidden, and still not be wrong?

Compare the different examples you came up with, and see if they tell you anything about what makes people say
that an action is wrong.

Similar exercises enable the exploration of key moral terms such as rights, privileges, obligations, or reasons and
justifications, means and ends, or circumstances and consequences — and these are taken just from the first six
pages of the story.

© SAPERE [Link]
 Appendix 2
Further Resources

SAPERE provides a range of online guides to support teachers at various stages of the P4C pathway. You can access
them through the SAPERE Student and Trainer Portal, via [Link], using the log-in details supplied when
you signed up for your course. If you need a reminder of your log-in details, do get in touch with the SAPERE office.
Your P4C trainer or the SAPERE office can advise you where to look for the right support tool for your requirements.

Level 1 Getting Started Guide

The Getting Started Guide supports you through the initial stages of your P4C practice. It provides a step-by-step
guide to your first six P4C sessions covering:

• Introducing Philosophy
• Questioning
• Big Ideas and Philosophical Concepts
• Initial Full Enquiry Plans

The guide includes a range of enquiry plans and stimulus suggestions. It is set up so that you can use them in the
classroom and links you to useful resources such as video clips and P4C book suggestions.

Other course online guides

We provide online guides for our other courses with a range of materials and tools. These include course readings,
coursework submission templates and coursework guidance. We provide log-in details for these guides with the
joining instructions for each course.

Bespoke guidance

We can provide bespoke versions of our online guides for your school or project by agreement. These can include
tailored resources and tools such as forums, calendars, surveys and resource-sharing platforms.

School support and teacher mentoring

We supply mentoring, curriculum development and other support to schools.

Copies of this handbook

A PDF version of this handbook is available to download from SAPERE.

Courses and Awards

SAPERE offers Level 1, 2A, 2B, 3 and Tools for Thinking courses.

Schools and other institutions can work towards SAPERE Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards using our flagship Going for
Gold programme. [Link]

[Link]
Contributors
The copyright to individual sections of this handbook remains the property of the commissioned authors who agree
to their work appearing in the SAPERE handbook and on the SAPERE website and/or Student and Trainer Portal.

SAPERE would like to thank the following people for their contributions to this handbook and the Student and Trainer
Portal:

Alison Allsopp, Rebecca Blackwood, Elizabeth Brown, Nick Chandley, Dr Rod Cunningham,, Dr Lynda Dunlop, Dr
Darren Garside, Harriet Goodman, Alison Hall, Dr Patricia Hannam, Dr Joanna Haynes, Dr Barry Hymer, Rob Lewis,
Dr Sue Lyle, Julie McCann, Professor Karin Murris, Kate O’Hanlon, Will Ord, Dr Nicola O’Riordan, Jeremy Reynolds, Dr
John Smith, Sara Stanley, Roger Sutcliffe and Steve Williams.
SAPERE is an internationally-recognised educational charity
dedicated to promoting Philosophy for Children and philosophical
enquiry in schools, colleges and communities. We develop and
deliver validated training courses, support a national community
of teachers, trainers and schools, manage projects, and collate and
publicise research into the benefits of Philosophy for Children.

6th Edition July 2019

Design: [Link]

Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education

Culham Innovation Centre | D5 Culham Science Park | Abingdon | Oxfordshire | OX14 3DB
Tel: 01865 408333 | enquiries@[Link] | [Link]
Registered Charity No 1144595 and a Company Limited by Guarantee No 7821030

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