2nd Global Conference
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Thursday 14th July - Saturday 16th July
2005
Mansfield College, Oxford
Conference Programme, Abstracts & Papers
Session 3: Engagement and Inquiry
Chair: Maureen Mweru
The Portfolio of the Community of Philosophical
Inquiry. A Proposal for a Qualitative Evaluation of Complex Thinking
Marina
Santi and Rossella Giolo
Università di Padova,
Italy and “G. Pascoli” Primary School, Rovigo, Italy
The American curriculum “Philosophy for Children” (P4C) was created by Matthew Lipman in the 70’s to get pupils of various school ages to “philosophize”, turning the classroom into a “community of inquiry”. In this context pupils are encouraged to exchange ideas using philosophical dialogue. The growing attention given to the problem of evaluation by the P4C scientific community has certainly contributed to the experimentation of more and more refined instruments for monitoring activities and methods efficacy. There is still much to be done however to find suitable instruments for evaluating this methodology, both from the theoretical and the practical points of view. The focus of the study is to create and test an istrument to evaluate “Complex thinking”, that is creative, critical, and care thinking (Lipman, 2003) that develop within the “community of inquiry”, through philosophical dialogue. In particular, the research aim is to create a “portfolio” to evaluate this kind of thinking processes and products, by considering argumentation and informal reasoning dynamics in the classroom discussions. As regard the creative thinking, in the portfolio the community will collects and choose different kinds of materials as: methaphors used to interprete the world, conceptual maps, diaries, narratives which attest the community ability to create multiple perspectives on problems and to elaborate alternative grounds to sustain different points of view. The “portfolio of the community of inquiry”, is a “joint product and activity” implemented by the community itself (teachers and students) that allows to the members to take in charge their own thinking and learning, as suggested in the socio-costructivist perspective. The portfolio is both an istrument of evaluation and self-evaluation particularly consistent with qualitative dymension of thinking such as creativity. At the same time, portfolio is in itself a mean to foster creative and critical thinking in all the community members involved in its construction.
Creative, Critical and Caring Engagements: Philosophy
through Inquiry
Sarah
Davey
Contemporary Studies Program, University of Queensland, Australia
This paper will give an overview of Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children program and the process of Community of Inquiry. The guiding principle of Lipman’s Community of Inquiry process is ‘letting the argument lead’. Although the facilitator of the inquiry has a responsibility to guide the discussion procedurally, this is at a level of co-inquirer and he or she should not lead the inquiry down a predetermined path. The paper will address how this process of letting the dialogue unfold through the participants’ contributions leads to engagement. We will discuss the definition of engagement as a collaborative dance of the minds. This engagement according to Lipman is critical, creative and caring.
Creative Engagement
It is important
to note that in this paper, creative thinking and creativity are not
the same thing. Lipman shows us that while creativity is also important
in thinking, creative thinking is central to philosophy inquiry. Creative
thinking according to Lipman is involved with making meaning through
ethical claims. Engagement of a creative kind occurs when we let the
argument lead because the ideas must be developed by the participants
themselves and not predetermined.
Critical Engagement
Another aspect
of inquiry is critical engagement. We have drawn on the fact that engagement
in the community of inquiry comes from letting the argument, and not
the facilitator, determine the path of inquiry. The critical element
of this engagement occurs when students have to examine their own arguments
and the arguments of others to continue the dialogue. Because the inquiry
rests on participants being reflective, this method naturally adopts
a process of critical thinking.
Caring Engagement
While this area
of philosophical inquiry does not share a major focus in Matthew Lipman’s
Community of Inquiry, it provides a foundation through which participants
may inquire. Care as it is defined in this paper is a care for the
dialogue itself, care for the concept to be discussed and a caring
relationship with other participants in the dialogue. Without engaging
through care, an inquiry could not operate at the level of engagement
that is beneficial to its participants. I would argue that without
care, the critical and creative engagement could not occur.
This paper does not privilege any one of the three kinds of engagement. Rather, it attempts to go some way to explaining how critical, creative and caring engagement occurs through an inquiry process that lets the participants in the inquiry engage through their own thinking.
A History of Personal and Social Education as a
Reflection of Models of Childhood
Yinka
Olusoga
School of Childhood and Community,
Leeds Metropolitan University,
Leeds, United Kingdom
Personal and Social Education (PSE) is a curious aspect
of the curriculum whose aims are often focused not on the children before it,
but on the adults they are to become. It is concerned with the type of person
society wants its education system to produce. Consequently, any
PSE curriculum embodies the hopes and ideals of those who write it.
PSE reflects how a society sees its children and the relationship of
childhood to adulthood. Is the child a ‘primitive’ to be
tamed, as argued by Spencer in 1929? Or as argued by Rousseau in 1762
(Jimak, 1993) is the child an innocent to be protected? This paper
attempts to trace changing views of childhood through examination of
the history of personal and social education in England, examining
selected sources from John Locke in 1693 to the current non-statutory
guidance for PSE contained in Curriculum 2000.
The terms ‘personal’ and ‘social’ in
the modern educational context are relatively recent types of usage
and only become a regular part of educational parlance from the mid-1960s
onwards (Best, Lang et al. 1995, p. 4). To locate writing on the concepts
and ideas within PSE from earlier times, the researcher needs to be
ready to encounter other, often archaic, vocabulary and has to expect
that religion will tend to dominate discussion of matters of morality,
values, and rules concerning personal and social interaction. This
has the potential to be a catalyst for genuine reflection and reflexive
analysis for the modern-day researcher, living in an increasingly secular
society.
On Deviant Youth - Larry Clark Vs Henry Giroux
Jones
Irwin
St Patrick's College, Dublin, Ireland
No abstract is presently available