What is philosophy education for P4C children?
Philosophy is basically a theoretical activity related to the study of the universe, the world, human beings and the production of ideas, a lifelong, practical life. In other words, curiosity leads the person or people to think as an element of research. From this point of view, philosophy is an activity that leads to the questioning and meaning of life. At this point, P4C philosophy education for children serves the purpose of philosophy and enables the development of philosophical thinking and reasoning in children.
It first appeared with the work of the American philosopher Matthew Lipman. In his lessons, he saw the inadequacy of children's reasoning skills about the subject or subjects and developed P4C pedagogy. This pedagogy aimed to develop philosophical thinking, not to talk about philosophy. It is aimed that children think by asking questions and philosophical research is put at the center of the course. Thus, children's reasoning skills are developed. The reason why it is especially aimed at children is that Limman's development of philosophical thinking and reasoning skills is a belated situation in his university days. In order to develop these skills, training should be started at a younger age.
P4C philosophy for children is based on the method of socratic dialogue in education. First, assuming that the other person does not know anything, questions are asked to him and his thinking is questioned. All of this is done by creating a community, and the person who asks the questions is called a facilitator. The facilitator does not keep the dialogues in check, and children are led to ask questions, reason, express their thoughts, and listen to each other in the process. Various concept analyses are carried out in P4C. For example; Topics such as justice, goodness, friendship, happiness, etc., as it has been said before, create stimuli with story or picture and video content. This lays a foundation on concepts. Having a dialogue and having an idea about such concepts that affect people and their lives will positively affect children now and in the future. The role of the facilitator is also critical to the quality of the dialogues, the progress of the process and ensuring compliance with the curriculum. With P4C philosophy education for children, children develop critical and creative thinking skills, develop cooperative thinking skills by thinking together, develop ability to establish cause and effect relationships, develop self-confidence, connected thinkers, increase awareness, reasoning skills develop, ability to look at situations from different angles develop, define, classify and distinguish concepts, develop questioning and argument development skills, they can establish the relationship of philosophy with life and finally have the opportunity to question themselves in social issues by understanding the universe. As a result, philosophy education for P4C children should be continued as a regular activity so that children can develop their abilities and strengthen their comprehension over time.