Thirty Years of P4C: #2 Dan – P4C is fun… and fundamental

There I met a group of Year 10 students who were doing their GCSEs but who were described by their teachers as disengaged from their education and disadvantaged in comparison to their peers in more wealthy areas of South Yorkshire. The students were playful, intelligent and open to anything. Dan was one of them.

Our project was funded by Creative Partnerships; this gave us the time, resources and freedom to co-create a project with the group and to follow our curiosity where it led. My fellow philosopher Amber D’Albert and our team of artists and creatives found these conditions ideal for philosophical thinking; and the young people—none of whom had taken part in anything like this before—jumped in with both feet.

To get things started, rather than assuming the significance of GCSEs for these students, we began to ask basic questions about the value of education. These questions felt rebellious, yet vital, and while the young people laughed a lot in the process of answering them, they also treated them with deep seriousness. Dan was shy at first, preferring to stand back while others volunteered to speak up, bang percussion instruments or build dens. But as the weeks went on, he grew, revealing his thoughtful and imaginative nature.

For several months we exposed the students to a range of enquiry-based learning experiences, from forensic investigation to forum theatre. At the heart of each experience was P4C, which created the space and the skills necessary for students to evaluate these experiences and reflect on their implications for their lives and learning. We philosophised in the classroom, in the playground, in the lab, behind a camera, on the bus and around a campfire. We worked with actors to explore our bodies, and with forest school practitioners to investigate nature. At each step we asked: What is education for? What does it mean to be educated? What does good learning look like?

Looking back, it was an incredible, child-led investigation into the purpose of education. It was a celebration of how P4C promotes the wisdom of young people.

In 2020, Daniel’s mum wrote to me to say that being part of that project — asking, and answering, those questions for himself — had meant so much to her son. It was one of the most memorable and meaningful educational experiences of his life.

I was touched to read this, but I also know that children and young people can sometimes talk in hyperbolic terms about exciting projects. My own children will describe a day at the park as the best day ever. But Dan, tragically, had more perspective than most young people.

I learned from his mum Trish, that Dan had died of bone cancer in 2015 aged 19. He stood in the unenviable position of being able to look back at his learning and over the course of his short life and identify those moments that mattered. And I am humbled, but not surprised to hear that P4C was part of that for him.

After reading Trish’s email, I returned to the comments section below a video that I had posted of our work. There was his avatar, and the comment ‘doing this was a real fun experience’.

It really was fun. I can remember Dan flapping his arms like a chicken during drama warm-ups. We had ridiculous amounts of fun.

But it was also fundamentally important to engage with those questions about the purpose of education when young people are struggling with the pressure of exams and the weight of expectation on their shoulders; at a time when they are taking their lives into their own hands and thinking about what the future holds for them.

Dan’s story reminds me that all young people should have the opportunity to think philosophically. Not because of its impact on attainment, engagement, or employability, but because it helps us all to make sense of our lives.