Thirty years of P4C: #7 — Testing the trainer every day: Philosophy for Children as a parent

“When Zac was only three years old, I documented many of his questions, as I felt so fortunate to realise what special questions they were. I wonder if I would have more easily dismissed the opportunities these questions offered, if I wasn’t absorbed in the world of P4C? “

I have two children, El, 15, and Zac, 9 years old. When I first started my journey in Philosophy for Children (P4C) over 20 years ago, they didn’t exist, and I was a primary school teacher with a background in outdoor education.

My first experience of P4C was when I trained to be a teacher and my experiences grew working as a Global Education advisor on many P4C projects with schools at Cumbria Development Education Centre.  I now merge my experiences together, working in P4C, Global Education and the Outdoors.

I have had great fun with my children, experimenting with the P4C approach, and have so often naughtily thought of them as my guinea pigs, allowing me to test new activities and ideas. But, if I am honest, as with all parenting I feel, it is actually me they have taught, tested and trained!

I do believe that children are natural philosophers, at least to the extent that from a very young age they ask big questions about the world around them, questions we so often dismiss, such as “Why is there money in the world?” (thanks, Zac, for the example). When Zac was only three years old, I began documenting many of his questions, as I felt so fortunate to realise what special questions they were. I wonder if I would have more easily dismissed the opportunities these questions offered, if I wasn’t absorbed in the world of P4C? That said of course I have dismissed many questions, sometimes we have to move onto other things… like eating breakfast and getting out of the door for work!

I recall one lovely question from Zac, again when he was 3, which I learnt a lot from as a facilitator. He asked: “Are you old?” I pressed Zac for criteria as to what makes someone old, and he responded with examples like: “lots of years” and “wrinkles that join together“, and we then went on to explore each example, to define further and to test for truth. My own bias became apparent as we explored further — as I did not want to meet his criteria for being old, having already been classed as a geriatric mum in the labour ward!

When Zac mentioned “a walking stick” I leapt on this criterion, to justify that clearly I wasn’t old, seeing as I don’t have a walking stick. I completely missed the opportunity to explore this example further, allowing “walking stick” to be added definitively to the list. Zac reminded me how easy it is to bias an enquiry as a facilitator, if the topic is personal to you.

As my eldest, El, has progressed through secondary school, they have really enjoyed ‘Philosophy’ sessions at school. Not much of a talker in sessions, they are very much the “passenger” on the journey, but once in the door at home these questions are so often revisited. Again, a reminder of the ongoing value of P4C, outside of the session itself.

As a family living in Cumbria, we share a great passion for the outdoors, and I now really value less staged, more “natural” philosophy where the questions are stimulated by experiences and the environment around us, and are of course therefore more centred on the interests of the group. Again, examples from the lovely Zac (not so easy to gain permissions to share from a 15-year-old, but I have it!) : “Do woodlice get on with worms?”; “Would you rather be a puddle or a stream?“; and “If one dog’s year is the same as seven human years, that means one of their days is the same as a week for us; is that why they sleep so much?“

So, I believe the best ongoing training for me currently is P4C as a parent, which tests and challenges my thinking every day, and fosters opportunities for really memorable conversations with the family that interest us all.