{"id":13545,"date":"2012-04-27T13:51:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T20:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philosophyforchildren.org\/the-if-machine\/"},"modified":"2012-04-27T13:51:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-27T20:51:00","slug":"the-if-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/the-if-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"The If Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-NFr3xcqildQ\/T5r6b_PidmI\/AAAAAAAAAao\/IiFb6_4EFBY\/s1600\/b85e139c2dc195c0556ea8cd378c2d41_23106147.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-NFr3xcqildQ\/T5r6b_PidmI\/AAAAAAAAAao\/IiFb6_4EFBY\/s320\/b85e139c2dc195c0556ea8cd378c2d41_23106147.jpg\" width=\"213\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-If-Machine-Philosophical-Classroom\/dp\/144115583X\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1335556592&amp;sr=8-1\">The If Machine<\/a><\/i>, by Peter Worley, was published in 2011 and is full of ideas for motivating philosophical conversations with children. The first quarter of the book is an introduction to doing philosophy with young people and contains many useful general suggestions for introducing philosophy in elementary school classrooms. The rest of the book is made up of 25 units that each include a very short story, a description of the philosophical topic involved (justice, fairness, identity, etc.), and a list of questions and various strategies for facilitating a discussion on the topic. The book is well-written, very practical and accessible, and many of the stories raise philosophical issues in appealing and thoughtful ways. I&#8217;m going to try out one of the units with a class of fourth grade students next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The If Machine, by Peter Worley, was published in 2011 and is full of ideas for motivating philosophical conversations with children. The first quarter of the book is an introduction to doing philosophy with young people and contains many useful general suggestions for introducing philosophy in elementary school classrooms. The rest of the book is <a href=\"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/the-if-machine\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  The If Machine<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,196,195],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classroom-discussion","category-philosophy-for-children","category-wondering-aloud"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The If Machine - PLATO - Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The If Machine - a post from PLATO - The Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/the-if-machine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The If Machine - PLATO - Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The If Machine - a post from PLATO - The Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/the-if-machine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PLATO\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PLATOPhilosophy?fref=ts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-27T20:51:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/poc_logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"523\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"439\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jana Mohr Lone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@WGAdmin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@platoorg\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/the-if-machine\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/the-if-machine\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jana Mohr Lone\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/73f61769c3bfdaeefc1633dd9cc8d59c\"},\"headline\":\"The If Machine\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-27T20:51:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/the-if-machine\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":134,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/the-if-machine\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/poc_logo.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"Classroom Discussion\",\"philosophy for children\",\"Wondering Aloud\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/the-if-machine\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/the-if-machine\\\/\",\"url\":\"http:\\\/\\\/plato-philosophy.org\\\/the-if-machine\\\/\",\"name\":\"The If Machine - 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