{"id":22695,"date":"2024-10-14T08:57:15","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.plato-philosophy.org\/?p=22695"},"modified":"2024-10-14T14:43:52","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T21:43:52","slug":"children-across-borders-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/children-across-borders-philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"Philosophical Dialogues Between Children Across Borders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

JC teaches philosophy, game design, and jazz improv to elementary, middle, and high school
students at Qualia: The School for Deeper Learning in Los Angeles, California.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which activities or conditions contribute to a meaningful life? What contributes to one\u2019s well-
being or flourishing? What, if anything, is objectively valuable? How might answers to these
questions differ across cultures? How can philosophy enrich both social and intellectual
experiences among young people?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exploring the answers to these questions was part of the inspiration for establishing \u201cThe
Inquiring Classroom Concerning Human Flourishing,\u201d a twin school program between Erkan
Ulu School in Istanbul, Turkey and Qualia: The School for Deeper Learning in Los Angeles,
California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For two years, middle school students from both schools were introduced to a variety of
philosophical perspectives concerning human flourishing. Broadly speaking, these lessons aim to
address questions about the five categories of human flourishing presented by VanderWeele\u2019s
2017 article \u201cOn the Promotion of Human Flourishing\u201d: Happiness and life satisfaction, mental
and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships.
More specifically, students analyzed, defended, and criticized a variety of philosophical ideas
including but not limited to Susan Wolf\u2019s fitting fulfillment theory of meaningfulness, Robert
Nozick\u2019s famous objection to hedonism through the experience machine thought experiment, and
A.J. Ayer\u2019s belief that meaningfulness is conceptually distinct from morality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teachers JC Wright (Qualia: The School for Deeper Learning) and Ozge Odemir (Erkan Ulu
School) facilitated a series of discussions using a variety of P4C methods. Students participated
in synchronous, Socratic-style discussions within their own schools in small groups (less than 10
people). Then students from both schools collaborated asynchronously by participating in written
discussions implemented through the online forum tool Kialo. Finally, all students concluded
each unit together with a synchronous discussion through Google Meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only did students report enjoying these learning experiences, but these exchanges also
demonstrate that students are capable of being sophisticated philosophers and can engage in the
activity productively. For example, consider the following exchange from the Kialo discussion
forum evaluating Wolf\u2019s fitting fulfillment view of meaningfulness:\u00a0
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Student A:\u00a0Well, I mostly agree with this as while pleasurable things are good most of the time,
there are some times you should give up self-pleasure to help others even at the cost of yourself.
I’d say most good things do require a little to a lot of pain. In other words, objective value is far
often more important than self-pleasure.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Student B:\u00a0I noticed you said that most good things require pain. I have 2 questions about this;
one, how do you know what a good action is, and how would you describe it? Two, you most
likely don’t have every action listed in your head, so how do you know that MOST good things
require pain?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After student A offers a defense of Wolf\u2019s theory with some subtle modifications, student B
formulates an authentic philosophical question in response about the epistemology of value.
Rather than merely comprehending a theory, or just expressing agreement or disagreement,
students were able to advance the discussion and engage in deeper learning. By deeper learning,
I mean learning that is retained, sincere, and confronts the difficulty of the philosophical puzzle
(rather than thoughtlessly dismissing opposing viewpoints or falling victim to a strawman
fallacy).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, students had the opportunity to analyze philosophical perspectives, engage in thoughtful
discussion and respectful criticism, and develop their own sophisticated theories of human
flourishing while building social relationships with peers that would otherwise be difficult to
facilitate. Engaging with students from the other side of the world allowed students to broaden
their view and build essential skills in perspective taking.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ozge and JC will continue to study the long-term effects of this program and are presenting some
of their findings in August at the World Congress of Philosophy in Rome. They encourage other
schools to start similar programs with partner schools and are happy to answer questions and
help facilitate more twin school initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


(jc@qualiaschool.org)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JC teaches philosophy, game design, and jazz improv to elementary, middle, and high schoolstudents at Qualia: The School for Deeper Learning in Los Angeles, California. Which activities or conditions contribute to a meaningful life? What contributes to one\u2019s well-being or flourishing? What, if anything, is objectively valuable? How might answers to thesequestions differ across cultures? … Philosophical Dialogues Between Children Across Borders<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":22697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[195],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-22695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wondering-aloud","tag-philosophy-for-children-50"],"yoast_head":"\nPhilosophical Dialogues Between Children Across Borders - PLATO - Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Philosophical Dialogues Between Children Across Borders - 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\/children-across-borders-philosophy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Philosophical Dialogues Between Children Across Borders - 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