Philosophy in Classrooms and Beyond

The contributors to this volume describe a range of programs that use picture books to teach philosophy to diverse audiences. From a pre-school program in which college students to do the teaching to a program focused on overcoming the legacy of violence and genocide in Mali in which the teachers write and illustrate their own picture books, the authors demonstrate the impact that learning philosophy has on diverse communities of young students and their teachers.

The contribution of Philosophy in Classrooms and Beyond New Approaches to Picture-Book Philosophy edited by Thomas E. Wartenberg is significant to our understanding of the process of philosophical thinking among young children, while contributing to critical, creative and caring thinking. The authors of the chapters present in a very unique way not only their own experience but also important insights which contribute to the branching study on the importance of philosophy with children and philosophy with learners throughout the world. The various contributions to this book discuss a variety of programs that have been influenced by the Big Ideas for Little Kids Program. All of the creators of these programs have picked and chosen among the Program's Big Ideas to develop their own innovative programs. The uniqueness of this profound book is mainly because we get the opportunity to hear the voices of practitioners who are also researchers, and especially the voices of the children - a voice of curiosity, a voice of depth and voice of the love of wisdom., Tom Wartenberg’s Big Ideas for Little Kids Program has inspired many other creative programs that bring the delights of philosophical wondering to young and not-so-young people in the community. This illuminating edited collection explores the success stories, along with their challenges, of bringing philosophy into spaces which previously lacked sustained critical and ethical reflection, along with any expectation that children may be able to participate in such an activity. The inspiring narratives herein demonstrate that from the springboard of curiosity, supported by careful reasoning and compassionate listening, not only can the power of philosophy be harnessed within groups, but it may be directed toward real world puzzles. More initiatives such as these need to be supported, as well as documented, and this book offers an excellent blueprint for exactly that., In bringing philosophy to preschool through middle school classrooms, school boards, and NGOs, the contributors to this book demonstrate the strength and adaptability of Tom Wartenberg’s program of picture book philosophy. Perhaps even more striking than the glimpses the book provides into the philosophical depth of children are the ways in which the adults working with them come to new understandings of democracy, childhood, education and philosophy. Followers of the pioneering work of Gareth Matthews on philosophy in children’s literature, of Ann Margaret Sharp on the classroom community of inquiry, and of Matthew Lipman on philosophy in education will be delighted and informed by the varied and ingenious ways the contributors to this book have extended their legacy, guided by Wartenberg’s unique philosophical expertise and practical wisdom.

Thomas E. Wartenberg is the author of Big Ideas for Little Kids: Teaching Philosophy Through Children’s Literature and A Sneetch Is a Sneetch and Other Philosophical Discoveries: Finding Wisdom in Children’s Literature. He is former President of PLATO, the United States philosophy for children organization, and was awarded the Merritt Prize in 2013 for his contributions to the philosophy of education.