Is it possible

to grow

with our thoughts?

Philosophy for Children, sometimes abbreviated to P4C, is a movement that aims to teach reasoning and argumentative skills to children. Often the hope is that this will be a key influential move towards a more democratic form of democracy. Although the noted developmental psychologist Jean Piaget was of the impression that children were not capable of critical thinking until age 11 or 12, the experience of many philosophers and teachers with young children gives reason to believe that children benefit from philosophical inquiry even in early primary school. Furthermore, there is empirical evidence that teaching children reasoning skills early in life greatly improves other cognitive and academic skills and greatly assists learning in general.

The pedagogy of philosophy for children is diverse. However, many practitioners including those working in the tradition of Matthew Lipman and the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children emphasize the use of a community of inquiry method which has roots in the work of philosopher John Dewey. The term "inquiry" is preferred to "lesson" because the emphasis is on the group inquiring together into questions with the teacher as a facilitator rather than the authoritative source of information.

In my working "stage", made on the elementary school "Arturo Ferrarin" in Induno Olona, I've seen a theorical exemple of P4C, wich made me thinking that a child can, and in my personal opinion have to, grow thinking and matching his own knowledge with a critical and elaborative approach.