Week 1 PHIL

56 Strong, Voyaging to the Outer Litllits tt'Education

Voyaging to the Outer Limits of Education: Reflections on P4C

in the Secondary Classroom

he first day I attempted to practice P4C in my class-

room the students revolted. The memory is clear in

my mind-most potentially scarring events are. The

students, all thirty-three of them, were seated in a circle

which had already made them squirmy because it was not

the five neatly aligned rows facing the teacher that by tenth

grade they had all become accustomed to. I stood in the

center ofthem all, as they exchanged glances with one an-

other across the room, and began to expiain how the com-

munity ball that we had made would be used during class

discussions. "This is too hard," one girl whined using that

perfected teenage pitch. "Yah, you're making us do college

stuff," commented another boy. Although I was a novice

teacher, merely attempting the fine aft of student teaching, I

recognized that if I didn't say something quick I would

soon be buried in a shallow grave ofadolescent rebellion.

With conviction, I confidently replied, "This class will be

different for most of you, but I know you are all excellent

thinkers and capable of what we are about to do. Please take

a risk with me and try something new." This pivotal mo-

ment opened the door that led to my quest, as an educator,

to explore how the ingenious ideas behind P4C could

change the face of public education in the state of Hawaii.

I could have easily resigned to my student's fears, as

well as my own insecurities during the first few weeks that I

experimented with P4C. I was student teaching at a Wind-

ward Oahu high school where I taught two tenth grade U.S.

history classes and four senior political science classes. I

had decided that I wanted to investigate how P4C could be

applied in the secondary social studies classroom so I dove

into a year-long action research project and took my stu-

dents with me.

My students and I may have been taking our "maiden

voyage," but the P4C route was not unchafted. Over the

past thirty years teachers all over the world have experi-

mented with Matthew Lipman's P4C cuniculum in their

own classrooms using "action research" to find ways to

transform the fundamental ideas that center around P4C

AMBER PE,NNINGTON STRONG

into a classroom cuniculum that fits both the individual

practitioner's teaching style and, more impoftantly, the

unique needs of their students (Cochrin Smith and Lytle, 1993). Action research requires that teachers research and

practice an existing curriculum, collect data from their ex-

perience, analyze the data and "improve the nature and spe-

cifics" of the curiculum (Oberg, 1990). The existing cur-

riculum, in my case, was taught to me by Thomas Jackson

when I participated in his P4C course at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

I met Dr. Jackson while I was floundering in the open

ocean of a Masters in Teaching education program at the

University of Hawaii. Like most teacher preparation pro-

grams, no matter how liberal they seem, this one had

thrown me into a vast sea of theoretical inquiry and then

expected me to build my own pedagogical ship to stay

afloat during my year of student teaching. Forlunately, as I

attempted to consttuct a curriculum that matched my theo-

retical beliefs, I was introduced to processes that had al-

ready been created for students participating in P4C-Dr.

Jackson's "Gentiy Socratic" method, incorporating the use

of a "community ball, magic rvords, Plain Vanilla, and the

Good Thinker's Tool Kit" (Jackson,2001). Dr. Jackson's

always-apparent enthusiasm and clearly articulated method-

ologies inspired me and provided me with actual techniques

with which to experiment in my own classroom.

As my students staged their own version of "mutiny on

the bounty," I knew that the life preservers of Dr.Lipman

and Dr. Jackson would be by my side to catch anyone. in-

cluding myself, if we were thrown over into the sea I de-

scribed. Without giving away the story of my experience

Antber Strong (maniniz(@yuhoo.conr) received her Musters of' Edtrcu-

tion in Teaching degree.front the College of'Education. Universih'ttl

Hawctii/Manoa. Her Master's paper, co-authored v'ith Meredith Ing

was titled: "The Teacher as Researcher: Results and Reflections on

Practicing Philosophl,.for Children in the Secondary Clussroom. "

Amber cmtently teaches social studie.s at Kailua lIigh School- She

has been involved with P4C since I999.

Thinking: The Jotrnal of Philosophlt .for Children, Volume I7, Numbers I & 2

with P4C, I must admit there was an occasional community

member thrown overboard. During my first year of student

teaching my students and I both ran into unique challenges

that might have ended our quest to change how we looked

at teaching and learning. However, it was the experiences of

each and every community that had practiced P4C before us

that kept us above water-even soaring.

In my first year of student teaching, I was what veterans

in the field ofeducation referred to as a novice teacher. This

meant that I was teaching six classes at the high school,

conducting action research that would be used to write my

Masters thesis, and concurently attending teacher educa-

tion classes. I had decided that I would be focusing my re-

search on the success and failures that I experienced while

practicing P4C. Naturally, I dialogued with Dr. Jackson fre-

quently during this time. He and I collaboratively discussed

the types of processes I could use in my P4C classes and

helped me to develop effective ways to teach the students

about the cognitive tools found in the Good Thinker's Tool

Kit. The shared vision, conviction and passion for P4C that

Dr. Jackson and I had, gave me the support that I needed to

take the risk and try something new with my students. It

s'as a good thing that I had his support because there were-

n't many other professional sources who were confident

about what I was doing.

First, I was frequently challenged to justify my decision

ro use P4C in the classes that I was taking from the college

.-rl education. In particular I remember when we were intro-

duced to the fine art oflesson planning. Our professors

stressed that one of the main reasons for lesson plans was to

"set an agenda" to eliminate any "down time" with our stu-

dents. The course instructors stressed rhat"a novice teacher

should plan for each minute that we shared with our stu-

dents," and then have a back up planjust in case the stu-

dents got finished with their assignments early' Upon re-

t-lection I realize that this was good advice. The underlying assumption however was that an unplanned moment for any

reacher would eventually lead her into the abyss of a class-

:oom management nightmare. Therefore, the P4C discus-

sions that I was "planning" t<l consume the entire seventy

ninutes of the class period were discouraged by some

:eacher educators. Also, most of the other novice teachers in

ry program, fearful of the uncerlainty of class discussions, .hied away from incorporating them into their developing

:urriculums. I must admit that the fear of thirty-five out of

:.-rntrol raging sixteen year olds did put fear in my heart.

:ltrw€ver, I knew that in order to really have student-driven

:-scussion-based inquiry, I would have to take the risk of

:-rt unplanned classroom moment. Besides the classroom management issues, other educa-

-::s voiced concerns about the lack of content that I would

:e covering by using class discussions as a method of -=:ching. My mentor teacher, as he corrected 180 fiIl-in-

::-blank Civil War vocabulary tests, joked, "so what will

- -r class be discovering in the Kumbaya circle this

' -k?" His perception was that because discussions al-

lowed my students to explore issues of their choice' in a

non-traditional setting compared to most other high school

history courses, that my students would not have the time to

"know everything that they needed to know" about U.S.

history. Other teachers had similar concerns as they won-

dered how I would be able to cover all of the chapters in the

U.S. history book. Many of my colleagues believed that if I

took the time for students to actively engage in a dialogue

about the writings of Fredrick Douglas or President Lin-

coln, for example, I would never reach the Gulf War by the

end of the school year. It was at this early point in my deci-

sion to use P4C that I began to rigorously question my own

belief systems about leaming.

The concerns voiced by the community of educators

described above initiated questions that guided the perpet-

ual discussion in which I was engaged about the meaning of

schooling. Traditionally, learning is measured through stan-

dardizedtests by the quantity offacts that students can re-

call, the accuracy of their memory, their ability to identify

the standard conventions of English and apply mathematical

procedures. Keeping the foundations of modem schooling

in mind, I wondered what exactly was it that today's stu-

dents "should know" and what "should they know how to

do" as result ofparticipating in the courses that I designed?

I had not yet established where I wanted my students to be

at the end of the school year as a result of experiencing a

discussion based class and I must admit that the outside

pressures voiced by the contingency for traditional teaching

did make me wonder if my students would end up "behind"

their other classmates because of the nature of discussion-

based inquiry. With all of this in mind I worked hard during

that first year to create learning goals for my students and I

learned to appreciate how the critical voices that surrounded

me would selve as catalysts for challenging my own think-

ing.

During that first year I also wondered how could I, or

my students for that matter, measure learning that occurred

as a result of discussion-based inquiry? At the same time I

also asked the question: how could the leaming that took

place within the four walls of our classroom be shared with

the larger community that we belonged to? So, I began to

create the tools my students and I would need to measure

our learning. These tools consisted ofdaily oral assess-

ments, rigorous seventy minute discussion debriefs that re-

quired students to use evidence from all ofour discussions

to critique our discussion community, writing rubrics that

evaluated the student's ability to apply the thinking skills

we practiced during our discussions to the rest of their class

work, and finally I began to develop a test to measure the

effects of P4C over the course of a year for the following

school year.

With the use of my assessment tools I collected evi-

dence documenting what was really going on in our class-

room. This evidence allowed me to become confident in my

ability to share the successes and concems I was having

about P4C with people who were unfamiliar or even critical

I'

58 Strong, Vovaging to the Outer I'imits oJ Education

of the program. In that first year of experimenting with P4C

I relentlessly documented the success of the existingP4C

methodologies with which I was experimenting, the innova-

tive curriculum that I was forging, and most imporlantly I

made sure to record the voices of my students. My docu-

mentation revealed much and allowed my students and I to

reflect on our practice. By the end of that first year I was

able to articulate what was working in regards to P4C and

identify concrete areas of my developing curriculum that

needed to be improved.

First, I did have classroom management challenges. Af-

ter all, previous to their exposure to P4C, the students had

rarely been asked to speak in class. I was now requiring

them to take ownership of their learning by letting them ask

their own questions based on the readings I initially se-

lected, choose their own topics of inquiry, speak freely in

an intellectually safe environment, inviting them to act as

members of a democratic community and most imporlantly,

teaching them to challenge their ability to think critically- which often meant that they would challenge me. My stu-

dents who were now seeing "education as the practice of freedom" tested their new boundaries with one another and

myself, which often erupted in passionate discourse (Freire,

1989). They had extreme difficulty listening to one another,

and struggled to craft their verbal responses to the discuss-

ant that spoke before them. Quite often, during those first

few months, "shut up" flew out of some student's mouths

and I found myself reclaiming the community ball from the

group to signal that the shouting match that was occuring

needed to end.

In the first few months of P4C they also tested my pro-

fessional "position ofauthority" by introducing topics for

discussion that were extremely controversial and which

they might have previously thought to be were taboo in

school settings. For example, they often wanted to talk

about things like drug legalization or sexual identity issues.

On the day that one girl used genital mutilation in Africa as

a counter example to the statement that "everyone is free,"

the class erupted in inappropriate laughter. In the beginning,

the natural tendency for teenagers to want to talk about so-

cially controversial issues affected classroom management

because the students didn't necessarily know how to have a

critical discussion about some "hot topics" and their imma-

turity would result in teenage silliness that could sometimes

be harmful to certain community members. However,

whenever my students did push the topical boundaries I

made sure that we responsibly addressed various sides of the issue and made sure that our community remained intel-

lectually safe.

These challenges with classroom management drove

my mentor teacher wild. He kept his students in impeccably

straight rows and created lessons that required the students

to engage in mostly silent individual work. During some

particularly difficult discussions in the beginning of the

school year I could see him cringing in the corner ofthe

classroom evidently holding in his immense desire to put

my students in their place. His feedback frequently ques-

tioned my decision to let the students be so vocal during

class time when they obviously weren't prepared for this

type of classroom setting. It was also obvious that I was

navigating my way through experimental tenitory not really

knowing what my students could and couldn't do before I

tried something with them.

The easy way out during those first months of P4C

would have been to simply silence my students as my men-

tor teacher alluded to. He was right-they obviously had

never learned how to critically engage in a dialogue with

their peers. However, I didn't become a teacher because I

thought it would be easy. I knew that I would have to work

hard if things were going to change in Hawaii's public

schools. So, as a result of his feedback and my own assess-

ment, I did realize the need to make changes in the curricu-

lum. lt was at this point that I began to develop a curricu- lum that would teach my students how to think critically for

themselves and to brainstotm instructional strategies that

would give them the necessary skills to be responsible

members of a democratic classroom.

With regards to the classroom management issues, I

developed listening games and challenges that required the

students to think before they blurled out their comments.

These exercises also included lessons that taught students

how to listen to constructive feedback from their peers and required that they demonstrate their listening by changing

their behavior. I also decided that when I introduced P4C to

the seniors at the beginning of the new semester I would

devote time to discuss with them what the difference is be-

tween a dialogue and a monologue. (Reed & Sharp, 1992).

This assured that the class had a concrete, operational defi-

nition before they experimented with discussions them-

selves. Finally, we also learned how to discuss "hot topics"

in responsible ways. It was during these discussions that I

witnessed my students really engage in a school activity

unlike they probably had ever done before-it gave me chicken skin.

Slowly, over the course of the year I began to see a

change in the way students approached their peers during

class discussion. I particularly remember a discussion that

centered on a recent school shooting in California. The sen-

iors, after reading an article about the student who had com-

mitted the crime, chose to discuss the possibi|ty of gun re-

lated violence at our school. The question that they chose to

discuss required that the class uncover the different cliques

that existed at our school and examine the implications of

these cliques as they were forced to socialize with one an-

other on campus. It should be noted that school violence is

common on our campus, where fighting between different

social groups occurs on what seems to be a daily basis. So,

naturally when the students chose this question I began fa-

cilitating with trepidation, not wanting to instigate an in

class brawl. After all, in the beginning of the school year

the students had been very confrontational with each other

about issues that didn't necessarily require them to draw

Thinking: The Jou'nal oJ'Philosophy for Chilcrren, vorume 17, Numbers I & 2 59

upon evidence this close to home. As students began talking, their candor and willingness

to take intellectual risks with one another eased my discom_ forl in not knowing what direction the discussion would take. It was in a discussion like this, at the end of the first year, that they demonstrated their internalized conception of what it meant to be a community of inquiry. They pulled examples from one another regarding times when particular groups didn't resolve conflict in a non-violent way. They were brave enough to look at the reasons why the specific

-:st so that they could create a question for their peers to :ink about. By the end of the year the tenth graders were .-.-'pping into class early to find out what topic we would be -::ding about so that they could be thinking about it before ':-.\,

came to class. Some students would even bring in arti_ :-:s of their own that they thought would be of interest _ -::se were the same students who never took text books -,- ne, barely remembered to bring a pencil to class and

hardly tumed in homework. I reveled in the seniors' ability to use the assessment

criteria to give feedback to their peers and was even more overjoyed when that feedback initiated changes in the stu_ dents' behavior. I witnessed students who had been intimi_ dating and domineering in the beginning of the year pass the community ball to quieter students as they used our new discussion language to ask the less vocal student, ,.what do you think about what has just been said?" euite often with the encouragement from their peers students who I had not

been able to coax into giving a verbal re- sponse during discus- sion time would speak when invited by their classmates.

I rejoiced on the day when one girl com- plained, "we never have the answer when the bell rings." It had been a parlicularly

deep discussion about

the difference between what is real and what is ideal. The class had spent the majority of the discussion grap-

pling with criteria and by the time the bell did ring they had not come to a consensus. I had repeatedly told the class that we were

not trying to find the one right answer as a result ofour discus- sion. However, many of the students thirsted for certainty as they exited the classroom.

On this parlicular day as the girl I described above left the room complaining I also heard her classmate

answer, "yah, well we have lot's of answers

and at least we know the reasons behind those answers." I couldn't have said it better myself.

I was ultimately convinced of my students, growth on the day that the Lieutenant Governor to the State of Ha_ waii sat in and participated in a philosophy for Children discussion. It was a bright sunny Hawaiian day-one of the last days of the school year. While most Seniors were busy cutting their final day of class, all twenty-nine of my stu_

groups that they were

discussing, and of which they were also mem- bers, didn't get along. By the time the bell rang the students were

brainstorming the ways in which they ensure peace in their own school community.

Besides being able

to talk about "hot top- ics." my students denr- onstrated growth in other areas as well. As i reflected on what my students accomplished

during the first year, many mini-movies of my students' discus- sions played out in my mind. I had been so im- pressed with how the students, who had put on such a great perform-

ance resisting P4C at the beginning of the course, challenged their think- ing and begged for "discussion Friday's :r,eryday" at the end of :he school year. I had .rbserved tenth graders

; ho could barely read iemonstrate how intel- .:ctually safe our class r:d become as they i,rrxldsd words out loud

60 Strong, Voyaging to the Outer Limits o.f Etlucation

dents, plus the Lt. Governor and her entourage sat crammed

in our discussion circle creating one final question that they

wanted to talk about with their peers. On this last day of

class, I explained to the group that the question could be

about anything that they wondered about in life-something

that they wanted to think about with their classmates before

they ended their high school joumey. The Lt. Govetnor was

included in the group and I gave her a pencil and paper to

write down her questions as well.

When the group finished constructing their questions,

with out my prompting one student rose and took the posi-

tion by the chalkboard that I had filled at the beginning of

the school year. With this visual cue the students went

around the circle and read their wonderings out loud while

the student poised by the chalkboard transcribed the

classes' jewel like questions for the group to see. I remem-

ber thinking that their ability to articulate their thinking in

the form of a question mimicked Socrates and his disciples.

However, in this class it was hard to tell who was Socrates

and who were the disciples.

When it was the Lt. Governor's tum to ask her question

she looked to the camera, which was held by a member of

her group and stated, "I wonder how all children in the

State of Hawaii can have access to an excellent education?"

The students watched as her question was put on the chalk-

board next to theirs and one student raised his hand for the

community ball. She passed him the ball, and in an attempt

to clarify her question he asked, "why don't you go ask the

governor? Isn't this the type ofthing you should have been

talking about with the governor and legislature the whole

time you've been in office?" His tone was inoffensive but

serious. With a politically conect smile she took the com-

munity ball back from the student and passed it to the next

student beside her. With a flurry of small butterflies in my

stomach I waited to see how the class would react.

The class respected her right to pass and simply contin-

ued with the Plain Vanilla procedure that they had used dur-

ing discussions all year (Jackson, 2001). They finished

gathering questions from the rest ofthe students, and initi-

ated the voting process to select the question that they

wanted to talk about. I clearly remember the content of the

question that they chose. On that final day they wanted to

know why they could successfully communicate and dis-

agree with one another within their classroom community-

yet, when they were outside of class they would fall back

into their cliques and barely acknowledge each other's pres-

ence. The discussion was unforgettable as they used exam-

ples from their own life to scratch beneath the surface of a

universal issue regarding contradictions that are found in

human behavior. As the bell rang they were wondering why

sometimes national harmony could exist and concunently

internationally turmoil would erupt in world wars. I often

like to remind myself that these are the types of things high

school students choose to talk about.

It was days like the one described above that exempli-

fied the success of P4C in my first year. The students dem-

onstrated good thinking, an ability to respect the members

of their classroom community no matter how long that per-

son had been with the group, and their ability to use discus-

sion as a fotmat to challenge the status quo. My students

were truly practicing the skills needed to be a member of a

democratic society and I had become confident that P4C

was a necessary component of the secondary social studies

classroom.

At the end of that first year, while using P4C in the

courses I taught, I also internalized many of my own teach-

ing philosophies that had merely been theoretical at the be-

ginning of the school year-hypothetical foundations in my

beliefs about education prior to my hands-on experience in

the classroom. I had witnessed social constructivism in ac-

tion, students leaming in accordance with Vygotsky's no-

tion of a "zone of proximal development" (Vygotsky,

1978). Jerome Btuner, along with other social leaming

theorists, explained that people leam as members of a com-

munity, and that it is during this community-based learning

that they are able to develop their social identities as they

figure out how to act in those groups (Bruner, 1996)' By

practicing P4C I concluded that I was not only teaching my

students academics. My students were developing as people

and not just as isolated individuals. I witnessed my students

grow and craft identities that allowed them to participate as

conscious members of our collective human social group.

I also now had evidence to support my initial belief that

students could rise to any challenge that I put in front of

them as long as I understood the leaming steps they would

need to take in order to meet that challenge. Teacher expec-

tations do shape what students can do and their ability to

think critically. I completed my year of student teaching

with confidence in the capabilities of my students. Their

profound ability to overcome challenges as a community of

inquiry during that first year inspired me to look fotward to

developing a more refined P4C cuniculum for the follow-

ing school year.

Besides the confidence that i developed in my students' abilities I also left that first year feeling confident in my

ability as a teacher to foster a classroom culture that truly

matched my theoretical ideals about education. I now knew

that if I created cumiculum focused on my desired outcomes

for my students they could rise to the standard. I was ma-

turing as a teacher and establishing for myself what it meant

to be a teacher who incorporated discussion-based inquires

in her classroom. I adjusted the way I managed my class-

room, cultivated my ability to practice the art of facilitation,

reflected constantly on my practice and ultimately invented

new ways to teach students how to monitor their own think-

ing and behavior. With great expectations in mind, I began

to formalize a P4C curriculum for the following school

year.

In the summer before my second year of teaching I

made a mental list of all the P4C activities and assessments

that I wanted to work on. First, I wanted to create a meas-

urement tool that would measure cognitive and affective

Thinking: The Journal of'Phiktsophl'.fur Children, Volune 17. Nunfiers I & 2 6t

effects of P4C. about which Lipman had rvritten extensively

(Reed & Sharp, 1992). Keeping the desired outcomes for

my students that I described above, I developed a pre/post

test to measure the cognitive and affective effects of P4C in

my classroom. I collaborated on this project with Meredith

Ing, a middle school English teacher who also practiced

P4C and who had been my partner while writing our Mas-

ters thesis on our experiences with P4C. We finalized the

test with Dr. Jackson at the University of Hawaii and used

his feedback to make adjustments to this new assessment

tool we were creating.

At the beginning of the school year, my second year of

teaching, I gave the pre-test to my four tenth grade U.S. his-

tory classes. At the end ofthat year all four tenth grade

classes took the same post-test. I had also made sure, during

this second year of teaching that another tenth grade U.S.

history class that was not practicing P4C took the pre and

post-test as well. Cunently, I am analyzing the results of these tests.

Besides creating the pre/post test during the summer

before my second year ofteaching, I also began to brain-

stom how I could extend the original P4C curriculum I

practiced during my student teaching. Keeping my previous

experiences with P4C in mind, I decided to focus on creat-

ing a curriculum that centered on teaching students how to

tacilitate their own P4C discussions. There were many rea-

sons for this decision.

First, students explicitly wanted to know about facilita-

tion. When I star-ted doing P4C with the tenth graders they

ri'anted to know why I could talk without holding the com-

munity ball. Understanding their concem, and addressing

the major issue of faimess plaguing most teenagers, I ex-

plained the dynamics of facilitation. We began with a defi-

nition. Facilitate simply means, "to tnake easy," and by util-

rzing specific skills the facilitator helps to keep the discus-

sion alive (Webster, 1987).

As I continued to clarify the idea of facilitation, I used

eramples from our past discussions to describe how my ac-

iions as a facilitator were fueled by a desire to make inquir-

ies "easier." Making discussions easier meant constantly

:hinking about how I could help our discussions "flow,"

:cratch beneath the surface ofour initial question and al-

riays look for ways to help our community maintain a stan-

dard of intellectual safety (Jackson,2001). Whiie I was

;oaxed by their own inquisitiveness to define what it really

:reant to be a facilitator, I uncovered the second reason I ',i anted students to facilitate their own P4C discussions: to

re consistently engaged in students' thinking through listen-

.rg attentively, which I found to be essential from my own

r-\periences facilitating. As a facilitator, after all, I realized

I had to continually serve as a reflective voice regarding the

JOn-rmunity's successes and weaknesses. This rneant taking

.re risk to confront parlicular students' behaviors tactfully

'nd create opporlunities to praise the community when

.rings were going well. Being a facilitator forced me to

-:ragine what direction the discussion might go as a result

of the communities' individual personalities interacting

with the reading I selected. At the same time, facilitation

required that I make contemporaneous decisions during our

"live" discussion. In summary, facilitating class discussions

required that I continually challenge my own thinking about

community and inquiry.

My facilitation skills grew exponentially over the

course of that first year and I began to clearly define what it

meant to be a good facilitator. This is when I hypothesized

that if it was true that facilitation fostered all the skills I de-

scribed above in myself, then wouldn't my students develop

those very sarne skills if they were required to become class

facilitators themselves? This guiding question, if true, had

many irnplications and inspired further questions. If all my students were effective facilitators wouldn't all our discus-

sions become better in general? I imagined the students be-

coming better listeners, more engaged in each others' think-

ing, and this final step of requiring students to facilitate

would encourage them to take complete ownership of their

leaming. I envisioned students choosing their own reading,

creating possible questions for the inquiry, establishing

roles they would play during class discussions, thinking on

the spot, self-assessing their successes and taking the risks

to assess their peers. With all these learning goals and ex-

pectations in mind I remembered I would have to create

leaming opporlunities that would provide my students with

the skills to achieve these goals. The second voyage that I

was about to take with my students was preparing to set

sail.

I decided that a senior level political science class titled

"American Problems" would be the perfect setting to ex-

periment with student-led discussions simply because of the

nature ofthe course content. This is not to say that student-

led discussions could not be fostered in other courses, but

because this course would focus on current events, I be-

lieved it would be easier for the students to locate arlicles

regarding topics of their choice. The course was a semester

long, and I had also decided that in the first quarter the stu-

dents would be looking at global issues that involved the

United States and in the second quafier the students would

be required to select an internal American problem that they

felt would be impofiant to inquire about in a discussion

with their peers. Having determined that American Prob-

lems would be the setting for my experiment, with a clear

vision of what I wanted my students to be able to do and

with the conceptual foresight of what I wanted them to un-

derstand, I began to rigorously design a discussion-based

inquiry cuniculum for the course.

The first step in developing a novel curriculum was to

examine which aspects of P4C that I had already practiced would be relevant and useful with regards to the newly es-

tablished leaming goais that I had set. Keeping the new cul-

minating activity in mind, student-facilitated discussions, I

reviewed my already established P4C lesson plans. At this

point I realized that despite the fact that I had established a

new standard of where I wanted my students to be at the

62 Strong, Voyaging to the Outer Limits of Educatbn

end of the school year, most of the P4C activities with

which I had experimented in the first year were still rele-

vant. Over the course of the entire second year of teaching I refined the P4C activities from the previous year and guided

changes with the question - what do my students need to learn how to do next in order to become facilitators them-

selves? Finally, by the third quarter ofthat second year, I had established a solid foundation for my new curriculum.

The cuniculum was clearly outlined in the following four

distinct learning stages:

A) Establishing a Framework for Discussion-Based Inquiry

B) Building the Background by Practicing Discus- sion-Based Inquiry

C) Deepening the Understanding of Discussion Based Inquiry through Role Playing and Peer Assessment

D) Culminating in Students as Facilitators for their own Discussion-Based Inquiries

In the first stage of the curriculum, a foundation for

learning in P4C is established by the students and myself. In

other words, throughout the rest ofthe year all other learn-

ing opporlunities during discussion-based inquiries require

that students have the base knowledge provided during this

first stage in order for them to grow as philosophers and

members of a community of inquiry. The lessons in the first

stage provide students with "scaffolding, a temporary struc-

ture around the 'construction' of the student's leaming that

helps hold concepts together during the early stages ofi'

learning about the skills required for engaging in P4C

(Oakes & Lipton, 1999). In this first segment of the curricu- lum students take the P4C pre-test; uncover the difference

between dialogue and discussion; build their community of leamers; discuss intellectual safety; are introduced to the

Good Thinker's Tool Kit; and leam about "Plain Vanilla." In the second stage students reinforce the skills, and

procedures, and try out the concepts from the stage one as I facilitate a series ofdiscussion-based inquiries. For each of these discussions I select the arlicle and provide challenges that include various experimental exercises with the Good

Thinker's Tool Kit. Besides encouraging use of the Good Thinker's Tool kit in their questions, I have also created a

series of thinking games that focus on a particular letter of the Tool Kit.

In the third stage the classroom set up changes dramati-

cally. In the first two stages students had been accustomed

to the room set up with chairs placed in a giant circle. In

this third stage the room is set up with the chairs in a "fish

bowl." This means half the chairs are in a circle in the mid-

dle ofthe room and the other halfofthe chairs are organ- ized around the center circle. The primary goal of this third

segment is to foster meta-cognition where students are

thinking about their own thinking during class discussions.

During the third stage the students' discussions im-

proved dramatically in terms of community functioning and

the increased ability to scratch beneath the surface. After using the fish bowl technique one or two times students

demonstrated increased concentration and practiced appro-

priate codes for a discussion because they knew that their

peers would "call them" on their behavior. Some competi-

tion was initiated by the students themselves as they at-

tempted to "out perform" the discussion group that had

gone before them. The inside group served as a window for

the outside group to look through to examine their own

thinking and behaviors during discussions. Most students,

who previous to this sort of reflective exercise and my own

feedback had not self-corrected their thinking and behavior, quickly began to grow as critical members of our communi-

ties of inquiry.

In the fourth stage students are introduced to the re-

quirement that they will become co-facilitators of an in- quiry. I began by reviewing what it meant to be a facilitator

and at this point laid out specific criteria of"good facilita- tion." The students then used these criteria to write down

examples of good facilitation as they obserued me facilitate

a discussion with their peers. After I modeled good facilita-

tion, to the best of my ability mind you, we debriefed the

discussion as a class. I then explained that the criteria I was providing for good facilitation would be the same criteria

their groups would be expected to meet and be assessed by.

My students were successful-beyond my wildest dreams. And you know how I explained that most poten-

tially scarring events stick out in your memory? Well, amazingTy, wonderful events do as well. Where do I begin?

First of all the students, on their own, picked a variety of dynamic topics. We had discussions about the Hawaiian

sovereignty, the possibility of male pregnancy, a patient as-

sisted suicide bill coming up for consideration in the legis- lature, the right to choose graduation attire, one group even

chose an intimidating article concerning the relationship

between science and religion. When the students were re-

quired to choose what they believed were "American Prob-

lems" they were able to do it independently from pre-

determined course content thus taking complete ownership

over their leaming.

When the students were asked to anticipate their

strengths as co-facilitators they gave the following answers.

Our strengths are:

Summarizing and clarifying because we

know a lot about the topic we are choosing.

Asking open ended questions to make the

environment safer, which makes it easier for

the group to parlicipate and communicate.

We will be able to invite participants by us- ing questions that should be easy to answer

and challenge their thinking.

Selecting a dynamic topic is one of our

strengths because the discussants will be able

Thinking' The Journal of philosophyfor Chiklren, Volume 17, Numbers I & 2 63

to relate their during/after prom experiences to the conversation/discussion. Inviting all discussants to participate will be on" oi ou. strengths because we are all curious and in_ terested in what everyone has to say.

It is evident from the students' anticipatory responses that they were thinking about the possible impiications of their actions. The uncertainty of how their disiussions would un_ fold, even though they expressed that they felt they were prepared, surfaced in their responses as one oftheir poten_ tial weakness.

Here is what a couple of students had to say about their ,qroup's potential weaknesses. Our weaknesses are:

Everyone's opinion will be different because ofthe different experiences they went through. We won't be able to anticipate everyone,s thoughts.

If the topic is not interesting it's hard to make everyone participate.

Demonstrating our own willingness to chal_ lenge our thinking because the people in our group are not always willing to parlicipate in discussions. We might not make great ques_ tions but will try to make questions that every_ one will give input to.

It was interesting to read what the students thought of their weaknesses, which truly were the groups' fears because they were the same things I would worry about as a facilitator. The transformation of students from discuss_ ants to facilitators allowed them to consider all members of the community - to really think about the ways members of their community might think about the topic they selected at the same time they were working hard to chal_ lenge their own thinking about the topic they had chosen.

When the students finally led their discussions, class :articipation was at it,s highest, everyone seemed en_ .:,eed, and the group's ability to scratch beneath the sur_ -ice of the topics they had chosen was prevalent. I kept a rurnal during some group,s discussions and my com_

rrents at the time demonstrate the students' success. The :rllowing excerpt is from the group,s first peer facilitated :'scussion. The topic that the group had chosen was un_ ::rage drinking.

Wow! I was very impressed with the discus_ sion. The facilitation was good because of the open-ended questions, they did an excel_

lent job clarifying all of the difficult words, summarizing what people had said and invit_ ing other students into the discussion. I could tell that they were thinking on the spot be_ cause at first they started to read a question that they had planned and then theydecided that the class had already addressed the topic so they skipped the question and moved on. The thing that I was mosr impressed with however was the skills that the discussants demonstrated. Leonard, Mitchell, Makani, and Frankie constantly used parts of the arti_ cle to support what they were saying. They got everyone to read the portion of the article and then they began to ask many inferential questions themselves. Leonard asked if Ieaming about drinking was like learning about history - if only particular things are taught then do we only have a certain per_ ception of things? Tamara began to wonder ifour behavior about drinking (binge drink_ ing) is shaped by societies perceptions or at_ titudes. So, because we can,t talk about drugs and alcohol it shapes how people be_ have - like binge drinking. The class also then began to talk about religion and how religious beliefs contribute to drinking.

Finally, I knew that the curriculum had been a success when I read the students' facilitation self-assessment forms.

1-9ng other things they were required to reply to the fol_

lowing statement - describe on" ni,, thing that you learned from being a facilitator and one new thing that you learned from the group you facilitated. The following are vignettes from their responses.

I learned that being a facilitator requires a lot of listening. If you miss o.re ans*ei yo., could be left out of the whole rotation of opinions. I leamed to listen no matter what, so you don't have to stress later on. I learned from our group that I was wrong to assume that everyone was interested in alcohol con_ sumption. Of all people I thought Kahai would be interested and want to participate. It turned out that this topic wasn't relevant to his life at all. That,s what I learned from the group I facilitated today.

...I also learned that everyone in the group has different points of views for their re_ sponses so I have to accept them all _ from Rob's religious points of view to Mitchell,s own experiences.

I learned that it is not easy to be a facilitator

64 Sn'ong, Voyaging to the Outer Lintits qf Education

because you have to keep the discussion

flowing.

I leamed that being a facilitator isn't easy.

You have to do so much you end up forget-

ting what your job entails. I learned that the

group you facilitate will always come up

with a question that will really make you

think, and you won't always think of all of their questions.

You have to have confidence in your topic

and questions and have control ofthe stu-

dents. There are always a lot of assumptions

being made by people.

It's sort of hard to facilitate. I will be more grateful to my teachers.

Are these the voices of a student led revolt against dis-

cussions? No, in fact, by the end of the year, when they

were required to co facilitate their own discussions, they

were diving head first into the challenge. Was it "too hard,"

like one girl had complained the first time I experimented

with P4C? Well, it was hard but as I explained, when my

students were given the right steps to achieve a standard

that was set for them it wasn't "too" hard as evidenced in

each of their co-facilitated discussions with their peers.

Was I "making them do college work," like another boy had

whined at the beginning of this effort? Maybe, it was col-

lege work because intellectual discussions are at the heart of a college education. However, being able to have an effec-

tive discussion with the people that you live with in the

world goes beyond college.

In our daily lives oral communication is the most preva-

lent form of human interaction. On any given day we dis-

cuss a variety of topics with our families, friends, the peo-

ple we work with, govemment officials, the guy at the

counter of a convenience store, the people we love and the

people that we experience the most conflict with in our

lives. In so many of these contexts people in general, let

alone teenagers, feel thwarted in their ability to solve prob-

lems or really express themselves. This is why practicing

discussion, and the art offacilitating good discussions is a

crucial practice for the classroom teacher. Inquiry-based

discussions provide the most relevant leaming because they

mirror the reality of our social world.

From my colleagues, I eventually heard a lot less criti-

cism and instead more dialogue about how P4C has devel-

oped in our school community. I knew things had changed

when a science teacher sacrificed her measly thirty-minute

lunch break to visit my classroom. "What are you doing with your students?" I had been accustomed to a culture of negativity and as I was about to ask her for clarification she

replied. "They always come to science on Friday, after your

class, passionately dialoguing about some deep social issue.

Tell me how you get them so excited." This is when it be-

came clear that P4C was changing the face of our school

culture. Could this enthusiasm about bettering the way we

look at schools grow beyond the chicken wire fences of our

country school? I was beginning to think so.

The more that I work on facilitation of discussions with

teenagers, the more Irealize how important my job is. If teenagers are the next generation to change the world, don't

we want them to have the skills to talk about the world's

issues with one another? Most centers of power in our

world operate within a context that requires their partici-

pants engage in discussions. For example, the United Na-

tions is one of, if not the most imporlant forum for world

change and the global positionrng of nations. Members of the United Nations must be able to have effective discus-

sions in order to resolve world conflict. An example more

specific to our country is the political ideal of democracy,

and discussion is a requirement for the perpetuation of this

ideal. Keeping these two examples of discussion-based re-

alities in mind, I wonder, why is it that within our own

communities, especially our schools, we rarely give our stu-

dents a space to critically discuss issues?

Discussion-based classrooms will change the world- for the better. P4C provides the essential framework to

make this change happen. However, it is up to teachers to

take this program, and experiment with it in their own

unique classrooms. Today's students, diverse as they are,

must have a common language that allows them to talk

about their differences with one another in an intellectually

safe and rigorous way. As individual teachers like myself

draw on the foundations that P4C has to offer, we can pro-

vide our students with the tools to change the world that

they so desperately desire. Just as I strive to change certain

aspects of the Hawaii State School system I know my stu-

dents are already changing cefiain aspects of Hawaii in gen-

eral-for the better. One thing to keep in mind as you em- bark on your own journey with your own students: they

might revolt at first, but keeping my story in mind, remem-

ber-with a little encouragement anyone can go anywhere.

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