PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE IN EDUCATION
In his youth, anyone must not hesitate to engage himself in philosophy. For anyone cannot engage too early or too late in the activity that the health of the soul provides. Philosophical activity imposes itself to the person who is young as well to the one who is old. (Epicurus, 341-270 BC, Letter to Menecius)
Philosophy: we are wrong to paint it inaccessible to children … Since philosophy is the one that teaches us to live, and that childhood has its lesson there, like other ages, why don’t we communicate it to her? A child is able to philosophize, from his first years, much better than to learn how to read or to write. (Montaigne, 16th century, Essais)
INTRODUCTION
A child is a researcher: from the time he starts speaking, he is curious, he touches to everything, he wants to experiment, he asks questions. But usually either the parents answer him and move on something else, or they say that they don’t have time to answer or that they don’t know, or they prefer to send him to watch TV, play games… But they don’t discuss with him, which means take the time to sit with him, do nothing else, and have a real conversation with the child. It’s not anymore: « do this » or « don’t do that », or « if you work well at school you will have this thing »… It’s to take the child as an equal person. What happens? The child grows up, gets used to not having answers to his questions: how did I get born? Why the sky is blue? Why sometimes I am sad and some other time I am happy?… all these existential questions which are important to him, but as he get used to not receive answers, he forgets and learn how to play the « adults’ game », the one from the parents and the one from the teachers. At school, he receives a lot of knowledge (he forgets most of it when he grows up), learns some rules in order to live in society, learns to think of/about/into (think of doing his homework, to tell his mother something, of his friend…) but does not learn to think critically, « to think the thinking »: it means judge, analyze, criticize, be able to distance oneself, estimate, make connections between its own representations, use logic. But to think, we need to be conscious. It’s a necessity. There is no possible thinking without consciousness, this « presence to oneself » like Descartes said.
WHAT IS IT?
Critical thinking, or more commonly called philosophical practice, is the incessant research for truth that proceeds through questioning, allowing one to interact and deal with the others, to confront with oneself, to get out of received ideas and give meaning to banalities. It is the ability to think clearly, rationally, and to engage in reflective thinking. It is a way of thinking in which we don’t simply accept all arguments, objections and conclusions. It teaches how to think objectively and rigorously, to develop a critical and constructive thinking, to give meaning to what we say, to what we do.
I work a lot with children and teenagers; the lack of confidence and/or strong ego provoke often some violent behavior, antisocial behavior (insults, insolence…); during a “critical thinking” session, they – and it is the same thing for any human being – must be clear with the words they use, be precise. Critical thinking helps to become conscious and responsible of one’s own words and acts, it obliges “to know” and “to see”, “to make judgments”, “to take decisions”, to “think before talking”. It is also a moment where one’s learns to produce and understand ideas, to deepen them, to problematize them through questions and objections, to clarify them by forging and identifying concepts. It invites to identify issues and obstacles in the learning process. It is a way to examine the world and one’s own existence. Here, one’s must use reason, which is the power to distinguish what is true from what is false. It is to be able to think at the same time the thinkable and the unthinkable, like a police investigation on oneself, on others: seeing, questioning, analyzing, constructing, deconstructing, concluding, seeking for the truth. But like any other activity, this one has rigorous rules that one must understand and apply in order to reach the level of an art.
Practicing philosophy is usually different from what the professor or the philosophy teacher does. This one is generally a theoretician, teaching the most important ideas of the philosophers, talking for example about the concept of truth in Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard. They are teachers, some of them good pedagogues, they know well the history of philosophy, but they don’t do philosophy, they don’t practice it. Doing or practicing philosophy, it is « dare to know » (Kant), it is « to know how to be astonished » (Aristotle), it is « to be curious of what surrounds us » (Russell). It is to take distance with oneself, it is to be at the same time oneself and the other, it is to invite the subject to reconcile himself with himself through his words and his acts, it is to face its own fears, it is to accept the finitude of its being, its imperfection, its nullity. It is a dialogue with oneself and the others, it is to question oneself, learn how to like reality, to get out of its illusions, it is being here, present to the world and to oneself. It is to learn how to know oneself in order to give it up. We are not in “what is true?” but in “how is it true?”, not in what we think but how we think it, not in descriptive but in performative: we examine all the problematics, even the ones that are refused. It is not about a vision of the world, but how to develop and think some competencies. Think through what we know and not only as knowledge.
One starts from an idea, an opinion, and before moving on to another, we work on it, like a sculptor with a piece of clay. We put aside our subjectivity; it is used, of course, but in order to make it an objective thought.
It is “taking part in a discussion, a dialogue, a debate: speaking to others, listening to others, formulating a point of view, justifying it with an argument, making a judgment”.
To discuss, to dialogue does not mean imposing one’s ideas on others, but thinking, which is taking the risk of seeing one’s beliefs, certainties criticized, analyzing what is said so as to verify whether a proposition is valid, see how it is false or useless, simultaneously take a perspective and its opposite in order to test a hypothesis, to construct it, to elaborate it. It also means making an “effort of intellectual work”. Problems are articulated – we learn to do so, to reconcile ourselves with a problem that is generally perceived as something negative, an obstacle, whereas it is at the heart of all teaching. Deconstruct to rebuild. Is that still true? Are there times when this is wrong? Is that still the case? This forces one to think of one thing and its limitations.
Always we must ask “How do we know this?”, “Is this conclusion based on evidence, certitude, feelings, or on something built logically, reasoned?”. We must be able to suspend our own judgment (Descartes) in order to understand the other, even where there is still a disagreement. We must try to put ourself at the place of the other (Kant), which means be able to go out of our own opinions, of our own beliefs in order to understand the others’ opinions, the others’ beliefs. In this way, we can either reinforce our opinion, either nuance it or change our mind. It is an important part also of creativity because we need it to evaluate and improve our creative ideas. We use Socrates’ questioning which is a work on oneself, on consciousness: how do I know what I know? What are my arguments? Can I justify all my affirmations? Am I coherent with myself? And Hegel’s dialectic where he makes a distinction between internal critic and external critic. In critical thinking, we deal more with internal critic, where we “work” the opinion inside instead of giving a new opinion. The philosophers are there, in filigree.

WHAT IT HAS TO DO IN EDUCATION?
In general, the teacher, the “educator”, establishes direct relations between him and each pupil, instead of creating a communication network among the pupils themselves. Here, he is asked somehow to agree to come down from his pedestal, and even more to put aside his ego. Because the teacher is the one who knows, the ego is strengthened. If some students learn easily, this is not the case for all, each not having the same relationship to knowledge, to the acquisition of skills. Now every knowledge, every matter, every skill is in a way a world in itself. Either the teacher will mostly work with the five-six students who always raise their hands, who are rather good students and keep quiet; and then it will work with those who are in great difficulty, separately. But here, in the philosophical discussion, what do we ask? To tear oneself away in order to plunge into a world that is not his, and that is all the difficulty. Who says wrenching says pain, suffering, violence, and it is something that one cannot conceal when one teaches. To discuss and debate is above all to think critically, to problematize, that is, to analyze what is said in order to verify whether a proposition is valid, and to see how it is false or useless. Take simultaneously a perspective and its opposite to test a hypothesis, to construct it, to elaborate it. Simple questions to ask themselves, and children usually learn them quickly: is that always true? Are there times when this is wrong? Is that still the case?
This forces to think something and its limits.
It is about “deconstructing” to “reconstruct”. The Cartesian principle of method (tools for thinking), which will be found among others in Spinoza, Hegel… Principles of philosophy applicable both in class and in everyday life. This means reconciling with the concept of “problem”, which is generally perceived as something negative, as an obstacle, as something not good, whereas it is at the heart of all teaching, and for the reasons cited above.
It is to oblige the children (and the adults) to get out of themselves, to become more active, more with the others, to be responsible for themselves and the society in which they live. Terrible responsibility, terrible freedom! “Human beings are condemned to be free.” (JP Sartre).
Studies, mainly in Quebec, have been carried out on the impact of the philosophical workshop as a prevention of violence, by working on emotions: knowing how to name them, explaining them, looking for causes, consequences, giving them Meaning, since violence is often linked to badly managed emotions. In these philosophical courses, children do not “tell their own life”, talk about themselves, their problems (it’s the role of psychologists), but learn to do research work together with others: To seek the meaning of words, to ask questions, to provide reasoned answers (what we call “arguments”) based on their opinions, on what they think, to take a critical look at the ideas of their comrades; that is to say, to learn to see a logical or reasoning problem (it is not a question of whether it is good or bad – what is commonly called moral judgment – but simply to find problems), make links between ideas…
It is not a matter of bringing children into competition with each other, but of getting them to cooperate (learning how to ask for help from their peers when they can not do it), building a thoughtful thinking. One can use any medium, oral or written (a question, a history, paintings, a concrete situation…). Co-construction of knowledge through listening, respect of the other’s speech, sharing, solidarity that allow to learn how to be autonomous, to live with the others.
Every gesture laid down, every word uttered is not insignificant: everything has a cause, a reason for being. One transmits one’s thought with words, one constructs one’s thought with words, one constructs one’s being. It is the learning of language from kindergarten, it’s education; speaking does not come alone, it must be educated.
“To educate is to anticipate the evolution of the other, to assume it is capable of doing what it does not yet know how to teach it to do so” said Philippe Meirieu, a French pedagogue, specialist in education (he is very well known in France). A language that elaborates itself through sentences and not signals (for example: head-marks), with a subject (what we are talking about, a fixed point) and a predicate (what we say and assume responsibility for). It is the language that will allow to dialogue with the others, children and adults.
I will make a parenthesis. One day, a director of a big high school in the French suburb told me: Our students do not know how to argue, express a point of view in a clear way, they do not even know how to make a sentence. Because of this, because they cannot express themselves with words, they use their bodies and it leads to violence. So asking them to think is an impossible task.
It is a question of “thinking”, not of “thinking to something”. We must just look at the results at the philosophy exam at the end of high school in France (very important) or discuss with philosophy teachers to see that there is a real problem. It is not by teaching philosophy at seventeen or eighteen years old that a student will learn to think by himself. Thinking must become internal to existence, and not external to existence, it must be something natural, normal.
“To live without the thought, is not to live, it is to lead a life of ignorance. (Plato).
Here, we raise awareness that words have meaning, which values the pupil as a person, as a subject. It is a kind of reconciliation with one’s identity, hence the importance of the confrontation with the other: that other than me, the “stranger” (differing in culture, social origin, past, temperament, religion…). By accepting the other, one accepts oneself more, the other serving as a mirror. Critical thinking gives a confidence in his own possibilities, in his own capacities, for example cognitive as knowledge is no longer reserved to specific people.
I will make a second parenthesis. In France, philosophical workshops were added to the curriculum at the beginning of the actual school year in the course of Moral and Civic Education which contains four main dimensions:
– the sensitivity which aims at the acquisition of a moral conscience through work on expression, identification, the putting into words and the discussion of emotions and feelings;
– the rule and the law which aim at the acquisition of the meaning of the rules of living together;
– the judgment that makes it possible to understand and discuss the moral choices encountered by each during his / her life;
– the commitment which allows the practice to be put into practice by insisting on the spirit of autonomy, cooperation and responsibility vis-à-vis others.
The difficulty is that most of the teachers don’t have the skills to do it, and usually the workshops become more debates of opinions than something which has to do with philosophy!
The teacher must become a facilitator, not in the teacher-student relationship but in a mutual teaching. It can bring knowledge, but it must also, and above all, make children think. Often students want to convince others that they are right, that their ideas are good, or even the best, correct. When someone wants to convince another person that he is right, he does not try to argue with him, he wants to prove something to him, among other things that he is right, that he knows. But when a student asks the teacher: I have a question. Could you answer that? He waits for the right answer. If the teacher answers: what is your answer to this question first? And then, “are you satisfied with your answer? “, it obliges the pupil to think, he has to leave his role of” consumer “. Often, because we became so accustomed to it, the student wants the answer of the teacher, of the one who holds the knowledge, and that is a problem. Here, we learn to expect nothing, not even the “right” answer. Even if the student says something wrong or false, we forget our desire to “rectify” his slightest mistake. Something that the teacher does naturally, even if he is not always conscious of it.
In order to think critically, it’s necessary to have a self-discipline. We must not leave our desires to be stronger than reason, desires that can lead us only to chaos, confusion, frustration, resentment, sadness, anger.
This knowledge (philosophical skills) allows us to get out of our affective condition and to go in a more reasonable condition (based on reason).
WHAT DO THESE CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS BRING TO EDUCATION?
. Help resolve conflicts
. Learning to life in society, to citizenship (taking into account the other)
. Formulate correct answers (proficiency in the language), answer the questions asked
. Self-knowledge, and therefore openness to others and to the world
. Critical thinking
. Giving meaning to learning
. Promotes behavior appropriate to classroom life
. Speaking to others without fear
. Bring confidence, less fear, learn to be responsible (one leaves the status of victim)
. Identify problems, name them (articulation)
. Development of individual thinking, structuring
ABOUT THE IMPACTS IN THE CLASSROOM
I will quote two teachers with whom I have been working for many years on the connection between critical thinking and education.
One is the director and teacher of a primary school located in a very poor suburb of Paris (France).
– Better consideration of student mechanisms
– Better management time in class
– A change in the view that the teacher has and regards his pupils
– Change in students’ attitude in the classroom: more listening, attention, dialogue with others, freedom (learning to say “I do not know” not to get rid of a difficulty or because I’m not interested, but because I really do not know)
– It allows them to get out of themselves, to be interested in others, to get out of boredom for some (boredom they often have with themselves), to “see the world”.
– Setting up a climate of confidence in the classroom (instead of answering “nothing” when chatting with the neighbor for example, we speak the truth and we pass …).
The second is a secondary and high school’s teacher who is working in one of the poorest suburbs in South Africa: Every time I give instructions, I check if the students understand by asking someone in the class to repeat the instructions with their own words. If there is confusion, if they have forgotten something, or if they simply cannot repeat it, they must ask another student to help them. In this way, I let them become more responsible for their own understanding. I let them do the work of clarification, explanation for everyone, so everyone can understand. It’s something they do better than me. Slowly, the students begin to listen to each other, and listen to me with more attention. They are able to speak more clearly and, more importantly, ask questions when they do not understand. It is up to each teacher to create a space in his classroom where the students:
– feel safe and able to express themselves, ask questions when they do not understand;
– listen, clarify the thoughts and ideas of others, and offer additional explanations when necessary;
– speak clearly and are responsible for their ideas, for themselves;
– understand and accept each with its differences, and have the patience to work together despite their disagreements.
TO CONCLUDE
As educators, parents and teachers, it is up to us to lead change, so our children can become responsible beings, capable of thinking for themselves, and more than ever this is what the world needs. Critical thinking is an essential tool in education. And we must ask ourselves, in our time, where social networks, where the facticity of relationships have become common objects, what we want to offer to our children, what society we want for them. It’s a choice we make, wherever we live, whatever our culture, our religion, the social environment we live! We must offer this opportunity to our children who will become the citizens, even/indeed the leaders of tomorrow.
I will finish by a quote of the Holy Qu’ran: « If you manage to know yourself completely, if you can honestly and harshly confront both your dark sides and your bright sides, you will come to a supreme form of consciousness. When a person knows herself, she knows God… »