Philosophy For Children: Representation Of John Dewey's Educational Theory

Philosophy for Children is a representation of John Dewey’s educational theory put into action written by Matthew Lipman, Gareth Matthews and Kieran Egan. The unified goal of the Philosophy for Children is to fill classrooms with transformed students who have learned to self-correct through dialogue and self-reflection. This transformation is done through conversation, discovery and understanding through the power of dialogue. In order to transform the classroom into a self-corrective environment, a Socratic model must be followed. Socratic model stems from Socrates’ beliefs that reinforce his philosophy of dialogue. He believes in allowing children to think for themselves and emphasizes the importance of what that thinking does. He also states that refraining from dialogue doesn’t necessarily mean one is not thinking, staying quiet and listening to the words of others can allow the same amount of new thoughts. However, dialogue is our form of truly understanding and assessing what others have said that can stick in our minds. We also can understand the total …show more content…
He focuses on three specific things, literature, conversation and dialogue. His focus on children’s literature is developed around the idea that it is “philosophically rich and perplexes children just as much as it perplexes philosophers”. He also believes in the same ideas of dialogue and conversation as Socrates. I think dialogue is especially important in classrooms today that are so focused on technology. Dialogue is encouraged in my classroom as it helps children develop socialization skills and learn. When children talk to one another they are able to give their opinions and learn new facts that they didn’t know before. The last contributor, Keiran Egan focuses on the connection between the question “What does it meant o be education?” and what we believe it means to be educated. Today, our focus of being