Laurance J. Splitter

1. Thinking (as in helping children improve their ______)

It is, perhaps, premature, to assert that teaching for better learning has been superseded by teaching for better thinking as a paramount goal of education. Not that the swing hasn’t occurred; it’s rather that we seem, in these economically conservative and outcome-driven times, to be swinging back again. This is a worrying trend: it suggests that our schools are still agents of manipulation and preservers of the dominant status quo, rather than facilities for personal enrichment and liberation; and it confuses education with training.

The previous paragraph might seem to be a polemical – even political – red herring. It is not. Whilst the politics of education is not my main subject here, anyone seriously concerned with the business of teaching for better thinking should be aware of the real world out there (as opposed to the real world of the classroom), for whom better thinking among ordinary citizens may be more of a threat than a priority. For this reason, among others, educators must make their voice heard. When, for example, we opt in to the topical citizenship debate, we must call attention to the importance of teaching our future (and, indeed, present) citizens to think for themselves. For this is what belonging to a participatory democracy is all about.

As conscious beings, whether awake or asleep, children think all the time. This point, though hardly earth-shattering in itself, has several important implications. For one thing, it reminds us that children come to school with ideas, attitudes and beliefs of their own, and that all their subsequent learning will, in various ways, be influenced by these prior understandings. This is the basis of constructivism and will be pursued below. For another, it compels us to acknowledge the normative or prescriptive dimension of our enterprise, for if we are not teaching children to think per se, we must be teaching them to think well or, at least, better. So we pass, inevitably, to the issue of standards and hence, to the question of the criteria by which we – and they – come to judge their thinking as good or bad, better or worse. It is just at this point that philosophy gains a foothold in the thinking debate, for philosophy is the normative discipline which deals with the construction, evaluation and modification of criteria.

2. Philosophy (as in doing ________ with children)

After more than 25 years of intellectual industry under the heading “Philosophy for Children”, the combination that this heading connotes is, at last, gaining acceptance. Nevertheless, an account of some key features is in order. I take the following to be more or less central to the notion of Philosophy for Children:

A. The tools and dispositions which have always been characteristic of philosophy, including:

the skills of argumentation (forming conclusions, identifying premises, deductive and non-deductive thinking, exposing poor reasoning, striving for consistency)

a propensity to question and search for reasons, rather than simply accept what is given

identifying, applying and modifying the criteria by which we form judgements (including value judgements) and make decisions

making distinctions that allow us to see the complexity of things (the “grey” between the black and the white)

identifying relationships that help us make sense of things (including relations of cause and effect, means and ends, parts and wholes,...)

exercising “moral imagination” by contemplating different ways of proceeding, and representing alternative moral positions and world views (the “What if ...?” strategy).

B. A focus on concepts of enduring interest, but especially those concepts which children find interesting and important, including: fair, true, good, friendship, beauty, space, time, person, rules, real, rights, responsibility, freedom, identity, mind, art, knowledge.2 In thinking about why these concepts recur as the subjects of philosophical inquiry – both throughout history and now in the school classroom – I would draw attention to three specific features: the “3 C’s”. These concepts are:

Common to the experiences of all – or most – thinking beings, including children (they are not remote or esoteric; most people can relate both to the concepts and the experiences they involve)

Central to the way we understand or make sense of our experience (they function as bridges or vehicles of thought, the entities by means of which thought is carried on (Harré 1966, p. 3)

Contestable or problematic (they resist our best attempts to define them with complete clarity and finality).

C. A continual process of contextualising and grounding so that children can have access to these tools and concepts by anchoring them in the bed-rock of their own experiences. In practice, Philosophy for Children invokes the power of literature to stimulate and provoke. Children enjoy stories and can be motivated by them to wonder and to inquire, especially when the stories focus on issues and events which are intriguing and contestable, while remaining connected to each child’s own experience. When a philosophical story is presented to children as a vehicle over which they, rather than adults, have control, it becomes their story and they use it set their own agenda for discussion and inquiry.

We cannot assume that children walk into the classroom able to do philosophy well. They need to know how to proceed, and one effective way to help them acquire this procedural knowledge is to involve them, intellectually as well as emotionally, in the lives of fictional characters who enact and model the processes of inquiry. These characters are presented as ordinary persons much like real children themselves. They take up the struggle of articulating what constitutes a good reason, or a good analogy, or a good distinction, or of examining the assumptions and implications which they, and their friends, parents and teachers make. By what they think, say and do, they show that they care about ideas and value good thinking – even if they do not always exemplify it in their own behaviour. When we encourage real children to identify with the intellectual processes of these characters, they too begin to practise and value the procedures.

There is not the space here to describe in any detail either the specific narratives upon which Philosophy for Children has been based, or the range of alternative approaches which have developed. What can be said is that the procedures, dispositions and concepts which characterise philosophical inquiry find expression in the kinds of questions which permeate every story, and every lesson, in Philosophy for Children.

D. These are some of the questions which children raise and proceed to explore:

What makes something good, or bad, right or wrong? Do children have rights?

Should we always follow the majority?

Why should we treat others with respect? Does this include animals?

Does my body belong to me or do I belong to my body?

What is a friend?,

What kind of world (society, community) do I want to live in?

What does it mean to be a person in the world?

Do you think that assumption is warranted?

Can you give an example/counter-example to illustrate your point?

What are your reasons for saying that?

How are you using the word ‘true’?” [Possible response: “True means the way things really are.”]. So are you assuming that the truth of what we say is independent of those who say it?

How are Cheng’s and Maria’s ideas alike/different?

Can you try to see the issue from their point of view?

When you said_______, did you mean _________.

Have we come any closer to solving the problem or answering the question?

Several aspects of this sample list are worthy of comment.

(i) Many of these questions refer to strategies that are common across subject-areas and disciplines. In philosophy, students not only apply these strategies, they do so reflectively or self-consciously, and with a view to evaluating how well a given strategy is employed. So, for example, we teach children to reason, but we also show them how to distinguish good reasons from bad ones, and encourage them to value the good ones. We show them how to use analogies and how to generate hypotheses as explanations, but we want them to do these things skilfully and to develop criteria for determining when a particular analogy or hypothesis is appropriate or reasonable.

Now one sign that these reflective and evaluative (ie philosophical) aspects – which are really matters of judgement – are in place, is the vocabularyemployed by students. It is one thing to ask questions of the form “Why...?”, “What if....?”, “Do you agree?” and so on. What philosophical inquiry generates is an appreciation that these questions are prompts for reasons, predictions and viewpoints which can, in turn, be evaluated as good or bad, better or worse, reasonable or unreasonable.

I am saying, in other words, that to do philosophy requires an understanding of such concepts as reason(and good reason), which is best manifested by the competent use of words like “reason” and “good”. Students become familiar with the vocabulary of thinking: “reason”, “reasonable”, “criteria”, “meaning”, “concept”, “judgement”, “question”, “assumption”, “distinction”, “relationship”, “analogy”, “inference”, “example”, “counter-example”, “evidence”, “consistent”, “true”, “good”, “ethical”, “logical” – terms which are both applied and thought about in the course of philosophical inquiry, and with which they can subsequently manage virtually any inquiry. 3

(ii) The kinds of questions which probe our thinking and provoke us to think harder and more deeply are usually highly contextual. With an eye on the above list, this is particularly so for questions like “So are you assuming that the truth of what we say is independent of those who say it? ” which cannot even be expressed schematically because they are too deeply embedded in specific contexts. Such questions, whilst open-ended and conducive to deep thinking, are by no means purely procedural, for they have a substantive conceptual content. They reflect a deepening understanding of philosophy and are very much concerned with the way we understand one or more specific concepts. This point reminds us that thinking is substantive as well as procedural. Philosophy provides a paradigm context in which substance or content does not reduce to the lowest common denominator of factual information. In doing philosophy, children have more than enough content to keep them busy, but this content, being conceptually rich enhances, rather than inhibits, deep or “higher-order” thinking. In philosophy, at least, the old problem of construing thinking as process rather than content simply disappears: a concept such as “fair” or “friend” is both.

E. Aside from its dependence on narrative as a context and a stimulus to inquiry, the chief characteristic of Philosophy for Children is its intrinsic connection with a methodology known as the “community of inquiry”.

A community of inquiry is a teaching and learning environment which “practises what it preaches”. It is both student-centred and highly-structured, with a focus on improving critical thinking and reasoning, inquiry-based questioning, collaborative dialogue and communication, imagination, and building self-esteem through active participation. It understands that the chief characteristics of a democratic society are:

the ability, and willingness, of its citizens to make good judgements and to think for themselves

a power structure which ensures that citizens have control over the direction of their own lives and the broader community/ society/world of which they are a part

Unlike other classroom structures (the “mock parliament” for example), which only pretend to empower students while actually vesting control in the teacher or syllabus, the community of inquiry is an authentic, egalitarian and democratic form of classroom practice which provides students with the tools and skills they require in order to make sound judgements and decisions. While the teacher remains “in authority” (ensuring, for example, that students observe a range of procedural rules that the community itself devises), the community of inquiry is “peer-driven” because it relies upon a dialogue which is generated predominantly by student interest. 4

A summary of the key features in a community of inquiry:

Community     [of]                Inquiry
Working cooperatively             Confronting a problem or puzzle
A sense of common purpose         Applying the vocabulary of thinking
Mutual trust and repect           Talking (dialogue) and questioning
Building and growing together     Acknowledging alternative points of view
Taking chances: a "safe" place    Thinking that is self-correcting
                     Building self-esteem
             Exercising freedom/ taking responsibility
      Learning to think for oneself by thinking with others
Developing care for the procedures as well as the subject matter of 
the inquiry5

Children bring to the classroom community their own perspectives, and viewpoints. But it is the community’s task to shape, and reshape, these ingredients into something which it can settle for, however tentatively and precariously. This line of thinking, as noted above, is constructivist in nature. It involves the realisation that even where we adults and experts feel that matters have been resolved into “hard” facts or knowledge (so never in philosophy!), we cannot simply impose our “objective” viewpoint on to young minds, not, that is, if we want our teaching and their learning to be meaningful to them.

Apt for the construction of meaning, the community of inquiry is linked, once more, to philosophy whose obsession with questions of meaning and interpretation is well known. Philosophy for Children understands that the search for, and construction of, meaning – traditionally scorned as “mere semantics” – is among the most pressing concerns that children have. For what drives the young child’s insatiable curiosity more than her yearning to understand? And what fuels the sense of alienation and frustration so typical of the adolescent’s experience of schooling, if not the belief that what she is required to learn has nothing to do with (= makes no sense in the context of) her life? Philosophical inquiry provides young people with the conceptual and pedagogic/ methodological tools they need in order to make sense of things which matter to them.

Participation in a classroom community of inquiry is a form of preparation for living and thriving in an increasingly complex and competitive world. But we must be careful here, for the concept of preparation is biased in favour of the end product over the means. If the community of inquiry were simply a pedagogic device for acquiring a set of skills or tools, then its value could, indeed, be seen in purely utilitarian terms. But it is also an end-in-itself, an authentic experience of personal power through collaboration and dialogue. And it fills what, for many children, is an aching hole: the need to belong to a community – a place in which each person’s unique contribution is acknowledged and valued. 6

3. From higher-order thinking skills to thinking skills to just plain good thinking

Lauren Resnick’s well-known list of features in Education and Learning to Think is often cited as a yardstick when it comes to characterising “higher-order” thinking.7 According to Resnick, higher-order thinking:

is non algorithmic. That is, the path of action is not fully specified in advance.

tends to be complex. The total path is not “visible” (mentally speaking) from any single vantage point.

often yields multiple solutions, each with costs and benefits, rather that unique solutions.

involves nuanced judgementand interpretation.

involves the application of multiple criteria, which sometimes conflict with one another.

often involves uncertainty. Not everything that bears on the task at hand is known.

involves self-regulationof the thinking process. We do not recognise higher-order thinking in an individual when someone else “calls the plays” at every step.

involves imposing meaning, finding structure in apparent disorder.

is effortful. There is considerable mental work involved in the kinds of elaborations and judgements required.

Notice that many of these features are expressive of the classroom community of inquiry. For one thing, they are strongly normative, rather than descriptive, in character. More specifically, consider:

• Complexity – not in terms of degree of difficulty, but in terms of needing to be observed from a number of vantage points or perspectives. Here is a crucial feature of communal inquiry: forging, together, a more objective viewpoint than would normally be gained by any one individual;

• An emphasis on thinking which is directed at making judgements based on sound criteria;

• Thinking which is self-regulating or, better, self-correcting;

• The need to construct meaning.8

With this kind of framework in mind, I wish to reflect on the term “higher-order thinking skills” looking, in turn, at “higher-order”, then at “skills”. Higher-order skills are, presumably, to be contrasted to lower-order or basic skills, calling to mind Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives in terms of recall, comprehension, knowledge, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation (Bloom 1956). This taxonomy, when interpreted as a hierarchy of skills, implies not only that lower-order knowledge, in the form of “simple” comprehension and memorisation, must be acquired first but also that the lower levels of the hierarchy will define the limits of understanding for many children, particularly those who are disadvantaged. 9

These implications, and their associated problems, are well known. It could be said that one of the immediate attractions of doing philosophy with children is the sense of liberation which comes when we invite them to engage in higher-order thinking. Notwithstanding the importance of showing sensitivity to different age groupings and thinking styles (in our choice of stimulus materials, for example), when children do philosophy together, they utilise and learn to co-ordinate a broad range of conceptual skills. The other, less up-lifting side of this coin is that generations of children have been cognitively deprived and conceptually starved by an almost-blind adherence to theories which constrained their thinking. I say “blind” here because one had only to watch, and listen carefully to, children to find ample reason for revising one’s excessively conservative theoretical position.

In my view, the “lower-order/higher-order dichotomy has passed its “use by” date. Something like the following seems now to be preferable. If we examine concepts like “comprehension” and “knowledge” à-la Bloom, and even such a focal curriculum concept as “literacy”, what we uncover are not single skills which are at some point on a “lower-order/ higher-order” scale but, at best, complexes of skills ranging from the more, to the less, basic. 10

If this is roughly right, then to treat certain concepts as if they were always at the lower level is not only to ignore their more interesting and sophisticated interpretations, but to fall into the old trap of saying: “Since knowledge, comprehension and literacy are basic to all intellectual (and most other) pursuits, we can’t afford to spend time engaging children in “higher-order” skills like analysis, synthesis and evaluation, unless and until we are convinced that they have mastered the basics.” To teach for better thinking involves understanding the complexity of “thinking” and of those many skills which comprise it. It involves understanding that the kinds of characteristics offered by Resnick and others do not pick out a higher – as opposed to a lower or more basic – level of thinking. What they pick out is good thinking, desirable thinking, complex thinking, thinking that is so rich and enticing that it stimulates those who engage in it to do more, and to do it better. 11

Further, to teach for better thinking involves understanding that the sorts of components identified by Bloom are, themselves, interwoven into a network of skill-complexes, so that, for example, comprehension and the construction of knowledge at their most sophisticated levels, call upon analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Here we have a clue to the teaching of thinking which is quite different from the old hierarchical talk. Devise a framework and an environment which reflects and represents, not just the complexity of thinking, but the interconnected network that is thinking. This, in turn, involves engaging all students – irrespective of age and (apparent) ability – in better thinking, that is, thinking which is non algorithmic, complex, criterial, judgement-bound, self-correcting, uncertain, intensely meaningful, and so on.

One more short step and we can discard another piece of excess baggage. For it surely follows that we are not teaching for proficiency in this or that thinking skill, but for better thinking tout court. Consider the following statement which claims to reflect contemporary thinking about thinking: “One of the early [and, by implication, continuing] themes in the literature on teaching thinking is the notion that if we are to teach students to think, we need to identify specific skills of thinking, and then focus on how to teach those particular skills.” (Anderson et al 1994, p. 11). Now let us acknowledge that thinking comprises skills, indeed, a great many of them, mostly interwoven and mostly with their own taxonomic structures. But it does not follow at all that teaching for better thinking reduces to teaching, first this skill (or skill complex), then that one, and so on, so that in the end one will have “taught thinking”. As Lipman puts it, just because wholes are capable of being analysed into parts, it does not follow that the assemblage of parts must precede the construction of wholes. He thus rejects the idea that “the implantation of higher-order cognitive skills in students will result in higher-order thinking on their part”, arguing instead that “we should teach directly and immediately for higher-order thinking. The skills will take care of themselves, and if they do not, this is a matter for subsequent remediation.” (Lipman 1991, p. 20). This, mutatis mutandis (for I no longer wish to speak of “higher-order” thinking), is my view also.

Of course, subordinating the teaching of specific thinking skills in this way puts the spotlight back onto the question of how we are to teach thinking in a structured and coherent manner. I shall return to this question in the final section of my paper, but as a general and guiding principle, it is worth remembering that one brings aspects of oneself – the kind of person one is – to the activity of thinking. To this extent, the improvement of thinking should be considered a central aspect of personal development. 12

4. Philosophy and the teaching of thinking: context and structure

In the previous section I argued that the teaching of thinking can neither be reduced to teaching specific thinking skills, nor organised according to a hierarchy or taxonomy of such skills. To put this conclusion in somewhat different terms, the concept of thinking per se does not contain within itself sufficient structure to provide a practical framework for teaching thinking. We are, it seems, left with a choice: (i) forget about the teaching of thinking; (ii) teach thinking with reference to no particular structure (some problem-solving exercises here, “thinking” acronyms and mnemonics there); (iii) ground such teaching in an appropriate structure. Ever eager to seek for the teaching of thinking the status of more readily-accepted subjects in the school curriculum, I prefer to explore the third option. I suggest that the required structural connection is two-fold: first with the discipline of philosophy itself, and second with the environment of the community of inquiry.

That philosophy should provide a conceptual structure for the teaching of thinking is hardly surprising. It is, after all, the discipline which has, traditionally, “thought about thinking” and provided the criteria for improving thinking. To appreciate this point in more detail requires juxtaposing the traditional sub disciplines of philosophy, most notably, logic, ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and aesthetics, with the characteristics and strategies associated with thinking (and referred to earlier in this paper), together with those concepts which are “common, central and contestable”. Thus, logic yields criteria for distinguishing good reasoning from bad, ethics is the proper home of values and judgements of value, epistemology raises questions of knowledge and criteria, metaphysics ponders issues of reality and being, aesthetics reflects on our capacity to experience and appreciate the world, and so on. In doing philosophy with children, we speak of reconstructing the discipline of philosophy so that it becomes accessible to children. Such reconstruction involves finding ways (for example, through narrative) to bring to children’s attention the strategies and concepts listed here (among others), being those which have driven philosophical inquiry through the ages. But of course these ingredients are precisely the tools children require if they are to improve their thinking. Clarifying the relation between philosophy and thinking is not just a matter of setting the historical record straight; it is the key to bringing to “thinking” that sense of structure which renders it properly teachable.

I should note here that it is the desire to give children access to the philosophical tradition that, in turn, provides a guide to teacher education in Philosophy for Children. The philosophy teacher needs to have a sense, not only of the procedures and tools of inquiry, but of how these elements emerge from, and apply to, philosophical dialogue.

I envisage an objection to this line of argument, in relation to the claim that philosophy is the discipline which supplies or defines the structure of thinking. After all, do we not speak of improving thinking within each and every discipline; of developing tools of historical, mathematical and artistic inquiry, and so on? Doesn’t my argument lead back to the well-known thesis that thinking, and hence the teaching of thinking, is domain-specific – where the domains in question are defined by the existing school subjects? What then happens to the case I am attempting to make for the inclusion – indeed, primacy – of philosophy in the curriculum?

This objection is given added weight by pointing out that the community of inquiry, an environment well-suited to the improvement of thinking, is not specific to philosophy or any other subject. It must, of course, be content-driven but the desired content can come from any discipline or subject matter that raises thought-provoking questions for consideration.

The idea that thinking is domain-specific undergoes something of a transformation when we remember that philosophy is, itself, a domain with eminently respectable credentials. This is because philosophy is a domain which, historically and structurally, bears a unique relation to other domains or disciplines. In so far as each subject area has its logical, ethical, epistemological... dimensions, philosophy can be viewed as intersecting with it. Thus we have the philosophy of science, of history, of religion, of art..., both as sub disciplines of philosophy (in terms of the procedures and concepts involved), and as realms of inquiry which are embedded within each discipline (compare Lipman 1991, p. 142).

However, from a pedagogic perspective, what secures the central place of philosophy is that it enables children to acquire the tools they need in order to think well in all domains of inquiry (both inside and outside school).13 So it is not just that philosophy is intertwined with the disciplines in the sense explained above, but that what this sense of connectedness facilitates is an improvement in thinking within (and beyond) the disciplines. One might say that whereas subjects like science, history and mathematics call uponskills and strategies associated with good reasoning and inquiry, concept formation and the like, it is philosophy which may be said to teachthem.

We should be careful not to take the notion of domain-specificity too far. Whilst the strategies, tools and procedures associated with thinking and inquiry are, indeed, without meaning when they are applied outside any and every context, it does not follow that they are totally different in each context of their application. To the contrary, such strategies as are involved in constructing criteria, forming judgements, hypothesising, reasoning deductively, inductively or analogically, finding appropriate examples and counter-examples, ...., are common to every discipline (albeit sensitive to the context of each). Rather than setting these strategies above and beyond the disciplines, this point underscores the role of philosophy to provide a conceptual home for these strategies, as well as a coherent path into other subjects.

For those who must concern themselves with such realities as the school timetable, I would simply express the hope that time might be found both for giving philosophy the same status as other school subjects, and for encouraging students to identify and explore those contestable and conceptual questions which are to be found beneath the surface of every subject. Indeed, increasing numbers of teachers now report that discernible improvements in thinking across the disciplines can be traced to the introduction of philosophy as a legitimate school subject.

I turn now to the idea that the classroom itself, when it functions as a community of inquiry, provides a sense of structure and order for the teaching of thinking. It is no doubt true that any community, if it is to survive and flourish, must generate and adhere to some sense of order and cohesion. Similarly, that mode of thinking (or thinking + action) which might be called “inquiry” is structured by several factors: the presence and shape of questions and puzzles which drive it, a sense of openness which urges students to think beyond predetermined solutions, and the requirement on all those involved to rethink existing directions and explore new ones. Even more significant, however, is that sense of structure which comes from the combination of these elements: that is, from shared or communal inquiry. The crucial ingredient here is what I call the “dynamic of inquiry”: that which provides the energising or motive force which makes it possible to move forward (toward a solution, or at least a clearer understanding of the problem). This dynamic is a form of thinking, to be sure, but it is the thinking of the community, that is, dialogue. It is the reflective conversation of the community of inquiry, with all of its stops and restarts, “umms” and “aahs” and self-correction – but also with its palpable sense of movement – that provides a sense of structure to the thinking of its members.

The move I am attempting to make here relies upon reversing – or, at least, balancing – the familiar view that what we say reflects or echoes what we think. Such a “Cartesian” view has been challenged by many philosophers, but also by psychologists such as Vygotsky. There is not the space here to lay out these points of connection in any detail, but suffice to say that the conversation, or dialogue, of the community of inquiry, both reflects the thinking of its members andgives shape to, and stimulates, that thinking. Thinking, in so far as it is bound up with the ongoing inquiry, is dialogical in character: it can be aptly characterised as “talking to – or with – oneself”.

In practice, what we see happening is that children who participate in a community of inquiry develop certain ways of talking (including listening, reasoning, questioning, ...) with one another, partly because they want to communicate their thoughts and ideas, but even more so because in the process of communicating with others, they are actively engaged in “meaning-making”. Over time, these ways become internalised as habits of thinking conducive, I might add, to the kinds of thinking we require of senior students under such headings as “independent research” and “inquiry”. This internalised thinking takes on the structure of dialogue. In other words, it

strives to resolve, or make sense of a problem or puzzle

is flexible, yet open to self-correction and modification

is built upon an assumption of equality or “respect for persons” which guarantees that no one voice, viewpoint or perspective (including those of the teacher and textbook) will be so strong as to prevent the expression of others. 14

If I am on the right track here, then we have a powerful argument for promoting those classroom environments which give a special status to conversation and, in particular, the kind of conversation – namely, dialogue – which drives students to think more reflectively, more critically and more creatively.

The dialogue in a community of inquiry is always, in some sense, a search for meaning (as well as a struggle to communicate with others as part of that search). It should be encouraged and practised in every school subject which lays claim to being a form or mode of inquiry. But its connection with meaning brings us back to philosophy as that discipline most centrally concerned with thinking about questions of meaning. In this respect, then, philosophy can accurately be described as an “enabling” discipline (a status usually reserved for English and mathematics), because it prepares students to think well. It also offers children (as well as adults) a “way in” to the “big” questions (“Who am I?”, “Does life have a purpose?”, “Where did the world come from?”, “What kind of world do we want to live in?”, “What does it mean to live well?”, “What ought I to do, or hope....?”). These are the questions which have the power either to tantalise and stimulate, or to frustrate those who raise them. Which of these potentials is realised in practice may yet depend upon our preparedness to stand up to those who cannot – or will not – see that in the context of curriculum, “more” does not necessarily mean “more deeply”. Recognising the proper place of philosophy in the curriculum may be, at the least, a step in the right direction.15

March 1995

References

Anderson, Ronald D. et al (1994) Issues of Curriculum Reform in Science, Mathematics and Higher Order Thinking across the Disciplines. Washington, DC: United States Department of Education.

Bloom, Benjamin S. (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. New York: Longman.

Egan, Kieran (1988) Teaching as Story-telling: An Alternative Approach to Teaching and the Curriculum. London: Routledge.

Hart, W. A. (1983) Against skills. Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 5.1. 35-44.

Lipman, Matthew (1991) Thinking in Education. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lipman, Matthew (1994) Moral education, higher-order thinking and philosophy for children. Journal of Early Child Development and Care. Special edition. Vol.

Resnick, Lauren B. (1987) Education and Learning to Think. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Splitter, Laurance J. (1991) Critical thinking: What, why, when and how. Educational Philosophy and Theory 23.1. 89-109.

Splitter, Laurance J. and Sharp, Ann M. (1995) Teaching for Better Thinking: The Classroom Community of Inquiry. Melbourne, Australia: The Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd.

Endnotes

1 My own thinking on the connection between thinking, higher-order thinking and philosophy, as reflected in this paper, has been greatly influenced by Matthew Lipman, in whose mind the idea of Philosophy for Children first germinated in the 1960s. Since that time, he has written extensively on these matters. Splitter and Sharp 1995 contains a detailed Biblography on Philosophy for Children.

2 Children often acquire these concepts in bipolar fashion: fair/unfair, real/imaginary, etc. See Egan 1988

3 These terms and associated strategies are bound up with dispositions like openmindedness and a commitment to truth, tolerance and care. Students can apply, reflect on, and evaluate, dispositions as well as skills.

4 Over time, even the pedagogic authority of the teacher becomes vested in the community itself, as students internalise an understanding of the procedures involved.

5 The idea that students might care for the "how" and the "how well" of thinking, as well as the "what" is prominent in a community of inquiry.

6 We always live at the time we live and not at some other time and only by extracting at each present time the full meaning of each present experience are we prepared for doing the same thing in the futre. This is the only preparation which in the long run amounts to anything. John Dewey

7 Resnick 1987; Anderson et al 1994, p. 19.

8 Lipman 1991, pp. 69-73.

9 Anderson et al 1994, p. 16. As Lipman 1991, p.109, explains, the combination of Bloom's taxonomy with Piaget's "stages of cognitive development" has proven irresistable to many educators. It has also been a powerful constraint when it comes to thinking about and improving children's thinking.

10 Sitting, as I recently did, on a committee one of whose tasks was to give a "teacher friendly" definition of literacy, I quickly realised that one could, indeed, highlight the most basic and mechanical of skills and strategies with literacy

11 Lipman has persisted with the term "higher-order thinking" but consider some recent characterisations: 1991, p. 19: higher order thinking is "conceptually rich, coherently organised and persistently exploratory"; p.92: "whatever is the kind of thinking that is conducive to [the goal of education], that is higher-order thinking"; and 1994, p.4: higher -order thinking is critical, creative and caring thinking. In an earlier paper, I offered a similar interpretation for the concept of "critical thinking", suggesting that it "boiled down" to good thinking; Splitter 1991.

12 In an interesting paper called " Against Skills", W.A. Hart 1983 maintains that in activities such as reading, speaking, writing and thinking - understood here in their more complex and sophisticated sense-one brings, not this or that collection of skills, but oneself.

13 The reference to beyond school reminds us that the tools and habits of good thinking and sound judgement are needed on the streets as well as - and perhaps more so than - in the classroom.

14 See Lipman 1991, pp.51-53, 69.

15 Readers are referred to Splitter and Sharp 1995 for more detailed treatment of many of the issues raised in this paper.