When I tell people I teach Philosophy to children, their reaction is almost always: “Gosh, you mean in a private school?”
When I tell them that I mostly work in Deptford, Brixton and Whitechapel with children receiving free school meals, they look surprised.
Who can blame them? Philosophers stir their tea pondering how we know the sun will rise tomorrow, while the working classes worry whether there is enough money on the electric meter for today, right?
Growing up, my dad, brother and uncle were in and out of prison for violent and drug-related crime, while my mum worked two jobs. Teachers tried their hardest with me, but the more they told me “You have a choice” the more they convinced me that they knew nothing about the real world. My peers couldn’t understand the realities of my background; those who did, I tried to stay away from. I left school with three GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education).
To placate my stepfather, I said I’d join the army, but the authority made me even more contrary, and I pulled out. Buying fizzy sweets from my local supermarket, I realised I could be working there soon. If that was my future, then the sun would not be coming up tomorrow. I knew plenty of children dealing drugs near where I lived. They had nice trainers too. Nicer than mine, I thought.
Earlier that year, a teacher had photocopied an ex-student’s coursework and written my name on it. I respected him for breaking the rules; I felt I was being given a chance. His gesture helped me understand there were teachers who were trying to help me. So I went to an open day at a sixth-form college where the Philosophy teacher posed the question: “How do we know we’re not just dreaming this reality?”
Marooned in my own unrelatable reality, I embraced this chance to grapple with the true nature of things. As we debated, I realised that the alienation that underpinned my identity could be transformed into thoughts, essays, grades; it could be the makings of an education. In that classroom, my argumentative nature was a virtue and could be moulded into more nuanced skill. I decided to resit my GCSEs so that I could take Philosophy. The sun might just come up tomorrow.
Largely because of the access I had to Philosophy, I was brought safely away from the edge of the abyss that my life teetered above. But is my story just an anomaly? Is it or yet another tale of social mobility that is as unrepresentative as it is redemptive? Research by the Institute of Education has shown that a term of Philosophy sessions improved the reading skills of children on free school meals when compared to a control group. If Philosophy is made more available to working-class children, then stories like mine won’t seem so unusual.
Intuitive ‘yes’ or ‘no’
The Philosophy Foundation’s Peter Worley has developed a questioning strategy, which I believe allows children to access philosophy regardless of their cultural currency. When the teacher shows a painting to the class, they ask: What is art? When the teacher tells a story about a ship that has all its parts replaced with new ones, they ask: Is it the same ship?
Both are philosophical questions. The art question is more accessible to those children who have been to galleries, but children who haven’t been on a ship will still be able to discuss the themes of identity behind the ship question.
Crucially, the ship question creates an inclusive classroom because it’s a closed question and it requires the child to have only an intuitive “yes” or “no” reaction. It’s then the Philosophy teacher’s job to help the child develop his or her response into a reasoned argument. Where responding to the art question requires the child to be articulate before answering, the ship question is designed to help children become more articulate by answering it.
I teach Philosophy in schools because it allows young people to challenge authority and express themselves in a way that creates rather than destroys their life opportunities.
Philosophical questions such as “Who should have power?” and “Can you be a good person if you do bad things?” are universally evocative. If we have the means to make them universally accessible, then we must do so. Whether the sun comes up tomorrow or not may depend on it.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
