On Friday, October 24 I ran my first session. I started with an introduction of philosophy, followed by a reading of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, with a discussion at the end. The turn out? Fantastic!
The kids were great. They were really excited about the topic of philosophy. I first asked them if they new what philosophy is, or at least give it a guess. They had varying responses, including, "Is it about animals?" and, "Is it when we make things?" I said that they were all right in ways and told them that philosophy is when we ask big questions and use our reason to figure out the world around us. An example I gave of a philosophical question was, "How do I know I see the same color blue as my sister? How do I know we see color the same way?" I gave other examples and then asked the class if they could think of any philosophical questions themselves. One asked, "Do animals see color?" Another inquired, "Can animals talk?" Apart from animals, there were several other questions asked, some heavier than others. There was one question that really stood out from the rest: "How come I live my life one way, but somebody else lives their lives a different way? Why can't we feel the same things? Why can't we live the same way?" I was incredibly impressed. Here I am, working with second-graders and an incredibly complex question floats from the mouth of one of them. I didn't think problems of identity and the self would come up at this young of an age.
After more questions were offered, I decided to move on to the book at hand. Once done reading Where the Wild Things Are, I asked the class if they could think of any philosophical questions related to the story. There was a pause. I then decided to offer one that was based on the book. "Where was Max throughout the story? Was he in his bedroom the whole time? Did he go somewhere else?" This chimed conversation and an intense debate on whether or not trees could sprout through floorboards in seconds began. The inquiry eventually led one child to suggest, "Maybe the person who wrote the book just wanted a forest to appear. Maybe that's all that was suppose to happen." I held onto that thought for a bit. It reminded me of one of my classes from last semester on philosophy and the arts. The question implied that artist intentionality must be taken into consideration. I am not sure how I could stem from such a question for a later session, but I decided to go off from it right then and there. It didn't last long, for the conversation got sidetracked with other good questions.
Overall the class was much better than I expected it to be. The most unfortunate aspect of how the session ran was that the seating arrangement was more lecture-based than seminar based. I sat on a chair as the students were in hodgepodge rows in front of me. With almost 40 students with whom to work, there was little space for a nice round circle. I need to figure out a way to have the students in a more democratic arrangement rather than such an authoritarian one. I would like them to hear each other better and try to encourage them not to rely on me as much for discussions as I play the role of moderator.
Tomorrow (or really much later today), I'll publish both last week's and this week's sessions. I fell sick the day I was to teach for the week after the first, so there is no need for any posts for that. I look forward to sharing my teaching escapades later!
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