Don writes:
>Whether this culture does any good in the world beyond perpetuating itself
>is debatable. An interesting perspective on this is an old paper by
>Dorothy
>Sayers called "The Lost Tools of Learning" (available at
>http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html) that essentially presents the
>argument
>that we do our students a disservice if we do not teach the skills of
>debate, argumentation, persuasion, etc. There are many other skills, of
>course, that could be equally valuable: story telling, example,
>collaboration, practical action, etc.
As part of my new job, the UK government has commissioned Futurelab to
develop activities in "Thinking Skills". My initial research over the past
few days has brought me into contact with Mathew Lipman's work on
philosophy in the classroom-
"Philosophy for children: critical, creative and caring thinking preparing
children for life in a democratic society. Instead of teaching academic
history of philosophy, Philosophy for Children is based on doing
philosophy through Socratic dialog in a community of inquiry. "
It appears (at first glance) that Lipman is supporting a Socratic mode.
Given recent conversations a) has anyone direct experience of these
programs and b) critiques of thses programs?
Martin Owen
" That's what you have to do. If you can match your skills in ICT and your
vision and your creativity with the traditional skills that every single
teacher in this country has got, well, the future is ours and the future
is our kids."
Estelle Morris at the FutureLab Launch
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 01 2002 - 01:00:18 PST