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The last few decades have seen a steady growth of interest in doing philosophy with children and young people in educational settings. Philosophy with children is increasingly offered as a solution to the problems associated with what is... more
The last few decades have seen a steady growth of interest in doing philosophy with children and young people in educational settings. Philosophy with children is increasingly offered as a solution to the problems associated with what is seen by many as a disoriented, cynical, indifferent and individualistic society. It represents for its practitioners a powerful vehicle that teaches children and young people how to think about particular problems in society through the use of interpretive schemes and procedures especially designed for this. It typically conceives of truth-telling as the work of dialogical reasoning, which is understood in turn as leading to increasing awareness of mental and methodological processes. This article starts from another point of view. What is at stake, I shall argue, is not so much the question of how to think for oneself in an appropriate way. Rather, in line with Michel Foucault, I want to identify philosophy as a practice oriented by the care of the self and of transformation of the self by the self. From this angle, philosophy with children will not be understood as something that orients us towards valid knowledge claims, but as an act of becoming present in the present. This way of conceiving of philosophy with children will be explored in the context of a concrete philosophical experiment with children that I planned and carried out in Cambodia.
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The last few decades have seen a steady growth of interest in doing philosophy with children and young people in educational settings. Philosophy with children is increasingly offered as a solution to the problems associated with what is... more
The last few decades have seen a steady growth of interest in doing philosophy with children and young people in educational settings. Philosophy with children is increasingly offered as a solution to the problems associated with what is seen by many as a disoriented, cynical, indifferent and individualistic society. It represents for its practitioners a powerful vehicle that teaches children and young people how to think about particular problems in society through the use of interpretive schemes and procedures especially designed for this. It typically conceives of truth-telling as the work of dialogical reasoning, which is understood in turn as leading to increasing awareness of mental and methodological processes. This article starts from another point of view. What is at stake, I shall argue, is not so much the question of how to think for oneself in an appropriate way. Rather, in line with Michel Foucault, I want to identify philosophy as a practice oriented by the care of the self and of transformation of the self by the self. From this angle, philosophy with children will not be understood as something that orients us towards valid knowledge claims, but as an act of becoming present in the present. This way of conceiving of philosophy with children will be explored in the context of a concrete philosophical experiment with children that I planned and carried out in Cambodia.
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... This interest in philosophy is not limited to one particular state or country. UNESCO also recognizes the need for philosophy as a practice, not only in educational but also in cultural, social or political fields. The International ...
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As a response to Le Fils, a film directed by the Dardenne brothers (2002), we explore the idea of speaking as an invitation and juxtapose it against ideas of speaking as a transactional, calculative, calibrated, activity. Speaking tends... more
As a response to Le Fils, a film directed by the Dardenne brothers (2002), we explore the idea of speaking as an invitation and juxtapose it against ideas of speaking as a transactional, calculative, calibrated, activity. Speaking tends to be understood as a relatively straightforward matter: as a means of communication structured by such values as the reciprocal balancing of rights and obligations, of clear communication of information, of the gaining of insight into what is happening. Speaking, then, is a means by which we explain, prove or pass judgement on something. Understood this way, it is easily associated with ideas of empowerment or of the mediation of information: one directs or commits oneself to a (shared) orientation—for example to what Jurgen Habermas refers to as ‘communicative reason’. It presupposes a particular attitude of the subject; speaking that addresses the listener and the speaker herself in the name of an orientation or particular expertise to which access is claimed. In this article, by contrast, we would like to explore a different avenue of thought whereby speaking appears rather as an abandoning or exposing of oneself. It is less an activity than a passivity or passion, through which one becomes present in the present, which is at once also a kind of invitation. In exploring this form of speaking, we take up some ideas of Martin Buber. Our discussion relates speaking to being inspiring and being inspired, revealing in the process the way that to be inspiring is at the same time to be inspired. Speaking as invitation, we conclude, is what education is about.
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In Flanders, at the beginning of the 1990s, some schools tried to curb the declining number of pupils by transforming themselves into progressive schools. Other socalled progressive schools appeared to be frontrunners when it came to... more
In Flanders, at the beginning of the 1990s, some schools tried to curb the declining number of pupils by transforming themselves into progressive schools. Other socalled progressive schools appeared to be frontrunners when it came to taking in a mixed ethnic cohort. Nowadays, both groups of progressive schools receive a lot of attention due to the fact that they reflect
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The last few decades have seen a steady growth of interest in doing philosophy with children and young people in educational settings. Philosophy with children is increasingly offered as a solution to the problems associated with what is... more
The last few decades have seen a steady growth of interest in doing philosophy with children and young people in educational settings. Philosophy with children is increasingly offered as a solution to the problems associated with what is seen by many as a disoriented, cynical, indifferent and individualistic society. It represents for its practitioners a powerful vehicle that teaches children and young people how to think about particular problems in society through the use of interpretive schemes and procedures especially designed for this. It typically conceives of truth-telling as the work of dialogical reasoning, which is understood in turn as leading to increasing awareness of mental and methodological processes. This article starts from another point of view. What is at stake, I shall argue, is not so much the question of how to think for oneself in an appropriate way. Rather, in line with Michel Foucault, I want to identify philosophy as a practice oriented by the care of the self and of transformation of the self by the self. From this angle, philosophy with children will not be understood as something that orients us towards valid knowledge claims, but as an act of becoming present in the present. This way of conceiving of philosophy with children will be explored in the context of a concrete philosophical experiment with children that I planned and carried out in Cambodia.
Research Interests: Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, Ethics, Epistemology, and 14 moreSocial Sciences, Philosophy of Education, Mental Health, Social Problems, Individualism, Self, Problem Solving, Subjectivity, Young Adults, Philosophy Education, General Science, Experiments, Dialogical self, and Daily Living Skills
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ABSTRACT In Flanders, at the beginning of the 1990s, some schools tried to curb the declining number of pupils by transforming themselves into progressive schools. Other socalled progressive schools appeared to be frontrunners when it... more
ABSTRACT In Flanders, at the beginning of the 1990s, some schools tried to curb the declining number of pupils by transforming themselves into progressive schools. Other socalled progressive schools appeared to be frontrunners when it came to taking in a mixed ethnic cohort. Nowadays, both groups of progressive schools receive a lot of attention due to the fact that they reflect alternative ways in which the school can meet the children’s needs for learning. In short, progressive schools appear to be of great interest to both the producers and the consumers of education.
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Since the beginning of the 1990s we can notice a growing interest for philosophy with children. Children are considered as individuals with philosophical competences to construct the meaning of life themselves. In this paper we want to... more
Since the beginning of the 1990s we can notice a growing interest for philosophy with children. Children are considered as individuals with philosophical competences to construct the meaning of life themselves. In this paper we want to problematize this current interest in philosophy with children through an analysis of the particular subjectivity or figure that it mobilizes. The aim is to analyses the kind of figure that wants to philosophies (with children), the rationality of the relation to the self that characterizes such a figure and the way philosophy appears in this context. Our question is: what kind of figure emerges in and through this discourse on philosophy with children? We will argue that this discourse mobilizes what Brockling has described as the figure of the entrepreneurial self. We conclude sketching another figure of the philosophical self, a figure who refuses the attitude of the entrepreneurial self.
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Abstract Philosophy seems to have gained solid ground in the hearts and minds of educational researchers and practitioners. We critique Philosophy for Children as an experimental programme aimed at improving children’s thinking capacity,... more
Abstract Philosophy seems to have gained solid ground in the hearts and minds of educational researchers and practitioners. We critique Philosophy for Children as an experimental programme aimed at improving children’s thinking capacity, by questioning the concept of critique itself. What does it mean when an institutional framework like the school claims to question its own framework, and what is the consequence of such a claim for thinking, in education, philosophy and the child? Implications for the concept of critical thinking follow.
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... Refusing to take up this opportunity is refusing one's democratic freedom to optimise one'spersonal life. ... our behaviour, permanently in need of material out of which we can construct an orientation ... It is an... more
... Refusing to take up this opportunity is refusing one's democratic freedom to optimise one'spersonal life. ... our behaviour, permanently in need of material out of which we can construct an orientation ... It is an invitation to reinvent education, in such a way that we think again what it is ...
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Abstract In this article we explore the educational potential of cinema. To do this we first analyse how the American critical thinker Henry Giroux tries to give body to an educational theory in relation to cinema. His ‘film pedagogy’ is... more
Abstract In this article we explore the educational potential of cinema. To do this we first analyse how the American critical thinker Henry Giroux tries to give body to an educational theory in relation to cinema. His ‘film pedagogy’ is described as developing a critical response of the learner in relation to the public sphere of film. Giroux’s approach, however, seems to forget rather than explore the potential that is specific to the medium. Secondly, the article analyses Walter Benjamin’s (1936, Illuminations, London, Pimlico) essay ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’, because here we find not a different educational response to cinema, but one of the first studies on cinema that describes its ontological nature and the potential of moving images for thought. Finally, the article discusses the cinema philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, who, in contrast to Giroux, does not construct a Cartesian framework around cinema. Rather, he recognizes and explores cinema’s potential for thoughts like Benjamin did. In this way, Deleuze reverses Giroux’s question of how education should respond to cinema. A pedagogical discussion hereby comes to the fore that does not ask the question of what methodology should be used in education to think critically about cinema, but what the implications are of the nature of cinema for thought and for education.
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De lichtheid van het opvoeden is het eerste handboek dat de opvoeder zélf centraal plaatst Wat is de essentie van opvoeden? Wat betekent het opvoeder te zijn? De film Le Fils van de gebroeders Dardenne vormt de as waaruit de pedagogische... more
De lichtheid van het opvoeden is het eerste handboek dat de opvoeder zélf centraal plaatst Wat is de essentie van opvoeden? Wat betekent het opvoeder te zijn? De film Le Fils van de gebroeders Dardenne vormt de as waaruit de pedagogische houding in kaart wordt gebracht Als het over opvoeden gaat, zijn we vandaag erg onzeker over wat we moeten en kunnen doen. We klampen ons vast aan alles wat gezag en controle lijkt te garanderen. Tegelijk weten we ons geconfronteerd met de eis van steeds meer en beter. De lichtheid van het opvoeden wil een handboek zijn dat een kijkmethode biedt ter voorbereiding van het concrete, pedagogische handelen. De film Le Fils van de gebroeders Dardenne vormt de aanzet en inzet van het boek. Le Fils toont ons waar het in opvoeden om gaat en wat het betekent opvoeder te zijn: het is in de eerste plaats een houding, een manier van doen, een ethos. Op toegankelijke wijze brengt dit handboek die pedagogische houding in kaart. Daarbij worden woorden gebruikt die...