Thomas E. Jackson

Primal Wonder1
Prolog: Present at Birth
In retrospect, my first experience with primal wonder was my presence at my son’s birth.
Very recently emerged, he was lying quietly, comfortably on my wife’s chest. The
delivery room was comfortably cool, quiet -- an altogether unrushed, welcoming
atmosphere all around. His head was turned such that I could clearly see his face with his
as yet unopened eyes.
There was no sense whatever of being in a rush. Nature was doing her work. My
wife and I were witnessing, watching, as this miracle unfolded. Indeed, time seemed tohave disappeared entirely. I then watched as he opened his eyes for the first time. There
was a profound sense of awareness present and what I more fully came to realize later, aprofound sense of wonder in his gaze: wide open, taking in this, whatever it was, that waspresenting itself to him for the first time. At this point, beautifully, appropriately, hesmiled!
The Journey of p4c to Hawai’i
In 1979 I completed a doctorate in Comparative Philosophy in the Philosophy
Department, University of Hawai’i. In 1984 I discovered the extraordinary work ofMatthew Lipman, creator of Philosophy for Children (P4C) and in August of 1984 spent
three weeks at an international workshop at the IAPC (Institute for the Advancement of
Philosophy for Children) at Montclair State College, co-conducted by Matthew Lipman
and Ann Margaret Sharp. The workshop was attended by some 20 academic philosophersfrom around the world, eager to learn for themselves how to implement this exciting new
approach to education that brought the practice of philosophy to the center of schooling.
Returning to Hawai’i in the heyday of the Critical Thinking Movement, I soon
found myself offering workshops and working directly in classrooms with elementaryteachers and their students on a weekly basis. They were all eager to try out this unusual
The expression ‘Primal Wonder’ is my own, but I owe a great deal of what I have written here to the bookof Cornelis Verhoeven: The Philosophy of Wonder: An Introduction and Incitement to Philosophy,
Macmillan Company, New York, 1972.
1

1

approach to teaching thinking. From the beginning, figuring out more specifically what
the meaning and nature of philosophy that was to be done with children, beginning inpreschool, and then, ultimately elementary, middle, high school, then university
undergraduates and beyond, was and remains a challenge.
For a number of years we used Matthew Lipman’s pioneering, ingenious
philosophy infused K-12 curriculum. However, the limitations of that curriculum,
especially in the richly diverse, multi-cultural setting of these Hawaiian Islands, became
increasingly apparent. In this curriculum and its practice, the model of philosophy was
based on the Western philosophical tradition. Lipman skillfully modified this model for
use with students K-12, while remaining faithful to Western content and practice.
Matthew Lipman’s realization that philosophy was something that could andshould be done in schools, and then creating practically ex nihilo a curriculum with texts
and guides for grades K-12, was itself a ‘game changer’. To then create a philosophicallyrobust pedagogical approach for the implementation of these materials, and a support
structure to train those interested in implementing this approach, is truly breath-taking in
the enormity of the achievement. Its continued growth around the world is clear evidenceof the power of his work and influence.
Lipman was always generous and supportive of efforts to spread this work andcertainly supportive of variations. These variations were, as he put it, responding to oneof the criteria in his insightful analysis of critical thinking, “context sensitivity”. It was
this context sensitivity in particular that compelled the changes that have become part ofp4c Hawai’i. These changes were due to: (1) Limitations of the materials themselves.
Here there were two issues: The time consuming demands the proper use of the materials
required. It was no easy matter for teachers to move from text to ‘Leading Ideas’ to theuse of the ‘Exercises’ and ‘Discussion Plans’ provided in the manuals. This led to thesecond issue that without sustained in-class weekly support the teachers eventually gave
up. (2) Second, the grounding of the content of the materials in the Western Philosophical
Tradition. This intent was clear:“Philosophy for Children is an attempt to reconstruct and present the history ofphilosophy in such a way that children can appropriate it for themselves so as to reason
well in a self-correcting manner. […] Philosophy for Children is a method of dialogical2reflection coupled with twenty-five hundred years of various views and systems ofthought regarding the nature of the universe, the characteristics of the good life, and thecultivation of wisdom.”2
Lipman’s approach, his understanding of philosophy, reflected in his novels andin the practice is very much that of the Western philosophical tradition both in content
and practice. In terms of content, it meant that the answer to the question of whether or
not a given session was philosophical or not meant the presence or absence of a reference
at least implicitly connected in some way to a recognizable area of Western philosophy(metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, etc.). In terms of practice, it was grounded in theWestern model of argument: reasons, premises and conclusions, and so on. Lipman’s
manuals are replete with exercises and discussion plans meant to assist this process.
Many of these exercises and discussion plans are excellent and fruitful sources of inquiry
topics. The discussion plans are keyed in to Leading Ideas in the Western tradition
present in the novels. In a similar way, exercises are presented to enhance developing
skills in reasoning through a deeper understanding of a richer sense of logic, not focused
primarily on formal, symbolic logic as is the case in most university philosophy
departments. This process begins in Elfie, continues in Pixie and then in Harry
Stottlemeier’s Discovery. The curriculum then moves to the application of these skills in
Lisa, Mark and Sake.3 This is brilliant work!
Finally, in the Lipman approach to the ‘Community of Inquiry’, great emphasis
falls upon the inquiry part, but much less on the community and its development. The
multicultural richness and complexity of Hawai’i includes different views of what ismeant by ‘community’ and the norms and protocols appropriate within those various
communities. These considerations led to our focus from the beginning on developing
physically, emotionally and intellectually safe communities. We present for consideration
the following starting point for understanding intellectual safety: “All participants in thecommunity feel free to ask virtually any question or state any view so long as respect for
all community members is honored.”2

Introduction in Ann Margaret Sharp and Ronald F. Reed (Hrsg.): Studies in Philosophy for Children:
Harry Stottlemeier’s Discovery, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1992, xiii.
3
Anm. d. ÜS: Dieses sind die Titel der wichtigsten philosophischen Erzählungen für Kindervon Lipman.

3

In today’s world, in schools and out, safety in any of these three senses cannot betaken for granted. Frequently students bring within themselves the prejudice, bias,
stereotypes and other divisive attitudes that they have picked up from home and thesurrounding environment. Working on developing safety together with the students is anecessary condition for any community to develop fruitful inquiries. It is important tostress, however, that safety does not mean difficult issues and hard differences are
avoided. To develop intellectual safety means creating a safe space where thesedifferences can be expressed, examined, and challenged.
My work in Hawai'i has been an immersion in the many ethnically, culturally, andlinguistically diverse classrooms K-12 in Hawai’i. It revealed that intellectual safety
should not be taken for granted at any grade level for either the teacher or the students.
Many fruitful sessions arise in connection with unpacking together what is meant byintellectual safety, what conditions enhance and what conditions detract from its presenceor absence. These initial sessions provide a foundation and reference point for thecommunity in ongoing reflection on how the community is doing, particularly in asession where safety was not present.
This immersion, from the beginning, has been a shared experience, growing andlearning with the teachers and their students. We have worked together as co-inquirers,
co-facilitators of inquiries that arise directly out of the wonderings and questions of theirclassroom p4c communities. Intellectual safety provided the context to adjust to thechallenges of this new approach to schooling that brings about a fundamental shift in the
power relations between teachers and their students. This shift includes who has thepower to decide who is to speak and speak next, the freedom for the teacher to movefrom the center of authority and responsibility for the direction of the lesson and thecontent of what is to be learned to inquiries where no one knows in advance where theinquiry will lead. Frequently these inquiries arise and develop out of a simple initialquestion: “What do you wonder about?” These inquiries, starting with their wonderings,
from wide-open wonderings to content specific wonderings based on a specific text,
directly reveal the richness of the multicultural backgrounds of the communities that havemade Hawai’i their home.

4

Main Features of p4c Hawai’i Inquiry4
Two things in particular are important features of a p4c Hawai’i inquiry. The first is thatit makes very possible effort, as noted above, to arise out of the interests of the students
and begin where they are in their understanding.
Beginning where the community is in its understanding is particularly challenging
when the reality is that most students are not in the same place in their understanding
even though the system is built on grade levels that assume each student has picked up
the essentials of what is needed for the next grade level. This is made even more
complicated by the different languages that children bring to the classroom as their first
language. What is especially rewarding is working with teachers at all grade levels who,in spite of these challenges, make this first special thing about p4c inquiry a reality intheir classrooms.
The second important thing about p4c Hawai’i inquiry is the idea of co-inquiry,
which means that no one, including the teacher, knows in advance where the inquiry willlead. In the beginning this is one of the more daunting challenges for the teacher andstudents, especially at higher-grade levels. What kind of a lesson plan can you make if
you don’t know where you will end up? It requires a different sense of what is meant by‘progress’.

Four Kinds of Progress
Educators in general are interested in progress. Progress in p4c sessions is a major
concern: Specifically, am I, or are we making any progress, both in terms of ourcommunity and in terms of our inquiries? Progress in terms of community focuses on thequality of the participation, listening, and the presence of safety. Progress in an inquiry
grows out of each individual’s self-reflection at the end of a session. Each participant isinvited to respond to three different, connected, and equally important kinds of progress.
The first form of progress we call ‘confusion’. This may not sound like progress,
but we think it is extremely important to recognize when one is confused, to not be in a

The basis for this chapter is Thomas Jackson: The Art and Craft of ‘Gently Socratic’ Inquiry, in: Arthur L.
Costa (Hrsg.),Developing Minds: A Resource for Teaching Thinking, 3rd edition, ASCD (Association for
Supervision & Curriculum Development), Alexandria, Virginia, 2001.
4

5

rush to make it go away, and to celebrate that you have the courage not to be afraid of theconfusion but to see it as an invitation to deeper understanding.
Very often confusion results naturally from an encounter with a question or topic
that is in fact quite complex. One just hadn’t realized this before. One of the sad results ofbeing in a rush to cover content, along with the emphasis on standardized tests withsingle correct answers, is that a person becomes fearful of confusion and complexity
because the test is next week. Help! So understanding and acceptance of the importanceof confusion as part of the journey to deeper understanding are real marks of progress.
A second form of progress is recognizing new ideas that came up during theinquiry that one hadn’t thought about before. This is one of the many benefits of theintellectually safe community. One gets to hear new and often amazing thoughts andideas from others in the community. This can, in a way, contribute to one’s confusion,
but in a positive way. One now has more to work with in coming to a new understanding.
A third form of progress is when an answer begins to emerge. It may be ananswer one already had in mind because one was already familiar with the topic orquestion. Or it may not be in any way complete but one has an idea of how to move
forward within oneself and with others with exploring the question further. Sometimes
one realizes that a satisfactory answer for oneself may be a long way off. Now however
there is also the courage to accept this openness.
A fourth form of progress, when relevant, is a commitment to take some personalaction with respect to some aspect of the topic or question that emerged in the course of
the inquiry. This can be internal in, for example, recognizing a previously unrecognizedattitude or assumption about another ethnic group and a resolve within oneself to correct
this and, in addition, to take--externally-- action that flows from this change of attitude.
It is especially important to remember that these four types of progress most often
occur together in various degrees: I may leave with some confusion, but also with several
new ideas to consider and even glimpses of an answer. or I might be just mainly
confused. I may or may not yet feel ready to make a commitment to take action, needing
more clarity, for example.
What we find valuable in this idea of progress is that at the end of a given session
there is no expectation of some kind of consensus, although there may be. The more

6

important factor is that it recognizes that when we collectively begin the session,individually we are often in different places in our understanding. Naturally then, at theend of a session, we will each have made progress in our own way rather than by an
externally imposed set of criteria.
The following remark relates to an encounter that captured the value for a teacher
of accepting this ‘not knowing in advance’: One morning, arriving at a school where we
had been doing p4c for a number of months, I was greeted outside the school by one of
the teachers who began speaking to me in great earnest. “You know something, Dr. J. We
seriously underestimate what our children are capable of. We reduce them to the texts
and lessons we teach.” With growing excitement she continued, “When I’m in a p4c
inquiry with my students, I feel like I’m on an intellectual avalanche! They’re sometimes
way ahead of me in their thinking. She paused for a bit and then said with a smile “Andthat’s quite alright, isn’t it!” ‘Not knowing in advance’ creates space for such intellectual
avalanches from the community.

About Wondering
Over the years of partnering directly with teachers K-6, I would often work with several
classes from kindergarten upwards to 6th grade. It soon became clear that with very
young children, from pre-school to about grade three, the sense of primal wonder is
especially strong, imaginative, creative; vibrantly, playfully, joyfully alive. Theirwonderings, un-self-consciously infused with their own cultural home backgrounds andexperiences, have created a wealth of ideas from which to think more deeply. This
diversity represents a rich, otherwise untapped resource of new ideas with which to workin developing their individual, ever-in-process understanding of their individual anddiverse collective worlds. They are as yet remarkably non-attached to any one view andhence open to and actively interested in what they are encountering from their classmates.
Sadly, as I, and others, have personally observed, this initial openness and primal
wonder becomes increasingly muted as they move through their experiences in schooling7and life. This results too often, as Hannah Arendt observed, in minds filled with “frozen
thoughts”.5
During these years of working with students, other questions emerged: Are young
children in fact doing philosophy? What is meant by ‘doing philosophy’ at a very young
age and, by extension, at any age? In effect, the question hinged on ‘What is meant byphilosophy?’.
The idea of wonder kept recurring. A breakthrough finally occurred as I reflectedon Plato’s statement “Philosophy begins in wonder”. This meant that whatever else
philosophy is or might be, philosophy begins in wonder.6 This implies then that whatever
our age, when our minds move, however fleetingly, into the ‘wonder mode’, we stand at
a portal, an entry into the space/place of wonder.
Here I realized that I hadn’t yet encountered a response to the new question thatemerged: ‘When does wonder itself begin?’ Suddenly I was again vividly revisiting thebirth of my son and the recognition that in that setting I had been present at the place
where wonder begins! It begins at birth (if not before). We are, each of us, born alreadywith the essential prerequisite for philosophy: a special wonder, what I now refer to as
primal wonder.
We are born with this essential quality. but we are also unique. There is no one
else in the world like us. With this uniqueness we encounter a world filled with otherunique individuals, an intersection enriched by the similarities and differences that makehuman societal life possible. In this crucible of life an identity will emerge, taking shapein the particularities of the individual culture and historical moment. All of this isfamiliar. It is the primal wonder with which we begin that is the foundation of all that
follows.
At birth primal wonder is ‘pre-cultural’. That is, the rich perceptual world is preconceptual in any cultural sense (phenomenologically, there is no need for epoche.).As itis put in Zen thought, we begin with a “Beginner’s Mind”.7
5

Hannah Arendt: The Life of the Mind, Edition Paperback, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers 1978,
170-171.
6
Plato: Theaetetus, 155c-d, tr. Jowett: “SOCRATES: I see, my dear Theaetetus, that Theodorus had a true
insight into your nature when he said that you were a philosopher; for wonder is the feeling of aphilosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.”7
Shunryu Suzuki: Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Weatherhill 2007.

8

This ‘pre-cultural’ base of primal wonder is crucial because at this point within
the field of awareness there are many, many possible alternative ways of ‘making
meaning’ of the world we have just entered. These alternatives are the basis of thepossibility for rich inter-cultural awareness and understanding. Every entry point into theworld is one of an indefinitely large sub-set of possibilities only one of which isnecessary for human life to be possible. If my primary language and culture is Chinese,
the world that will emerge for me will present a different way of naming and structuring
the world than if it were named in English, German, or Hawaiian. If I am born into afamily where I encounter two very different languages like Chinese and English, I am
already encountering two different systems of naming and ways of understanding. This is
a common experience here in Hawai’i. Then also I may have a ‘Mom and Dad’, or ‘Mom
and Mom’, or a single parent. Inter-cultural awareness is made possible by a tacit
knowing in primal wonder that my ‘home’ culture is not even the only home I could
inhabit. I could also dwell in any number of other ‘homes’.
It is precisely this range of possible namings that gives primal wonder its power.
Primal wonder carries within itself the awareness that what is unfolding is one possibilityof an indefinitely large number of possibilities. This awareness is especially evident inyoung children through the fundamental nature of the questions they pose and thepersistence with which they seek to understand the answers we give. From theirstandpoint, these initial, adult explanations are anything but clear. A particularly powerfulexample of this emerged in an inquiry with a group of 4th graders that arose out of thequestion: “If your parents didn’t have children, does that mean you won’t have any?” Theinitial reaction was that this question does not make sense. A different understanding was
revealed by one student who answered: “No, it doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have any
children. My parents didn’t have any children.” Within the Hawaiian tradition of which
he was a part, parents were those responsible for your care. Biology was not thedetermining factor.
It is this combination of limited experience combined with a non-attachedopenness that gives children’s questions an especially challenging power, one reflected in
the persistence of their “But why?” and again, “But why?” in response to an adult’s
efforts to answer their wonderings. It is precisely this awareness of alternatives with the9as yet absent concretized commitment to one or another response that makes intercultural dialogue not only possible, but extraordinarily rich in its potential for creating amuch more peaceful, compassionate world. Primal wonder as the ground or foundation ofphilosophy means that philosophy is the foundation, the necessary condition, for the very
possibility of intercultural understanding.

On Not Being in a Rush
For the sense of primal wonder to unfold and persist it is essential that one not be in arush. Indeed, ‘not in a rush…’ is the spirit that inspires, animates and guides the work of
p4c Hawai’i. Upon first hearing, ‘We’re not in a rush…’ at workshops, at talks, formal
and informal, this opening thought often elicits surprise, an occasional smile, sometimes
puzzlement and even discomfort. It is, after all, so completely at odds with the reality of
the world we, especially teachers, experience every day.
To be a successful p4c Hawai’i practitioner, facilitator or participant, however,requires embracing a deeply internalized commitment to not being in a rush. Being in arush precludes the appearance of primal wonder. It precludes being sensitive and open to
the questions and interests of the students. Yet not being in a rush is most difficult for theteacher who is under great pressure to cover content deemed important by others often
outside the classroom. This pressure continues to increase with no end in sight.
The crushing reality is that in fact we, parents, young adults, administrators,
business people, politicians, all of us, including increasingly our children at younger andyounger ages, are in a rush. We are in a rush to get somewhere – to get the kids toschool, to soccer practice, to respond to the latest tweet, text, or email, or, in too manycases, simply to survive.
Not openly, readily acknowledged is that in this rush to get somewhere, somevery special things, precious, essential to being and becoming fully human are being lost:
our sense of primal wonder, the questions that flow from that wonder, the preciousness oflife, of each other, the specialness of coming to know ourselves and each other more
intimately, and the opportunities to experience richer, more joyful lives.
P4c Hawai’i invites each of us to experience, more systematically, the liberating
sense of not being in a rush. Incorporating p4c as an ongoing part not just of a single

10

class period, but systematically woven into the fabric of a school’s culture K-12 brings
powerful changes. It allows us to connect with each other and the deeper rhythms of lifethat only emerge when things slow down.
Systematically implementing p4c means creating time and space on a regularbasis to listen with care, to thoughtfully take in what another has said, to allow an inquiry
to unfold with a group of children or adults at a pace dictated not by a clock, but by the
integrity of the inquiry itself, sensitive to the energy in the community. When you
systematically do this, you will find your life and the life of your school community
richer in a deeply satisfying way. This is the heart of p4c Hawai’i ‘inquiry time’.

Children Doing Philosophy
The many diverse cultures that make up the peoples of Hawai’i provide an especially richplace to participate in p4c inquiries with children/students K-12. Part of this richness
includes the fact that no cultural/ethnic group is in the majority. Diversity of faces is thenorm. This diversity is further enriched by the great number of hapa, mixed marriages
like Thai-Japanese, African American-Japanese, Native Hawaiian-Caucasian, and so on.
Far from being a ‘Paradise’ however, there are a number of complex factors that
contribute to layers of stress in the Islands. These include historical, socio-economic andhealth issues that continue to disproportionally impact the Native Hawaiian population interms of poor health, higher incarceration rates, and decades of dominance by a white
minority.
One important example of documented successful impact of p4c Hawai’i is thecurriculum implemented beginning in 2004 by Amber Makaiau and her colleague Kehau
Glassco at Kailua High School (KHS) in Waimanalo, East Oahu. Grounded in p4c
Hawai’i, the curriculum has these main goals: (1) Understanding of: The history of ethnic
groups in the U.S., violence indicators, and ethnic identity of oneself and others; (2)developing skills including: thinking critically and philosophically about ethnic studies
concepts, interpersonal communication, and personal reflection; and (3) the increasing of
empathy for others, connectedness, empowerment to make positive changes in the11community, and personal responsibility for resolving issues of violence.8Three researchstudies confirmed the impact of this curriculum in achieving these goals.9
Another extraordinary recognition of the impact and success of these efforts at
KHS was the visit of the Dalai Lama in 2012. The focus of the visit was on Education,and in addition to two public lectures the Dalai Lama had expressed a desire to meet
privately with students at a school that had demonstrated success in developing a cultureof compassion in the school and the wider community. Of all the schools in the State of
Hawai’i, Kailua High School was selected for this honor. The entire student body spentan entire month preparing for this visit. A subset of the questions prepared p4c style by
the students was selected. In a very moving session with the entire student body present,
each student whose question had been selected presented their question, in turn, to theDalai Lama for his response. This assembly is etched forever in the memories of those
who attended.10
This example is just one of many that reveal what happens when p4c issystematically implemented in a school-wide initiative sustained over many years; by
beginning in kindergarten, and sustained K-12 as we are now doing in selected schools in
Hawai’i. Building on their lived experience of multi-culturality, K-12 students learn fromand come to treasure the diversity that is revealed by their p4c inquiry sessions and thewider impact this has on the culture of the school community itself. They realize there are
deep differences in who they are socially, culturally, and sexually, etc. Their primal senseof wonder allows them to see these as alternatives that enrich their own growth with new
possibilities for each of them. They come to embrace the freedom and responsibility tochoose or not as they seek to discover/create an identity-in-process in their own life-longadventure of living an “examined life”.

8

See Amber S. Makaiau: Adolescent Identity Exploration in a Multicultural Community Context: An
Educator’s Approach to Rethinking Psychological Identity Interventions, Doctoral Dissertation, Universityof Hawai’i, Manoa, 2010, 92-94.
9
See D. Rehuher, C.-B. Momohara, J. Sugimoto‐ Matsuda, E.S. Hishinuma: Ethnic Studies Course
Evaluation, 2007‐ 2008: Technical Report, Honolulu, HI: Report to Kailua High School 2010. --- See also:
C.-B.
Momohara,J.
Sugimoto‐ Matsuda,
E.S.
Hishinuma,
J.
Chang:
KailuaHighSchoolEthnicStudiesEvaluation – ‘Tattoo Unit’: Technical Report, Honolulu, HI: Report to
Kailua High School 2011.
10
See the video link: http://p4chawaii.org/gallery/#prettyPhoto/29/ (21.04.2017). See also the newspaper
article: http://www.midweek.com/aloha-dalai-lama/(21.04.2017).

12

From these experiences I have come to fully appreciate the wonder that I now
experience on a daily basis in doing philosophy together with children. By kindergarten
most have acquired increasing facility in their philosophical growth: the acquisition of
language. In many parts of the world, children are simultaneously acquiring two or threelanguages. This gives them the power to voice their primal wonder, their insatiablecuriosity, expressed in different languages and to become aware of the differences theselanguages make.
In a safe environment, children exhibit a gently Socratic persistence in theirquestioning that pushes our adult thinking, our often inadequate, incomplete first attempts
to answer their “But why?”.
Children, in their gently Socratic persistence, invite us to revisit, to think yet again
for ourselves about some very fundamental question or questions that we haven’t thought
about, or gave up thinking about many years ago. This persistence is importantly gently
Socratic in that a pre-set ‘Socratic Method’ does not inform their persistence. It is opentextured. Their primal wonder is seeking a level of understanding that somehow ‘makes
sense’ to them. This gently Socratic approach that characterizes p4c Hawai’i is decidedly
non-adversarial. It employs philosophical skills such as those in the ‘Good Thinker’s
Toolkit’11 and aims at forms of progress that represent deeper understanding of the topic
or question with which the inquiry began.
In this way, children are endeavoring, sometimes playfully, sometimes with great
intensity and seriousness, to make sense of their experiences, as we adults continue toendeavor to make sense of ours. In this setting children are embarking upon what
Socrates referred to as an “examined life” [dt. “geprüftes Leben”; Platon, Apologie 38a].

Beginning, Emerging, and Mature p4cHI Communities
One way I think about p4c Hawai’i, is to think of it, like life itself, as a journey. It’s ajourney characterized by learning to think and care more deeply about oneself and others,

11

The Toolkit consists of 7 letters, (W, R, A, I, T, E, C), each of which forms a way of taking (wonder) (theinquiry???) to a deeper level, such as “What do you mean when you say…?”,“Please give a Reason”,“What do you Assume?”, “What is the Inference/Implication of this?”, “Is it True that…?”, “Can you givean Example to help me understand?” or, finally a “Who knows a Counterexample?”13

about the choices we make, about the person we are becoming and want to become byconscious choice.
P4c Hawai’i focuses on building school communities that are intellectually safe,
places where students, teachers, and families can learn what it is like to grow in an
atmosphere that is joyful, caring, thoughtful; in a word, mindful.
We find it helpful to think of a p4c Hawai’i community as unfolding in three,overlapping phases: first as a beginning community, then, with experience, it develops
into an emerging community, and finally into a mature community. These are not hardand fast stages, since a community can some days function in a very mature way, andother times more like a beginning or emerging one. There is no problem with this. Like
life itself, it unfolds with its own rhythms, in its own time.
The teacher/facilitator is absolutely pivotal to the success of a p4c Hawai’i inquiry
in each of these stages. In a beginning community it is the teacher/facilitator who
introduces the ideas behind such inquiry. She/he is responsible for establishing,monitoring, and maintaining the safety within the group. This will include monitoring theproper use of the community ball and calling on each other and seeing that members haveample opportunity to speak as well as the safety to remain silent. The teacher/facilitator
always has the right/responsibility to speak when needed with or without the communityball.
The teacher/facilitator is responsible for introducing such things as the ‘magic
words’12 and the Good Thinker’s Toolkit letters. Most importantly, it is theteacher/facilitator, especially in the beginning, who sets the time and pacing for thegroup. ‘Not being in a rush’ depends on someone sufficiently comfortable with silenceand ‘wait time’ beyond what is typical in most classrooms. It requires a person whose
own sense of wonder is still very much alive and who is keenly interested in what theauthentic thoughts of the community are on a given topic; one who is comfortable withuncertainty, not eager to push for closure but willing to allow an inquiry to move where‘it’ and the community seem to want to take it. She/he must be willing to risk notknowing the answer; to indeed be a co-inquirer in the quest for an answer.
12

cf: Ist Philosophieren mit Kindern Philosophie? , by Marie Eitzinger, VDM Verlaag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrucken,
Deutschland, 2008, pgs 23-25.

14

As the community grows and matures it will move from ‘beginning’ to‘emerging’, where the other members of the community internalize the protocols, call oneach other, listen with greater care to each other, and spontaneously begin to use thetoolkit letters, assist in moving the inquiry to a deeper level. Students move from an
exclusive participant role to becoming participant/facilitators. Finally, in a ‘mature’community,theteacher

becomes,along-sideherstudents,aco-equalparticipant/facilitator. You must not be in a rush for it to happen, but it’s definitely worth
the wait and it’s deeply satisfying to watch it emerge, at its own pace.
Our model is not that of an expert who comes to work with a novice. P4c Hawai’i
offers a different model – one that acknowledges the professional and pedagogical skillsof the teacher. The teachers know their students, they know when they are experiencing
difficulty in understanding something, and they know how to respond appropriately.
Teachers who participate in the p4c circle also help to match the philosophical inquiry
approach with the content for which they are responsible. Both, teacher and facilitator
learn from each other. The teacher internalizes the craft of the philosopher’s pedagogy;
the philosopher/facilitator develops the craft of classroom teaching.
In these years we have worked closely with the State of Hawai’i Department of
Education and the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Now, with the generous support of
the Uehiro Foundation in Japan, we established in 2012 the University of Hawai’i Uehiro
Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education. The Academy is a partnership between
the College of Arts and Humanities and the College of Education.
Primal Wonder, Pohaku and Rocks –Encounter with the Hawaiian Language
Immersion Project
One series of events in particular that crystallized our growing recognition of the culturallimitations of Lipman’s approach with its grounding in the Western tradition was ourwork with the Hawai’i Language Immersion Project at Pa’ia Elementary School on Maui.
This work at Pa’ia was just a small part of the larger story of the rescue and resurgence ofthe Hawaiian language from it’s near extinction. Keiki Kawai’ae was one of the leadersin this important movement. I met Keiki at a Critical Thinking Conference in Honolulu
where I had done a presentation on p4c that already reflected the changes we were15

making in the Lipman approach. Keiki spoke with me afterwards, saying she wasspecifically interested in what we were doing, noting its differences from the othercritical thinking approaches. She appreciated the emphasis on community, on the circle,
on safety, and questions arising from the interests of the community.
What developed from this initial encounter was an exceptionally fruitfulrelationship where I was able to learn first-hand about the extraordinary richness of the
Hawaiian tradition, both its past and the remarkable transformation of its traditional
values in response to the often corrosive influences of the contemporary world. All of thisresonated deeply with the heart of where p4c Hawai’i was evolving. For example, there
are the values expressed in Hawaiian by such words as aloha,13’ohana,14 ’aina,15
pu’uhonua,16 malama,17 pono18 to mention just a few. These ideas came to infuse/inform,
give articulate form to our deep commitment in p4c Hawai’i to ‘not being in a rush’, tocreating the ‘intellectually safe place (our pu’uhonua), to viewing our philosophicalactivity as grounded in inquiry, not argument, and to view our content as arising from theinterests of the community, highly sensitive to the culture and norms of that community,
as well as, in some classroom contexts, discipline specific content such as science, math,language, arts, and social studies.
At one point Keiki pointed out that she had experienced in conference
presentations the “argument model” in various approaches to critical thinking as being“culturally intrusive”, especially with respect to traditional Hawaiian culture. As one
example she indicated that within the Hawaiian tradition there was and continued to be a
special recognition of the respect and authority of the kupuna, elders. A need wasrecognized to ‘soften’ the formality of this respect to allow the young to question anelder, but this needed to be done in a way that maintained respect and would not be
helped by the challenge of a model of attacking, defending or undermining via someappeal to ‘reason’. This was disruptive of both community and efforts at inquiry.

Rich with many layers of meaning, such as a simple greeting of “welcome” or farewell”; to much, much
more.
14
“Family” in both the narrower biologically related sense, but also more broadly used.
15“Land” – Aloha Aina means “love of/for the land“.
16“Safe place, a place of refuge”.
17“To care for, to protect”.
18“Just, good, right” – Na pono o na wahine means “women’s rights”.
13

16

The weekly sessions in the Hawaiian language classes brought into sharp focus
the idea that in p4cHI we are a circle, which must first of all develop itself as acommunity (not to be taken for granted). This is the foundation that makes possible
genuine co-inquiries, where each participant feels secure in their own best thinking in theservice of themselves and each other, with the shared intention of coming to our own
deeper understanding of the topic or question with which we began. Each and every voice
is valued for its contribution. It is not a matter of age or status. We are all inquiring
together, each gently Socratic in our asking for a reason or a clarification, offering a
possible counterexample. This was not intended as a challenge in a negative sense, but apotentially helpful move forward to a deeper level of understanding in questions forwhich no single correct answer was yet available and might, in fact, never be. It entails its
own sense of rigor and responsibility of each member of the community to present theirthoughts, however tentatively, on the question or topic.
Another transformative part of this experience was working with Keiki as shetranslated some of the key concepts both of ‘community’ and ‘inquiry’ into Hawaiian.
We had extraordinary exchanges as she clarified for me how one would translate theGood Thinker’s Toolkit concepts of ‘assume’, ‘infer’, ‘reasons’, ‘evidence’, and so on
into a very different language and cultural setting. There were certainly similarities, butequally revealing nuances and differences built into different ways of thinking about andviewing the world and our relationship with it.
One classroom experience in particular at Pa’ia Elementary School captures muchof what all of us learned form the p4cHI-Immersion experience. It involved a session
with 4th graders, which began with a science lesson, in English, on rocks. It was similar tolessons I remembered from my science lessons long ago that began with distinguishingthe different kinds of rocks, igneous, metamorphic, etc. There were other points in thelesson as well. Then a remarkable change occurred. The language switched from English
to Hawaiian and instead of ‘stone’, I heard pohaku. As was later related to me, thestudents then discussed together pohaku and what they knew about pohaku. One
characteristic not mentioned in English with regard to rocks, was that pohaku possessedmana (spiritual energy, power). When the students were asked how they knew this, they17

related, as an example, experiences of searching for pohaku with appropriate mana for ahula performance.
One of the many remarkable things about this and other similar inquiries was thatthese children were able to move with ease between two very different cultural,
conceptual frameworks. For them it was not a matter of either or, but both and. They
were able to see that there was value in each framework and no need for claims of
exclusivity of one or the other. Indeed their own world was enriched precisely because
they felt no need to decide between them but use them as appropriate.
Another particularly important surprise for the teachers of these Immersion p4c
sessions was the amazing facility they found in the students with their eagerness andability to use Hawaiian language to articulate difficult ideas that required a sophisticationof language use the teachers had not expected students to be capable of yet. This attempt
to use Hawaiian in new, more complicated untried ways and by this pushing the envelopeof one’s use of a second language by these students has repeatedly appeared in the classesof ELL (English Language Learner) teachers who use the p4cH approach in theirclassrooms.

Epilog: The Overcoming Power of Primal Wonder
The encounters of p4c Hawai’i with the Hawaiian Language Immersion Schools project
was pivotal in my own, still developing understanding of primal wonder. An additional
valuable source of understanding the place of primal wonder as a foundation forintercultural understanding has been to view this understanding as requiring a particularkind of ‘translation skill’, or skills of interpretation. This connection arose directly fromthe work and insights of Jinmei Yuan. In her dissertation she observes that: “No matter
what languages are involved, a translator often faces difficulties caused by the fact thatthe concepts available in one language do not always match those available in another.”19
Furthermore, “[t]ranslation between English and Chinese involves not only matching two
sets of concepts but also understanding the two very different cultures in which these setsof concepts reside. Therefore, the problems of English-Chinese translation are more than19

Jinmei Yuan: Can Aristotelian Logic be Translated into Chinese: Could there be a Chinese Harry
Stottlemeier?, Saarbrücken: VDM Publishing House Ltd. 2010, p.12

18

just those caused by moving between ‘logical spaces’,20in which logical relations present.
For the very logical ‘space’ is itself structured differently by these two cultures.”21
Yuan further elaborates that [w]ithout an appreciation of this kind of difference,
merely trying to match Chinese concepts with English ones will cause problems. […] indifferent language systems, the differently structured ‘logical spaces’ produce not only
concepts that fail to match perfectly but also logical relations that fail to match
perfectly.”22
I maintain that primal wonder is the foundation of this capacity to “negotiate”
between “differently structured ‘logical spaces’” or different cultural “systems”. The‘logical space’ of primal wonder is prior to any given language and hence makes possible
translation/interpretation between cultures, especially when “…the concepts available in
one language do not always match those available in another”. 23 It is this space of primal
wonder that makes possible that the Immersion students move effortlessly between rocks
and Pohaku, and potentially all of us to move through and with multiple cultural
frameworks.
I would also suggest that this pre-linguistic space of primal wonder is the aspectof mind, referred to by Shunryu Suzuki as “Beginner’s Mind”. 24 It is this pre-existingstate or condition that makes possible true intercultural understanding. It is the sustaining
and growing of this “beginner’s mind”, this primal wonder that is the most basic task of
education.
This task, rightly done, would allow us to shake free of the ‘bondage’ that resultsfrom an overly constrictive grip of one particular set of concepts that a given culture
equips us to initially encounter ‘the’ world, and enable us to properly, rightly (pono),
compassionately participate in our diverse worlds with the rich varieties of sounds andactions of those around us.

Anm. d. ÜS zu Wittgenstein. …Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1921, Tractatus Logicao-Philosophicus.
tr. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness 1974. Atlantic Highland, New Jersey: Humanities Press
International, Inc. 3.032, p. 11
20

21

Yuan: Can Aristotelian Logic be Translated into Chinese?, p. 12.
Ibid.: p. 13
23
Ibid.: p. 12.
24
Suzuki: Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.
22

19

Living in Hawai’i with its rich cultural, linguistic, and ethnic diversity has
provided an especially fruitful context in which to be immersed. Living here has provided
insight and indications of how a recognition of primal wonder from the beginning of theschool experience, with appropriate, conscious intention, can nurture this initial wonderin educationally rich, wonder-fully life altering ways.

Published in German as Ursprüngliches Staunen in polylog: ZEITSCHRIFT
FŰR INTERKULTURELLES PHILOSOPHEREN, #37, 201720