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Philosophy for Children: Promoting Peace in the Classroom - Honolulu Civil BeatHawaii

Philosophy for Children:
Promoting Peace in theClassroomKailua High School program linked to Dalai
Lama's visit.
By Nathan Eagle   / April 15, 2012

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Kailua High School may have devoted the past six weeks to educational
exercises directly linked to the Dalai Lama‘s visit Monday, but students andstaff have inadvertently been preparing for years.
In 2000, the Surfriders saw Philosophy for Children Hawaii — morecommonly called p4c — tiptoe into their classrooms. This unique instructional
method, a departure from the traditional top-down model, aims to create acommunity of engaged student thinkers.
Principal Francine Honda and other top educators attribute the program’s
subsequent success as a primary reason the Dalai Lama decided to address
their students at a special assembly.
“This whole experience has just been really timely for us because it’s ourwhole philosophical focus anyway,” she said. “While our students are like anyother high school students, I’m not sure all of them may have understoodhttps://www.civilbeat.org/2012/04/15546-philosophy-for-children-promoting-peace-in-the-classroom/

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Philosophy for Children: Promoting Peace in the Classroom - Honolulu Civil Beat

initially the significance of the visit and also the contributions that he has
made to the world in terms of global peace. So we wanted to make sure they
not only realized that but that they really learn from it.”Some 65 teachers work at the school, which enrolls roughly 850 students.
This is down from almost 1,000 students several years ago but Honda said
she is optimistic enrollment will rise again.
During the past few years, the principal said she has seen violent incidents
on campus, and related suspensions, plummet. She links the improved
student culture to p4c Hawaii.
Philosophy for Children is a worldwide movement that started in the late1960s with Matthew Lipman, a Columbia University professor. His books
have since been translated into dozens of languages.
He thought schools should start earlier with developing children’s intellectual
thinking abilities, said Ben Lukey, who serves as a Philosopher in Residence
through a partnership with the University of Hawaii. He divides his time
between Waikiki Elementary and Kailua High School.
It was Thomas Jackson, affectionately known as Dr. J, who first brought
Lipman’s teachings and the p4c program to Hawaii, Lukey said. But whatsets him apart is his desire to get teachers engaged in the process too.
Now that many educators have embraced p4c as “a pedagogical approach,”
Lukey said the program has shifted from Lipman’s material and moved to“something more culturally relevant” to Hawaii students.
“It went from a philosophical activity to that activity as an approach towhatever you want to teach,” Lukey said. “It’s not just a happy Kumbayahcircle.”
Far from preaching Aristotle to stone-faced teenagers, the method is allabout “doing” philosophy.

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Philosophy for Children: Promoting Peace in the Classroom - Honolulu Civil Beat

“We’re not necessarily trying to just understand Plato, but rather how do wetry to understand ourselves in the world and make other people a part ofthat process of introspection,” Lukey said.
One of the exercises students recently did sprang from examining the Dalai
Lama’s tweets. In January, Lukey said the Dalai Lama posted a message on
Twitter that said self-awareness, introspection and good reasoning are more
important than meditation and prayer.
Lukey, 36, of Honolulu, used “The Great Gatsby” as an example of the p4c
approach. Instead of a teacher standing in front of a class asking what thegreen light symbolizes, then telling them how it should be interpreted, thestudents produce questions based on the text and steer the discussion.
“Even though I may have an answer, there’s all these other possibilities tothink about,” he said. “If the green light doesn’t come up, that’s fine.”
Lukey works with fellow Philosopher in Residence Chad Miller, Hawaii’s 2012
Teacher of the Year. They have brought the program to life with the help ofother educators like Amber Makaiau, who teaches ethnic studies at KHS.
The p4c program centers on four pillars: Community, Inquiry, Philosophy andReflection. Building an “intellectually safe community” is perhaps the mostcritical component.
“One of the things that I think is the thread that’s helped us become thesethinkers and philosophers is the idea that the kids have learned to value theimportance of intellectual safety, where all ideas matter,” Miller said. “It
doesn’t matter who you are or where you live. Your ideas can help me, canhelp all of us figure out things. Because it’s one thing to teach thinking, but if
you don’t have the environment to let kids actually take intellectual risks thenit’s not going to happen.
“As the kids have become more comfortable with philosophy, it’s really been
as a result of this idea of intellectual safety that permeates all four corners of
the campus now,” he said.
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Philosophy for Children: Promoting Peace in the Classroom - Honolulu Civil Beat

The p4c program has in turn benefitted the teachers as much as thestudents, Honda said.
“While the students are encouraged in this safe environment to thinkcritically and to ask questions, deep questions, and to ponder and wonder
what would happen if, or why is this, then the educators begin to do thesame thing,” she said. “Not maybe even consciously, but as they engage thestudents in this higher level of thinking they also become better thinkers
themselves.”
Jill LaBoy, the KHS curriculum coordinator who wears many other hats, said
the students then take this new thinking ability and apply it to various
subjects.
“When they take courses like ethnic studies, they’re focused on being moretolerant and understanding of others and being able to think deeply about it
and being more mindful of their behavior to really help,” she said. “What’sbeen exciting is to see how many of our students are really making thoseconnections.”
LaBoy said the students’ applications to attend Saturday’s talk by the Dalai
Lama at Stan Sheriff Center were quite telling. In reading the students’
responses, she said there were many who wrote about how they were“philosophical thinkers” trying to learn as much as they can about other waysof life and beliefs.
“They’re getting it. It’s working. They’re connecting,” LaBoy said.
The principal said the p4c program was one of three “big ideas” that reallypicked up in 2004.
“So it’s learning over a period of time because we actually started our workwith Habits of Mind in 2004, and began exploring ideas and learning about
ethnic studies and what was happening on the Mainland, and then at thesame time, almost concurrently, started learning about p4c,” Honda said. “Sowith those three major, major initiatives, or big ideas, we just built on it every
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Philosophy for Children: Promoting Peace in the Classroom - Honolulu Civil Beatyear. Learned more about it. And because we’re fortunate to have our expert
teachers, Amber and Chad and Jill, really master teachers who are here to
support the learning, it’s become really powerful.”

About the Author
Nathan Eagle   Nathan Eagle is a deputy editor for Civil Beat. You can reachhim by email at neagle@civilbeat.org or follow him on Twitterat @nathaneagle, Facebook here and Instagram here.
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