Teaching critical thinking and

philosophical reasoning to pupils:

teacher’s skills matter.

Gabriela FiemaPostdoctoral Fellow

University of Montreal

Canada

Critical thinking and reasoning

• Stimulating youths’ critical thinking and reasoning is one of modern societies’ fundamental aims, in order to allow pupils and students to become committed and responsible citizens (UNESCO, 2011).

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Teaching curricula

• Moral and civic instruction (MEN, 2015).

• Teaching the critical thinking (Daniel & Gagnon, 2011).

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P4C

• Critical thinking as a tool to counter non-reflective thinking and action (Lipman, 2003)

• P4C as a means to teach critical thinking (Lipman, Sharp, & Oscanyan, 1980; Lipman, 2003).

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Contexte of research

Questionning

P4C • P4C develop children’s CT and

PHILOSOPHICAL REASONING (Fiema, 2014)

• Reasonableness (Lipman, 2008)

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Philosophical reasoning • Linking in the exchanges is

necessary; • Use of words in different ways:

– Purely referentially; – To illustrate an idea; – As a stage to a conceptual basis for

reasoning (Fiema, 2014).

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Collective reasoning • Specific reasoning during P4C :

PHILOSOPHEMES

• Collective philosophical reasoning

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Philosopheme

• philosophically conclusive piece of reasoning that delimits a conceptual field considered as having reached a sufficient degree of completion. • shared attempt to advance the definition of the referent through the interplay of ideas, and to tend towards meanings. • speech acts serve to validate or to invalidate, to support or to challenge.

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CONSTRUCTION OF PHILOSOPHÈME

Referent

Concept Mind’s object

• REFERENT : the topic from the beginning of the discussion

• MIND’S OBJECT: is an attempt to carry the discussion forward starting a shared referent through new ideas

• CONCEPT : is the result of the collective construction of the meaning of a shared referent through the production of mind’s objects

Philosophemes • Four types of philosophemes:

–Conceptual–Assimilative–Cumulative–Embedded

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Cumulative philosopheme

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Questioning

Are teachers prepared to teach a philosophical reasoning and critical thinking to pupils?

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Data Sources

Research context • The study took place in France,

where participants were pupils from primary and secondary school grouped in 9 group-classes.

• They were aged from 6 to 14 and had been all experimenting P4C at least one year.

• Each group-class counted an average of 25 pupils.

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Data

• Data collection consisted of video recordings of a one-hour discussion in each of the 9 group-classes.

• The recordings were integrally transcribed.

• 19 transcriptions.

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Teachers’ training

• Two training sessions for teachers:

– Presentation of traditional supports of Lipman;

– Recommendations for managing P4C workshops.

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Analysis • We analyzed the transcriptions with

the aim to delimit philosophemes constructed by pupils.

• This analysis took into consideration the teachers’ interventions and workshops animation.

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Results

Teachers’ training • We found that pupils’ thinking

abilities and their ability to construct philosophemes, depends on teachers’ running the P4C workshops.

• The analysis of discussions assesses the necessity to form teachers in how to run the P4C workshops before they teach the thinking abilities to pupils. 20

Results

Differences between group-classes in philosophememes’ construction.

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22sample 1 sample 2 sample 3 sample 4 sample 5

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0.5

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1.5

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2.5

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3.5

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conceptualcumul assimil embed

Conclusion

Conclusion • P4C workshops is meant to stimulate

pupils’ philosophical reasoning and critical thinking.

• Without a good stimulation from teachers, pupils are unlikely to have a fructified and efficient philosophical reasoning and CT.

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Conclusion • In conclusion, our results assert that

it is necessary to form teachers in running the P4C workshops.

• The efforts to implement P4C in the classrooms are worthwhile, namely if we want our children to become critical and committed citizens.

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Gabriela.fiema@hotmail.com

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References • Daniel, M.-F., & Gagnon, M. (2011). A developmental model of dialogical

critical thinking in groups of pupils aged 4 to 12 years. Creative Education, 2(5), 418–428.

• Fiema, G. (2014). Étude des mouvements de pensée collective lors des ateliers philosophiques au primaire et au collège. Extraction de philosophèmes en tant que structures formelles de raisonnement. Université Blaise Pacal Clermont II.

• Lipman, M. (1995). A l’école de la pensée. Bruxelles: De Boeck Université.• Lipman, M. (2003). Thinking in Education. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.• Lipman, M. (2008). Renforcer le raisonnement et le jugement par la

philosophie. In C. Leleux (Ed.), La philosophie pour enfants. Le modèle de Matthew Lipman en discussion. Bruxelles: De Boeck Université.

• Lipman, M., Sharp, A., & Oscanyan, F. (1980). Philosophy in the classroom. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

• Nationale, M. de l’Éducation. Programme d’enseignement moral et civique, Pub. L. No. 12-6-2015 - J.O. du 21-6-2015 (2015). France: Journal Officiel.

• UNESCO. (2011). Réunion régionale de haut niveau sur l’enseignement de la philosophie en Europe et Amérique du Nord. Milan. 27

French educational system

• Major transformations in educational system France

• Changes in teachers’ education

• Changes in curricula

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Moral and Civic Instruction• Secondly, the directives for teaching

thinking abilities seem not sufficient to form CT and philosophical reasoning. In Moral and Civic Instruction pupils are further expected to learn the theoretical knowledge about moral values than encourage to think in an autonomous way about those values.

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Construction of philosopheme

The philosopheme is constructed around a concept; it exploits ideas forming a chain of discursive entities that are extensions of the starting referent.

The philosopheme comprises argumentation and abstract reasoning. It is characterized by lexical shifts, repeated lexical items and new lexical items.

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Assimilative philosopheme

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Exemple • Questions provoquant les cumulatifs • Questions provoquant les assimilatifs

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