Warm up: Philosopher’s Fruit Salad
Philosopher’s Fruit Salad is always a
community favourite to warm up our philosophical thinking at the start of the
session.
Stimulus Time:
A stimulus can be anything – often a book, picture or activity; this time a YouTube clip about artificial intelligence was used. You can check out the clip here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhVu2hxm07E
The quality of the philosophical questions
we generate depends upon the amount of attention we pay to the stimulus. We really try not to distract each other
during this time. This can be hard
because the stimuli are often very provocative!
Private Reflection Time:
After seeing the stimulus we have private
reflection time to think philosophically about it. We capture our initial feelings and thoughts,
concepts associated with the stimulus, and any philosophical questions that
come to mind.
Facilitating an Enquiry:
The facilitator role in a P4C inquiry
should be a guide on the side rather than a sage on the stage. The facilitator is part of the community of
enquiry, but given the democratic and egalitarian nature of P4C, decisions are
taken by the whole community and the facilitator has no more authority than
anyone else.
Question Creation/Question Reflection:
We create a question in small groups from
the stimulus to put to the community vote for the main question for inquiry.
Each question from the small groups is aired and explored to ensure we all understand the question and to check for assumptions within a question or connections between the questions.
Voting:
Voting for the big philosophical question
for inquiry can take any number of forms.
We could have a blind voted, had multi votes, voted with tokens
etc. This time we decided to vote with
our feet.
The Enquiry:
Listening and contributing to the enquiry
on the question is a powerful and captivating experience. In our established community there is also a
fair amount of good humour.
Final Reflection: Last Words
Inviting last words on the question ‘Why do
we reject what we do not understand?’