Janette Poulton

The future of Philosophy for Children depends upon at least two factors: shared values with the educational policies of the society in question, and valid and user-friendly tools for monitoring growth in this area. As teachers internalise the requirements of the Victorian Education system policy statements, the use of the pedagogy of the Community of Inquiry, P4C is being recognised as a particularly powerful tool for delivering the outcomes. In addition, appropriate tools for curriculum development, and for the assessment and monitoring of student progress (as critical, creative and caring thinkers) are being developed and circulated within the Department of Education. Thus we proceed with optimism and confidence.

Ginnie & Pinney ‘Think Smart’ materials have been written for children aged three to eight, ‘to encourage deep thinking and lively discussion between each other, their parents and teachers’ and hence we understand why they have already captured the attention of Philosophy for Schools practitioners. Matthew Lipman enshrined our aim as helping ‘children become more thoughtful, more reflective, more considerate and more reasonable individuals’ Let us see why you too will find them a valuable addition to your Early Years resources.

The intention of the study was to identify predictable opportunities for teachers to scaffold middle year students’ philosophical learning. Such opportunities were identified in terms of students’ readiness to learn certain behaviours in the context of a ‘community of inquiry’. Thus it was hoped that the project would provide a useful resource for the teaching of philosophy to middle year students by ascertaining how amenable philosophical learning was to this approach. The study investigated the following questions: (i) what are the indicators of the development under the influence of the COI?; (ii) do these indicators cluster in any particular way? and (iii) is it possible to identify any clustering of indicators that suggests developmental bands?

Victoria has seen an increase in Community of Inquiry-styled competitions, where students and participant schools are pitted against one another, assessed and ranked according to professed philosophical Communities of Inquiry (CoI) criteria. This has occurred in the context of the introduction of the ‘Capability’ Curriculum in Victorian schools by State and Federal Education Departments. Assessment indicators common to both performance in CoIs and Capabilities have led many to consider CoI as one of the more promising pedagogies of choice. Various competitions model their events on the CoI format, but can they accord with the key characteristics that have historically defined this pedagogical practice? This paper seeks to examine the incompatibility between competitions that encourage contestants to gain superiority over others and the spirit of philosophical inquiry as conceived by the originators of CoI. Ultimately, we argue that competitions are largely incommensurate with philosophical CoI and suggest an admonitory approach if philosophy is to be associated with such competitions.