“We should select young people who shine in philosophy and who would not otherwise get to see certain places and have those opportunities; then we take them there and give them those opportunities, as philosophers”.

Inspired by these words (or something pretty close to them), the impact of The Philosophy Foundation’s (TPF) World Philosophy Day activities and mindful of the lack of experiences and opportunities that many children we work with have, we set up the ‘Young Philosophers’ programme. 

We took 22 children in total from Dalmain, Kelvin Grove and St Joseph’s schools to explore and think about nature from the inside and visit a surprising little nature reserve stuck between a grid of roads in a Peckham residential area.

The Young Philosophers programme is now preparing to build on the successes for next year. 

First of all stories engage. When a teller tells a story well the audiencevisualize the story so that it seems to happen before them. If you want children to think, first of all they must be engaged.

Secondly, stories enable children to grasp complex ideas very naturally, where in the abstract, they would be lost. Tell the story of ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ from The Odyssey and children can follow the complexities of ethical dilemmas that would be nigh on impossible for them in the abstract.

Thirdly, stories can be used to activate the children as moral agents. You can stop the story at the crisis point, the difficult decision or the conflict, and instead of simply reading on, you could ask the class questions: ‘What do you think [the character]should do?’, ‘What do you think [the character] will do?’, ‘What would you do?’ and ‘What do…

In their first trip of the year the Young Philosophers visited Goldsmith’s University the young philosophers impress the staff and demonstrate a change in attitude towards the educational institution.