Unveiling and packaging: A model for presenting philosophy in schools

A diversity of packages

Material for a fertile philosophical encounter can be packaged in any number of forms besides the conventional treatise, essay or scholarly article. Lam (cited in Weinberg, 2020), academic philosopher and creator of the popular narrative journalism-cum-philosophy podcast Hi Phi Nation, draws attention to some fundamental differences between the aims of academic philosophy and those of philosophy for the general public, going so far as to say that “the design features that make for good academic philosophy might make for terrible public philosophy”. Much academic philosophy, he observes, is “engineered for epistemic justification […] [such that] every matter of misrepresentation, uncharitable reading, or objection, must be anticipated and alleviated”, whereas narrative-driven public philosophy is engineered for “engagement, attention-holding, tension-creation, and resolution” (Lam, 2020, cited in Weinberg).

As a genre of public philosophy, philosophical inquiry among children must first and foremost engage its participants. Workshop designers can choose from materials that are:

• verbal: fictional stories, historical tales, myths, parables, creative nonfiction, journalism, poetry, anecdotes (Worley, 2014);

• visual: artworks, picture books, comics, graphic images;

• multimedia: documentary films, animated videos, recorded speeches or interviews, music clips, interactive websites;

• theatrical: Reader’s Theatre, scripted or semi-scripted dialogues, dramatic performances, puppetry;

• satirical: mock TV advertisements, posters or campaign brochures that promote fictional goods or services;

• ludic: puzzles, games, or conceptual exploration activities;

• artefactual: evocative objects.

The multiplicity of options is beneficial because, as Garlikov (n.d.) observes, relatively few students find school material, when presented in textbook or lecture form, sufficiently interesting or meaningful to bother thinking about in ways that will help them see its point or extract their own meanings and implications from it.

In my experience, assembling several types of stimuli, each of which sheds light on a different aspect of a given theme—and supporting students as they investigate each stimulus in turn—is a blueprint for the most satisfying experiences of CPIDA.

Most of the types of stimuli I have mentioned can be effective vehicles for the presentation of counterfactuals, imagined scenarios, and thought experiments. In contrast to the pared-back thought experiments typically found in the academic literature, however, elaborated scenarios seem to appeal more to young philosophers. Where possible, I seek stimuli that provide thick descriptions, vivid and believable character motivations, and a richness of contextual detail that connects the philosophical ideas with students’ life experiences. I find near-future science fiction an especially compelling genre for activating students’ imaginations and drawing them into the domain of the hypothetical. As Schwitzgebel (2014) says of science fiction and speculative fiction more generally, “[t]he specificity of the possibilities considered, and its emotional and imagistic power, engages parts of the mind that more abstract forms of speculation leave hungry.”

Designing effective stimuli

On the basis of my classroom experience I have identified five criteria for judging the likely effectiveness of a CPIDA stimulus for use in schools.

The first criterion is that the stimulus activate emotions. This is crucial for engaging students because, as Immordino-Yang (2016) explains, it is “neurobiologically impossible to build memories, engage complex thoughts, or make meaningful decisions without emotion […] [W]e only think about things we care about” (p. 18). With this in mind, I seek affectively-engaging stimuli that will kindle empathy, delight, shock, unease, indignation, contempt, or any number of other emotions. Immersive stimuli that make use of humour and suspense are notably effective in eliciting students’ emotional responses. If, as Immordino-Yang and Damasio (2007) argue, “reasoning divorced from emotional implications […] lack[s] meaning and motivation and [is] of little use in the real world” (p. 9), then we educators have every reason to attend to students’ emotional responses to the stimuli we present.

One of Dewey’s (1938/1998) aphorisms affirms that “the most important attitude that can be formed is […] the desire to go on learning” (p. 49). Since I see it as part of my role as an educator to induce this desire, I am not content for a stimulus merely to arouse students’ interest; I want it to induce perplexity, which is my second criterion for the effectiveness of a stimulus. In philosophy, “we’re peering out into the dark and don’t yet have a good sense of what we’re doing” (Grayling, cited in Edmonds & Warburton, 2012, p. xvii). Accordingly, I look for materials that will intrigue, puzzle and eventually disorient students, leading them to an aporetic impasse. To grapple with doubt and confusion is after all the basic philosophical predicament, and often a precursor to insight and clarity (Worley, 2009).

The Socratic gadfly is a defining image from the annals of Western philosophy. Just as the Athenian people needed the prick of a stinging fly to stir them into life (Plato, Apology, trans. 1937, 30e–31a), our students need incisive stimuli that can spur them to rethink their concepts and values. My third criterion for an effective stimulus, then, is that it challenge intuitions.

Philosophy thrives on contestation, and students may need some prompting to interrogate their hunches, entertain counter-intuitive positions, examine received wisdom, and stress-test their assumptions. A well-made stimulus offers these prompts.

It is often said that a stimulus for philosophical inquiry should give rise to contestable questions. I go a step further in nominating the power to ignite controversy as my fourth criterion for an effective stimulus. That is to say, a good stimulus is deliberately divisive: it elicits disagreement and provokes students to make explicit their various moral or epistemic commitments. Students begin by staking out their respective territories, and in the course of dialogic argument—aided by alternative perspectives—they have the opportunity to moderate or nuance their views. An important function of stimuli in CPIDA, then, is “to create controversies with which children can then think more deeply” (Worley, 2014, p. xxi). To this end, I sometimes choose a stimulus that presents a partisan case, advocating for a particular position, while at other times I choose a dyadic stimulus that presents a counterpoint of pro and con cases. The former encourages students to produce thoughtful rebuttals and counterarguments, while the latter places more emphasis on students’ evaluating the arguments given.

Relatedly, my fifth criterion for an effective stimulus is that it elicit reasoned argument. As Baker (1996) observes, we often “stride into a discussion with our squads of unexamined opinions innocently at our heels—and, discovering that, yes, we do feel strongly about [the issue], we grab the relevant opinion and, without dress rehearsals, fling it out into audibility […] only to discover, seconds later, its radical inadequacy” (pp. 4–5). Since radically inadequate opinions thrive in the absence of cogent arguments, supporting the careful development and cool-headed evaluation of arguments is an essential function of philosophical inquiry. When examining arguments that students themselves have articulated (or arguments that they have heard their peers voice), the experience is far more compelling than when they encounter mere toy examples of argument that are abstracted or detached from real life. For this reason, I think it is worth developing our philosophical stimuli with the prospect of student-led argumentation in mind.

Example 1, illustrating the five criteria in practice

Here I draw on the example of ‘The Real-Life Truman Show’, a workshop on therapeutic deception in the context of dementia care.

I begin the workshop by playing excerpts from a fictional audio drama (Mitchell & McCorry, 2015) that invites students to imagine how it would feel to experience the confusion and temporal disorientation of advanced dementia. This activates emotions, helping students to empathise with dementia patients and begin to think about what kind of care would honour their dignity. The fictional story also enlivens the issue of therapeutic deception in the context of dementia care.

Next, I describe some real-life cases in which dementia carers have routinely engaged in deception, for instance “by suggesting that a loved one has visited [the patient] recently, while knowing this to be untrue; by playing a recording of a loved one’s voice on a telephone, presenting it as a ‘live’ conversation; or by stylistically presenting a care home with domestic interiors that are intended to disguise the institutional nature of the setting” (Matthews, 2019). I then induce perplexity by raising the central question of the workshop: If allowing dementia patients to continue believing falsehoods promotes their emotional wellbeing, is this a sufficient reason to sacrifice the moral norm of truth-telling? I introduce the concept of epistemic autonomy as a rationale for truth-telling, and I challenge intuitions by having students reason together about whether—and under what circumstances—this norm may justifiably be suspended.

Students then watch a short video (excerpted from World’s Untold Stories, 2013) about Hogewey, a care facility in the Netherlands designed for elderly people with advanced dementia. Hogewey, which employs all-day reminiscence therapy, has been described as

a gated model village, complete with town square, post office, theatre, hair salon, café-restaurant and supermarket—as well as cameras monitoring residents around the clock, and well-trained staff working incognito […] [for instance] as post-office clerks and supermarket cashiers […] Every detail of this ‘fake reality’ has been meticulously designed to ensure that the residents can experience life as close to ‘normal’ as possible (Niker, 2015).

I ignite controversy by counterbalancing the video’s positive spin on Hogewey with the observation that critics have compared the care facility to The Truman Show, a movie in which the protagonist is unaware that he lives on an elaborate film set. Hogewey’s director herself draws an analogy to the theatre, in which the nursing care occurs backstage whilst residents on stage feel as though they are leading an ordinary, non-institutionalised life (Moisse, 2012). This acknowledgement that Hogewey generates a fantasy world for its residents is at odds with the denials by other proponents of all-day reminiscence therapy who argue “it is about creating real environments, not these fake environments that we currently have as institutions” (O’Flaherty, as cited in Lehman & Bhole, 2017). I induce perplexity by inviting students to explore what constitutes a ‘real’ environment and why such an environment may be desirable.

The concluding segment of this workshop involves a card-sorting activity in which students compare the Hogewey model to a conventional model of dementia care and assess each model against a range of criteria. This elicits reasoned argument as students appraise how truthful and respectful each model of care is, and how each model of care is likely to affect patients’ dignity, epistemic autonomy, wellbeing and freedom.

Example 2, illustrating the Provocation-Complication sequence

Let’s turn now to ‘Stuck in a Loop’, a workshop on free will that exemplifies the Provocation-Complication sequence: a basic pattern for juxtaposing stimuli within a workshop. The sequence consists of an initial stimulus that is expected to elicit particular responses from students, followed by another stimulus that motivates more nuanced reflection on those responses.

I begin the workshop with Wooldridge’s (1963) account of the maternal behaviour of the Sphex wasp, whose

elaborately organized and seemingly purposeful routine conveys a convincing flavor of logic and thoughtfulness—until more details are examined […] [T]he wasp’s routine is to bring the paralyzed cricket to the burrow [to nourish her unhatched larvae], leave it on the threshold, go inside to see that all is well, emerge, and then drag the cricket in. If, while the wasp is inside making her preliminary inspection, the cricket is moved a few inches away, the wasp, on emerging from the burrow, will bring the cricket back to the threshold, but not inside, and will then repeat the preparatory procedure of entering the burrow to see that everything is all right. If again the cricket is removed a few inches while the wasp is inside, once again the wasp will move the cricket up to the threshold and re-enter the burrow for a final check. The wasp never thinks of pulling the cricket straight in. (Wooldridge, 1963, pp. 82-83)

I then screen a video clip (excerpted from Pumpkinseed valley, 2016) depicting one such field experiment involving countless iterations of the wasp’s moving-and-checking routine. Students observe the wasp instinctively following this rigid, invariable, and ultimately senseless behaviour pattern, and consider Millikan’s (2004) observation: “The wasp seems not to understand the purpose of its own activity so as to know when that purpose has been accomplished” (p. 169).

The verbal account, video clip and Millikan quote jointly constitute an initial provocation. In response, students engage in CPIDA in response to questions including: ‘To what extent are we like the wasp?’ ‘Are we similarly locked into rigid and invariable behaviours?’, ‘Does the existence of instincts, reflexes or automatic behaviours preclude the possibility of free will?’ and ‘Are we automata, or free agents?’ While some students may point to habits, fixations, or obsessive-compulsive disorders as evidence of the rigidity of human thought, most regard our capacities for choice, flexibility and intelligence (among other traits) as evidence of free will.

We are then ready for our second stimulus, or complication: an evocative visual image depicting memory loss (Hertzberg, n.d.) accompanied by an audio clip (excerpted from Abumrad & Krulwich, 2019) in which a woman, Christine, recounts her mother’s episode of transient global amnesia (TGA). The audio clip includes an excerpt from a recorded conversation between Christine and her mother, Mary Sue, in the recovery ward. Although Christine varies her conversational responses slightly, Mary Sue unwittingly but persistently returns to the same themes, recurrently using identical turns of phrase. At one point Christine says: “It’s like Groundhog Day in here […] Every two minutes we’re doing a loop […] We have had the same conversation over and over again for the last two and a half hours.”

In light of this stimulus—which complicates matters, as it highlights unexpected similarities between human and wasp behaviour where previously the differences were more evident—students are ready to revisit the territory they explored earlier. They investigate questions such as: ‘Does the repetitive verbal behaviour shown by patients with TGA imply that all human behaviour is pre-programmed, even if we don’t realise it?’, ‘Does Mary Sue’s story change your view on the extent to which we humans are like the Sphex wasp, carrying out set routines or automatic sequences of behaviour?’, ‘If all relevant conditions were known, would human behaviour be predictable?’ and ‘Is free will an illusion?’

Example 3, illustrating more complex interplay among stimuli

I want to show in this section how the thoughtful juxtaposition of multiple stimuli enables students to confront complexities beyond what can be achieved with a basic Provocation-Complication sequence. By way of example, I turn to ‘So Entitled’, a workshop concerning rights and legal personhood.

The first segment of the workshop is inspired by the work of Suddendorf (2013). I begin by presenting students with cards, each inscribed with one of 36 putative characteristics of being human. These include cognitive capacities such as forethought, reasoning, moral agency, self-control and self-awareness; social behaviours such as engagement in politics, trade, and a moral community; physiological features such as opposable thumbs, the FOXP2 gene, and the capacity for vocalisation; and a broad variety of other biological, developmental, technological and cultural characteristics. In each of their small groups, students examine a subset of the cards and sort them on a scale indicating to what extent each characteristic is significant to our entitlement to human rights. A plenary session follows in which students defend their conclusions. They then investigate which of the characteristics deemed most significant to rights entitlement are shared by non-human animals, and whether the animals that share those characteristics should be awarded the same rights as humans.

Next, students watch three short videos. The first, excerpted from Achbar & Abbott (2004), reveals how corporate executives are able to exploit the legal personhood of corporations to escape liability for harms caused in the pursuit of profit. The second, excerpted from Freid (2018) describes how New Zealand’s Whanganui River, having been long exploited by government and commercial bodies, was finally granted legal personhood status, meaning that the “the law now sees no differentiation between harming the [Whanganui] tribe and harming the river” (Ainge Roy, 2017). The third video, Animals: Property or persons? (n.d.) makes an argument for the existence of non-human rights and raises the question of whether certain non-human animals, such as chimpanzees, should be granted legal personhood. After viewing these videos, the students discuss whether legal personhood (and thereby rights) should be granted to non-human entities such as corporations, rivers, and/or chimpanzees. The students further discuss whether rights ought to be granted on the basis of capacities or on the basis of needs; and whether rights should always be accompanied by duties or liabilities. Finally, the students ponder where rights come from, and whether it is contradictory to suppose that rights are both inherent and negotiated by international communities.

The cards and videos used as stimuli throughout the workshop represent intellectual puzzle pieces which the students attempt to fit together. There are points of both congruity and conflict among the ideas that the various stimuli suggest or elicit. For instance, the card- sorting game and the third video on non-human rights hint at the idea that rights should be granted on the basis of capacities (such as the capacities for self-awareness, autonomy, language, culture and planning), whereas the second video concerning the Whanganui river suggests that rights should instead be granted on the basis of needs (such as the need for protection). Additionally, the notion that non-human entities should be granted legal personhood is affirmed by the second and third videos which concern the push for environmental and animal rights, yet this notion is challenged by the first video which concerns the avoidance of corporate liability. Whether rights should always be accompanied by responsibilities is also in contention. To investigate what accountability might mean for non-human persons such as corporations and rivers, students consider case studies such as the Volkswagen emissions scandal and a hypothetical scenario in which the Whanganui river floods its banks, destroying artefacts in a nearby museum. Each stimulus individually raises its own contestable questions, and the stimuli combine in cross-cutting ways to frame a series of deeper controversies.