Philosophy for Children

“All men are philosophers” – Antonio Gramsci

“The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade.”  – Simone Weil

The name of the program “philosophy for children” raises rather interesting questions.  For instance, why is it we don’t have–and one has never so much as heard of–a “philosophy for adults,” as if somehow it is merely assumed that philosophy falls within the purview of adults?  Quite the contrary.  As Dr. Jackson of Philosophy for Children Hawaii has said, “philosophy is what we are all born with, and anybody that’s around young children knows we come into this world filled with a sense of wonder, and we ask these amazing wonderful questions.  For most of us, sadly, we lose that sense of wonder as we go along …”^[1]  This is consistent with what philosophies and philosophers, from as ancient a provenance as Aristotle to as late as Russell and Chomsky today, have held.  As Aristotle said, philosophy begins in wonder.  One might even be so hopelessly sanguine as to believe that it ends there too, if ever it ends at all.  Yet in any case, it is wonder, wonder which is the natural predilection of the child.  But Dr. Jackson also goes on to say that children lose this sense of wonder as they go along.  Albert Einstein, himself rather disenchanted with the way “education” was offered in his own time, rather ruefully remarked, “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education,” and further expressing his dissatisfaction, said, “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”  This is no mere accident.

Poverty and Underfunding in Hawaii’s Schools

“Equal dollars cannot produce equal opportunities.”
– Linda Darling Hammond^[1]

It would be myopic to view school climate without proper understanding of the larger crisis of poverty which the state faces.  Hawaii Appleseed has already compiled a clear report on this issue, available online.  A few facts should suffice to underscore the severity of this problem in Hawaii:

What is Called Education Reform

[A shorter version of this essay appeared in The Honolulu Advertiser]

In response to an article published in the Advertiser entitled ‘Road to Reform’ (04 August 2013), and with the new school year just around the corner, now seems a most opportune time to address the rather curious case of what is called ‘education reform.’  With all that is nowadays taken for granted in the discourse on education reform, it is quite natural, I think, to pause and ask the simplest of questions: what is called ‘education reform’?  Does it work?  Is there evidence?  What would it suggest?