Welcome to the new P4CNZ website. Two things are new - first, this blog, which after this first posting will be managed by Cathy Legg, a philosopher and P4C enthusiast from the University of Waikato. Second, we now offer a growing body of locally generated classroom resources to members. There are already 21 documents containing exercises and discussion plans on a variety of topics on our members page, and more will be added. Members are welcome to submit any material they wish to share with others, and to request materials on specific topics, which our team will do their best to create!

Philosophy for Children is continuing to grow around the world, and in New Zealand. Our first Advanced Workshop for some years will be held in April (see Events), and in January 2012 Phil Cam will be leading a training workshop for new teacher educators.

Some more good news for P4CNZ is that Dr Clinton Golding, a very experienced P4C trainer, and author of a number of books, has returned to New Zealand to live, after serveral years in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne. Clinton will be living in Dunedin, and will be well placed to offer training and support to teachers and schools in the South Island, as well as contributing to advanced and and teacher educator workshops.

We look forward to more web-based and face to face interaction with the New Zealand P4C community!

Vanya Kovach, Co-ordinator, Philosophy for Children New Zealand

Hi everyone, this is Cathy Legg. I lecture in Philosophy at the University of Waikato - mainly logic and metaphysics. I’ve been interested in P4C since around 1997, when I did the Stage 1 Training course in Sydney (this was where I first got to know Vanya Kovach). Since then I’ve maintained a keen interest. In 2008 I attended a Stage 1 Training that Vanya ran at the University of Waikato , and this led to some wonderful opportunities for classroom experience facilitating communities of inquiry both in a small rural school outside Hamilton , and a large city high school.

My interest in P4C really dovetails with my philosophical research, as I work on Charles Peirce, who was the originator of the concept of the community of inquiry (as well as the philosophical view known as pragmatism). I put P4C methods to work in my University teaching – somewhat under the radar! I’ve published a paper describing some of  these classroom experiments. It is called “Letting Reality Bite”. If you would like to have a look, it’s on the Web:   http://hdl.handle.net/10289/2812  

I have a couple more links to share. Here is a Youtube video describing an interesting experiment in an Australian primary school replacing traditional religious instruction lessons with philosophical inquiry into ethics. Turns out the philosophy classes were quite popular:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqbAWAIIEnY  (This is Part 1 of 3 parts – links to the other 2 parts beside Part 1)

And here is another video about teaching philosophy in NSW schools:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_B32HtnWg

I hope everyone’s teaching is going great. I would love to meet some more of the NZ P4C community that I have not met yet. Feel free to drop me a line and discuss Philosophy, or P4C: clegg@waikato.ac.nz.

Best regards,

Cathy