Two events have made me revisit the nature of CoPI since writing “Transforming Thinking” . The first was the final session of the SOPHIA Network Meeting in Sept in Alev School, Istanbul. I chaired the final session in which participants investigated a meta-question arising from the Meeting – ‘Is it possible to learn to be a good facilitator?’ .
The content of the dialogue was very interesting, but it is a different aspect of it that has made me think a lot since. And that aspect is – several very experienced teacher trainers who took part commented upon how well that dialogue was facilitated. This was a group of about 30 out of which 5 had been trained in CoPI, so I could not use the CoPI reasoning structure (as it can take 20 hours of practice for folk to learn this). However I chaired the session in the same way – that is I used the skills of a CoPI Chair without doing CoPI. What has made me really wonder was that I could shape a philosophical dialogue almost as well just using those skills as using the skills with the CoPI reasoning structure. I could move the philosophy forward, structure the dialogue, keep a certain pace etc. So there are aspects of CoPI that are very important and that are not directly related to Philosophy.
The second ‘event’ was and is my son’s experience of philosophy at university. I felt as though I had almost mislead him when he was growing up – letting him think that when we were doing CoPI it was philosophy. It was and is philosophising of a kind – but what may be important is the kind of philosophising it is, rather than it being rooted in philosophy.
more in next blog
Filed under: Philosophy for Children, Uncategorized
