Reflections on P4C and Teaching in British Columbia

The following is an adaptation of an assignment I completed during the University of British Columbia Teacher Education program:

The power of story is one of my biggest takeaways from both the University of British Columbia Bachelor of Education program per se as well as my own reflection over the course of the program. Story is an incredibly powerful pedagogical tool, and represents an upstream solution to the problem of student engagement. That is, it is easier to get students engaged and keep them engaged throughout a lesson when utilizing story and engaging their imaginations. Moreover, I believe long-term engagement is a product of persistent short-term engagement, and consistent use of tools like story can help build what I feel is the gold standard for teachers: the engaged disposition of students. That is, when class is interesting in general, the students will still be engaged when a particular lesson is dry or I’m not at my best, or other conditions are sub-optimal.

Storytelling is an integral part of P4C pedagogy, and an integral part of Indigenous ways of knowing: “Learning is embedded in memory, history, and story” (FNESC 2015). Storytelling represents a bridge between so-called Western ways of knowing and Indigenous ways of knowing. Unlike whats some may think, these two “ways of knowing” are not so dissimilar; rather, they have much overlap, and share a critical commonality: the desire to make sense of the world around us. 

However, I think it is important to note that P4C is nowhere near a panacea for incorporating the FPPL into the curriculum. But P4C pedagogy is one way in which I can authentically incorporate the FPPL into my lessons; for me, this is a start. And I think this hints at an important aspect of teaching: when something is uncomfortable, it can be productive to find a commonality with which one is comfortable. My background in philosophy has given me an entry point into a future decolonized classroom; it is an opportunity to get my feet wet. But it is not the end – years of reflection and criticality must follow.

One positive aspect of P4C that has come to light for me over the past months has been its usefulness as a framework for talking about difficult topics with children. The current events concerning social justice are not easy to bring into the classroom, but I believe we have a duty to do so. Previously, I claimed that    

it is anything but neutral to stick one’s head in the sand and ignore the racial injustice that undergirds modern society’s institutions. To ignore these considerations is not an agnostic stance; rather, there is no agnostic stance – a choice to ignore is a choice to perpetuate.

I think this is truer than ever. P4C pedagogy can facilitate these difficult conversations by anchoring them in upstream concepts. For example, racial injustice is inextricably linked to power. Why do certain people or groups hold power? Whose voices are heard; whose voices are not? Why does racism exist? How does social change come about? What are laws? What is morality? How are law and morality linked? What is justice? P4C is a lens that allows us to zoom out on a problem, see it from above, then zoom back in to a real-life situation and appreciate it on a deeper level. A conversation about power, justice, and laws, for example, allows students to see protests in a different way. 

Something else that has become clear over the course of writing this blog is how closely P4C pedagogy and the BC curriculum’s core competencies are connected. For example, in relation to the personal-social core competency:

By setting children on a path of philosophical enquiry early in life, we could offer them irreplaceable gifts: an awareness of life’s moral, aesthetic and political dimensions; the capacity to articulate thoughts clearly and evaluate them honestly; and the confidence to exercise independent judgement and self-correction. What’s more, an early introduction to philosophical dialogue would foster a greater respect for diversity and a deeper empathy for the experiences of others, as well as a crucial understanding of how to use reason to resolve disagreements.

Sowey 2013

In a previous post, I argued that

Teaching is a socio-political endeavour. We can choose to ignore this reality, or we can facilitate students’ coming-to-grips with it. P4C offers an incredibly effective framework for this. Teachers are not neutral agents; a claim of neutrality is itself value-laden. Philosophy does not tell students what to think; rather, it encourages students to interrogate the past, present, and future, to question everything around them, and to explore the nature of both themselves and their world.

This has important implications for Sen. Sinclair’s call to action with respect to education and reconciliation. P4C, using the power of story, metaphor, and discourse offers a way for students to meaningfully grapple with Canada’s immensely damaging colonial past and present. It is one thing to tell students “this was/is wrong”; it is quite another to have them understand why it was/is wrong, with reference to the concepts of justice, fairness, and morality. Such understandings are a small but meaningful step on the road to reconciliation.

In this passage, the connection between P4C, social justice, and the core competencies is clear: P4C provides a lens through which students can come to an understanding of social justice issues and therefore (at least in some part) satisfy the core competency in question. If the future of teaching reflects the changing tides of today’s society, philosophy offers powerful tools to satisfy such demands.

Reflecting on my advocacy for P4C has also made me think more about teaching in general and what it is to be a good teacher. Though I am passionate about philosophy, I am also keenly aware that such a teaching style is not for every teacher, nor for every student. There is no such thing as a perfect teacher or a perfect pedagogical approach. In fact, to even speak of such a notion betrays the assumption that perfection might be possible. It isn’t, and for good reason: teachers are not monoliths, and neither are students. The UBC Teacher Education program’s goal is not to create hundreds of the same teacher, or hundreds of teachers utilizing the same toolbox. Rather, we are all different, and we bring different experiences, perspectives, positives, and yes, negatives, to our classrooms. Teacher education is not merely a prescriptive exercise: “do this and do that; don’t do this and don’t do that”, though there is certainly some discussion about such things. Over and above these basics, there is an amorphous conception of “what it is to be a teacher” – a conception which is difficult to put into words, but can be summarized unsatisfyingly as phronesis, or practical wisdom. The fuzziness of this concept, however, is a reflection of the fuzziness in what it is to be a (good) teacher. To even conceive of a “do ‘x’, do ‘y’, do ‘z’” of teaching is to ignore the manifestly personal nature of the profession. I don’t want to be the “best” teacher. In fact, I find the notion of “best” problematic (though that’s a discussion for another day). Instead, I want to be a good teacher: I want to make an impact on my students, I want to help them grow intellectually, politically, socially, and emotionally, and I want them to continually reflect, doubt, and see the world in its shades of beautiful and sometimes terrifying grey. For me, I believe this can be accomplished through, among other things, the power of philosophy in the classroom.

So what does this mean for me and my practice? It means I will continue with P4C, but will match it with a broad sense of humility: humility about what it means to be a good teacher; humility about my own performance in the classroom; humility in my interactions with my students, their parents, and my community; and humility concerning the invisible backpack of privilege and history I bring into the classroom. It means I will always reflect on what I do both in the classroom and out. It means having difficult conversations and broaching difficult topics, because putting one’s head in the sand is not a neutral stance. And it means not being afraid of making a difference in a child’s life, or making a difference in society. As Sen. Murray Sinclair argues,

If you feel connected to the future of this country, and if you feel responsible for the future, then you need to care about reconciliation, for the sake of the future of this country…Education has gotten us into this mess, and education will get us out.