It's been about 4 months since the last blog entry, and the only thing worth blogging about at this point is Philosophy for Children (P4C) and getting this implemented ASAFP, ffs already. I will say it yet again: this is far and away the biggest no-brainer of all-time, the most humane and cost-effective solution to humanity's solvable problems.
(The only rule I would impose on this is: steelman (the opposite of strawman) or penalty. Synonyms for steelmanning include: Ideological Turing Test; Rapoport-Dennett Rules; Mill's learning the other side - all necessary for doing dialectic well. About damn time that Ayn Rand got fair treatment from the next generation of philosophers, amiright?) Perhaps a fun and compelling mantra might be developed, such as: All Steelmanning All the Time.
I'm an imperfect researcher. I've posted numerous links to many resources on this before - but not perhaps the best resource of all, direct video evidence of children involved in philosophy discussions. So here is the search link: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=philosophy+for+children%2Clong . Here are the top results:
[Addendum: Again, from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on P4C: "Nevertheless, because they lack background in the formal study of philosophy, many teachers are reluctant to encourage the philosophical thinking of their students. Their fears, however, are exaggerated. Familiarity with some of the standard philosophical literature might be desirable, but it is not necessary for bringing Philosophy for Children into the classroom. What is required is the ability to facilitate philosophical discussion. For this, it is much more important that teachers have some philosophical curiosity themselves than a familiarity with academic philosophical literature. Like their students, teachers unfamiliar with the discipline of philosophy may nevertheless have an aptitude for philosophical thinking—or at least a knack for recognizing when others are engaged in philosophical thought." UP comments: And if both teachers and kids are capable of such thought, then why not Philosophy for Everyone? It only stands to reason.]
