Is Philosophy For Kids Too Little Too Late?
I got into doing philosophy for kids for a couple of reasons. One, it became clear that youngsters were really, really good at it, much better than most of the adults I taught it to (sorry, big people). It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that wee thinkers are relentless in asking big questions, and they don’t pull any punches in discussions. For kids, philosophy is the most amazing example of productive play. We’re supposed to let kids do things they like, right, things they’re good at and excel in, things that are both fun and useful?
I also jumped into this part of public philosophy because it felt like waiting until adulthood to learn it was a colossal missed opportunity. I spent a number of years teaching philosophy to big people, and it seemed pointless to hold off until our late teens/early twenties to put their own thoughts into argument form, and to be able to disagree and reformulate ideas. Even saving philosophy for high school didn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t we help kids start off on the right foot, and arrive in adulthood with beautifully honed thinking skills? Wouldn’t the 21st century be so much more navigable if they could think critically, be creative, communicate and collaborate?
My intentions in doing philosophy with kids were good ones then, and they still are, but given all that’s happened in the past few years, and all that’s happening at the moment, I feel different, and not in a good way.
We like to spout epithets about children being our future, musing about the many ways in which the next generation will fix things. I used to hang my practice on these ideas too, reassuring myself that in teaching kids how to think, instead of just what to think, I was helping to correct our course in some small way. Teaching kids to be philosophers was an act of hope, of optimism. Now, I think that part of it is a load of crap. It’s a copout, a wiggly, wet noodle of an excuse.
On an immediate, practical level, we don’t have time to wait for the next wave of young thinkers to graduate into the adult world and make right all the things we have left askew. Our planet is warming at an alarming rate, we continue to ignore an ongoing pandemic, we are making living a dignified life inaccessible to all but the most affluent, and we are literally killing each other in droves over political differences. We don’t have another 10-20 years to wait for the sweet little cherubs in circle time to grow up and rescue us. Our house in on fire, and we’re waiting on humans who aren’t big enough to carry a hose to put it out.
It's also morally objectionable that we’re willing to pass along these atrocities. I’m all for helping to clean up messes, even when I didn’t make them, but if there’s a way we can avoid having this steaming heap of awful waiting for the next generation, then isn’t it reprehensible that we don’t at least try? As a Gen X, I’ve spent a nontrivial part of my life bemoaning the fact that folks my age have had to wade through the mistakes of previous generations. As a parent, I’ve been told over and over again that it’s my job to leave things a little better for my kid than how I found them, or at least not make them worse. It’s one thing to raise dragon slayers in an age of dragons, but we seem to be intentionally (sometimes even gleefully) breeding new species of nasty. It’s cruel to expect future thinkers to fix what we break, doubly so when we know very well how to fix it and we just can’t be bothered.
It's not like I’m going to stop teaching philosophy to kids. Sitting in the presence of wee minds at work has been the joy of my professional life. But I’d rather see thinking skills be put to better use. I’d love to see kids use philosophical mindsets to create, to connect, to play, to find joy, fulfilment, and meaning. I’d rather not see them stuck doing damage control on our screw-ups. Kids aren’t insurance policies, they’re complex, whole, interesting beings in and of themselves.
I no longer just implore parents and teachers to do philosophy with their kids. I now hope, no, I expect adults to do some of it themselves. Just as I have always insisted that it it’s never too early to be a philosopher, I now insist that it’s never too late, if for no other reason than it’s just not fair to leave kiddos to do all of the heavy lifting.
We can be impressed that kids today know more than we do, that they’re more aware, more empathetic, more articulate. We should, at the same time, be ashamed that we aren’t keeping up with them. We have access to the same information and resources, the same opportunities to think things through, the same chances to discuss and to act. We have the same brains, the same potential, and the same shared humanity. If our history is any indication, our kids will mess up and create their own problems. Humans learn from making mistakes, after all, but maybe we let them make their own, instead of being saddled with ours.
Yes, please teach your kids to ask big questions, to work through problems, to be reasonable, innovative, creative, communicative, and collaborative. Just don’t let yourself off the hook for these things.