Pedagogical Practice and Philosophy: The Case of Ethical Inquiry

Abstract

Introduction:  Historically, philosophy has not played a significant role in the preparation of elementary and middle school teachers in the twentieth century.  However, if philosophy could be organized and sequenced, that is reconstructed, in such a way that it could be taught to prospective teachers in the same way that they could present it to children, both teachers and students could come to cultivate: (a) reasoning skills (such as classification, detecting underlying assumptions), (b) logical skills (such as conversion and contradiction), (c) inquiry skills (such as description, explanation, problem and hypothesis formation), (d) concept formation skills (trying to identify what lies within and outside a concept such as justice or truth), (e) translation skills (practice with standardization), (f) social and interpersonal skills (such as building on one another's ideas).