Activities for ‘Philosophy for teachers’ workshops

Session One In this session, the objective was to set the scene for the ethical forum, identifying

from the outset participants’ priorities and concerns, or hopes and expectations, as

well as introducing the principles and aims we had identified as the workshop’s

organisers. It was also important to begin to create a community of enquiry at this

very early stage, given the limitation of time and the challenge of considerable

diversity among the participants.

After some enjoyable ice-breaking activities, participants began to talk and think

about their work places in groups, identifying the ‘pluses’, the ‘minuses’ and

significant issues or challenges experienced. These perceptions were shared with the

whole group who were encouraged to ask questions, make connections and clarify

meanings in what had been presented. The session concluded with the group looking to identify key values which might underpin the issues and questions being generated.

At this point, and throughout the workshop, the facilitator noted these down,

making his summaries available throughout the workshop on flipcharts and graffiti

sheets as well as drawing participants back to comments they had made in earlier

discussions where, later on in the workshop, these insights and thoughts helped to

deepen and give direction to emerging new perspectives.

Session Two The objective of this session was to begin to model ethical enquiry, drawing on work

in the previous session looking at the ‘pluses’ and ‘minuses’ of teaching. Participants

were encouraged to develop characteristic community of enquiry practices. These

included adding, following, building, linking, appreciating and developing open-ended

and invitational questions (including a fun activity in which we generated questions to

a bunch of keys which started factually (e.g. where do you live, what do you open?)

and developed into more emotional concerns (e.g. how do you feel in his pocket?)

We returned to issues identified in the previous session and generated further

questions based on them. Reflecting the increasing depth of thought, as well as the

sense of ease growing between participants, these new questions were more

powerful as well as challenging. They included ‘What is school for?’ ‘What is the

goodness in good teaching?’ ‘How far are teachers expected to impose their own

values?’ ‘What is the mentoring relationship?’ We chose to discuss one of these

issues in greater depth.

Session Three This took place the following morning with the objective of exploring examples of

moral discomfort and/or compromise experienced by new teachers in the classroom

through a ‘Socratic’ approach to dialogue. As a first step, pairs of participants shared

examples of incidents that they had experienced in which they had felt morally

uncomfortable, or on the horns of a personal dilemma. The pair work enabled

explanation and clarification through which a shared perspective could emerge. The

pairs chose one of their dilemmas to share with another pair and the process was

repeated. These groups of four then chose one story to present to the whole group.

A representative of each of the six groups explained the dilemma to the whole

group in turn, usually the person who had experienced the dilemma personally. Time

was taken with each story for questions and points of clarification to be raised and

some exploration of the underlying values involved, after which the group elected

one story which they wished to pursue in more detail.

In one case, the narrative chosen concerned a child whom the teacher treated

leniently because she knew aspects of the child's circumstances that had made this

the right thing to do in her opinion. However, members of the child’s class had

noted and pointed out to her inconsistencies in her application of school rules and

accused her of behaving unfairly (a charge which she recognised). From the

substantive dialogue around this incident which ensued, the concepts of fairness and

equity/equality were explored in greater depth and detail; and questions were raised

as to what considerations ought to inform teachers’ actions in relation to fairness

and compassion, judgements about the limits of acceptable or unacceptable

behaviour in the light of the differences among pupils and sets of circumstances.

Session Four In this session, participants further explored the meaning and value of major ethical

concepts raised in the previous session. A series of ‘concept stretching’ techniques

was used to generate challenges to accepted views and the criteria which might best

be used to make ethical judgements about them. Take, for example, a discussion

from experiences about what constitutes a rule? Using the concept-stretching

technique, questions were raised about what a rule is, how rules might be applied in

principle, whether or not rules could be applied universally, leading to further

reflection on what fairness might mean.

Pedagogically, participants were encouraged to develop an 'ear' for those concepts

likely to yield fruitful dialogue. The idea of ‘big’ concepts was explored through

identifying which of a pair might yield fruitful discussion and which might not. We

returned to stories from the previous evening, to identify in those ‘big’ concepts we

wanted to continue to discuss. We started with easy differentiation and rapidly

moved onto concepts that generated differences of views as to their primacy, in

terms of depth and hierarchy

Sessions Five and Six In Session Five, participants considered the principles and practices of facilitating

ethical dialogue and creating a suitable environment by reflecting on what we had

experienced, in particular those activities we had particularly valued and enjoyed. In

so doing we deliberated on the respective meaning of teaching and facilitating. In the

final session emergent themes and issues were reviewed, we evaluated the

workshops and considered ways in which the respective participants would take

what they had learned from the experience and take it forward.