What can museums learn from Philosophy for Children? Interview with Ariel Sykes

Ariel Sykes is an educator and teacher trainer who specializes in Philosophy for Children (P4C) and dialogic pedagogy, with a focus on ethics education and community engaged learning. She serves on the boards of the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO), the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum (SEAC), the National High School Ethics Bowl (NHSEB), and the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC). Ariel is an endorsed practitioner of the IAPC (Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children), the world’s oldest organization devoted young people’s philosophical practice. 

Ariel, tell us about Philosophy for Children.

I started working in the field of Philosophy for Children as an undergraduate, using a picture book philosophy approach developed by Thomas Wartenberg. With this approach, you can use any picture book to engage young people in questions about big ideas. You pick a book that problematizes a concept that we generally take for granted and then invite students to question the concept through reflecting on the story and their lived experiences. 

An example of this would be Frog and Toad stories, since the author, Arnold Loebel, is a master at taking a big concept and making it seem contradictory within the story. The story of “Cookies” explores the concept of self-control: Frog and Toad have trouble not eating all the cookies at once. They decide to put the cookies further and further out of reach so they don’t eat them, and then claim that they have self control. This leads to the question: is it self control if you’ve created a situation where it’s impossible to do the thing you really want to do? In another story, “Dragons and Giants,” they go on an adventure where they’re trying to be brave, but throughout the whole adventure they get scared, run away, and hide, all the while still claiming they are being brave. This raises this question of what bravery is, and whether you can be scared while also being brave. (You can see discussion plans for”Cookies” here and “Dragons and Giants” here.)

How do you decide what types of big questions to ask kids in the context of Philosophy for Children?

Sometimes the facilitator poses the question for the group to consider and selects a stimulus (like a story or a work of art). Other times the students are prompted to ask their own questions from a stimulus they select or that the facilitator chooses.

In either case it is important that the question(s) selected for the discussion are philosophical. I like to use IAPC’s approach to selecting questions that use three criteria called “The Three C’s.” A big question should:

• Provoke something that’s central to our lived experiences and that we care about exploring;
• Be contestable – we can imagine that people will disagree even while they’re logically thinking through something; and
• Explore something we have in common, so that we can all engage in the discussion.

If a question meets these criteria, then the conversation will be juicy enough to sustain a dynamic discussion and open enough that everyone can find “a way in” to the discussion that is meaningfully connected to their lives.

Different questions appeal to different age-groups. You might find elementary school children more interested in questions about fairness and justice (“Is it unfair if we all don’t get the same thing?” or “If you do something wrong, should you always get punished?”). Middle school students often engage in conversations around relationships (“Can I have more than one best friend?” or “Can I be friends with my sister or my mother?”). And high school students might be preoccupied with life and the value of schooling (i.e. “Is happiness all about achieving your goals?” or “Should we always try to good grades?” or “What is the point of learning something?”).

Philosophy empowers young people by giving them the space to talk with one another about real issues that matter to them. It allows them to share their knowledge with one another without the pressure of being told what the right answer is. It decenters the adult as the keeper of truth and knowledge, which can be a relief to many adults.

How can the ideas from Philosophy for Children help us be better museum educators? 

The Philosophy for Children approach shifts the group’s experience with the stimulus or object away from being information-seeking. For example, in an art museum (where I have done most of my museum teaching), instead of focusing on what the artist intended or what historians think the importance of the particular object is, it encourages us to think about the impact the object has to things we think about or value in the world and with others. The object becomes a shared reference point for a dialogue between visitors.

So what might this look like? Can you give an example of using a philosophical question as the basis of a museum tour?

Imagine a group sitting in front of an abstract painting in a museum. Let’s imagine this is a single-tour program, and the facilitator is posing the question. After starting with a prompt such as, “What does this piece of work provoke in you?” the facilitator might choose to explore a concept the painting evoked (for example, loneliness) or a question about how art works. Let’s imagine that in this case, some participants said the artwork didn’t promote or communicate anything, and so the facilitator chose to ask, “Does all art have to communicate something?”  This brings us into the philosophical discussion, where the artwork becomes the test-case for our emerging theories. The facilitator may choose to stay with the artwork for the entire discussion and offer some key facts about the work that help the group test emerging ideas. Or the facilitator may choose to move the group to another artwork in the museum to have it serve as a new test-case for the emerging theories. For example, if some members of the group think that “art needs to communicate an idea that was intended by the artist,” then you might move the to an artwork that could challenge this idea. Or, if members of the group think that “art only needs to provoke a feeling in the viewer” then the facilitator could bring people to an artwork that will likely not do this for everyone in the group.

I enjoy the discussion about communication in art because it shows participants that we don’t have to engage in artwork with the sole goal of trying to better understand that piece of art. Artwork can also help us better understand ourselves and how we approach artwork in general. You’re using the artwork as an example to help you understand a larger question and to inspire new questions about yourself and the world. 

Share how this might work in a non-art museum. Consider these two examples: the current traveling exhibit “The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited,” and a prehistoric display at a natural history museum.

With the Jim Henson exhibit we might want to explore the theme of “favorites.” We could start by sharing what our favorite Muppets are and why. Then, the facilitator could follow up with some emerging philosophical questions like: 

• Can favorites change? Are there good reasons why we might change our favorites?
• What is a good reason for choosing something as your favorite? Do I have the same reasons for “favorite” for different types of things (like food, art, animals, color)?
• If you learn more about something that is “your favorite” does it make you like it more or less? What if you learn that you were wrong about something involving “your favorite”?

You could also imagine visiting the dinosaur exhibits in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. They have informational plaques that talk about the theory of birds evolving from dinosaurs. In this setting, a philosophical facilitator might ask: 

• What does it mean for something to be a theory?
• Can something be a fact and a theory at the same time?
• If something is true, does it mean that it can’t change over time?
• What does it mean to believe or trust a theory?
• How do we know when we should trust a theory?

What are the constraints of using Philosophy for Children – can you use it with adults? Can you use it independently when looking at art? 

Philosophy for Children practices work best in group settings, as it is a system for talking through ideas with others that helps us gain clarity on our own thinking and learn new ways of thinking. It is possible to eventually internalize the process and engage in this process alone, but I think doing so shifts us away from the purpose of introducing this practice in museum contexts, which is to model another way of engaging in dialogue with others around art.

I would say that to engage in this practice you need at least three people and one facilitator. While my preferred group size is between eight and 15, you can do it with up to 40 people if you are well trained. Philosophy for Children is for everyone, and I use it with adult audiences all the time! You can also use it with children as young as PreK if you have training and prior experience teaching this age group. 

If a museum educator wanted to try using some of the tactics from Philosophy for Children, how might they experiment with some of these ideas? 

Ultimately I would encourage anyone interested in integrating this practice into their contexts to be trained. There are online introductory training and more immersive in-person training, as well as one-on-one coaching services you can access. I’m happy to point people in those directions! Learning to facilitate takes time but is very rewarding; participants who engage in a Philosophy for Children session that is well facilitated will leave feeling like they have been deeply heard and seen by other members of their group while also engaging in a lively discussion (with disagreement) that made progress. Both of these are a rarity nowadays.

But here are a few tips:

1. As a facilitator, make sure that the conversation stays centered on the ideas emerging from the participants, and that you are not co-opting the conversation or moving the group towards your desired conclusion. We call the ability to do this, “being process strong but content weak.” The goal is not for me to impart my knowledge. I might need to know a lot about the object in order to be able to know when to drop a fact about the object or maker or context to help the group test their emerging ideas. I might need to know enough about the museum collection to shift a group from one object to another in order to move the dialogue forward. But I am not telling the group where we should be going in terms of the possible answers to the question.

2. The facilitator should focus on holding the participants accountable for building on each other’s ideas and making progress on the big question. Conversationally, we’re trying to stay within the general vicinity of the philosophical question. I intervene as a facilitator to offer summaries and to distill key ideas emerging from the group or to ask for clarity when (I or others in the group) are confused about how ideas connect or how they are relevant to answering the big question. 

Want to try leading a conversation using Philosophy for Children methods? Find more tips from Ariel on planning for and facilitating philosophical conversations in museums here.

Are there any other things you want to let people who might be reading this now?

I would encourage everyone to just try going into a museum, generating a big question and moving through the exhibits to see how the museum can impact their thinking on the question. Try to do this without the goal of “am I correct in the answer that I arrived at?” or “What do the experts think the right answer is?” The goal of the engagement is to embrace curiosity and nuance, and to be open to having this wondering about art and wandering through the museum to inform your thinking about things. Philosophy gives us the space to question, think, and examine so that we can live better, more meaningful and more beautifully. I believe we just need to practice doing it more often, and that art offers such a rich opportunity for doing so.

Ariel’s contact information is included in this document. She offers online and in person training and coaching in Philosophy for Children, and develops curriculum for schools, nonprofits, and museums.