Philosophy for Children as an Example of Brain-Compatible Teaching and Learning

Philosophy for children as example of the brain-compatibility teaching and learning “I would accept the opportunity to work in a school characterized by a high level of collective work, a place where numerous personal and professional relationships are present. I would like to go there every day to meet and be with people who want to be there, who chose that place because they consider their work important for others and for themselves.” R. S. Barth*

Introduction

Education is an important value in the 21st century. This is associated with several questions and problems concerning education. Many studies deal with the effectiveness of education, point to the elaboration and availability of various professional and methodological offerings, and the possibilities of further teacher education. In the educational process, increasingly more attention is focused on research in the cognitive sciences, which belong among the most progressively developing scientific fields. Cognitive sciences are an interdisciplinary scientific discipline that deals with cognition as a set of all mental structures and processes of human knowing and cognition, i.e. from perception and behavior to speech and thinking, and mental knowledge structures.

The cognitive sciences comprise philosophy, psychology, computer science and artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, anthropology, and evolutionary biology. Within the cognitive sciences, thinking is explained as a computational process that takes place on mental representations of a neurobiological nature. The main area of cognitive science is the creation of empirically testable hypotheses that explain the structural and procedural aspects of human cognition. According to Wilson and Keil, the aspects of cognition are the perception of the environment, learning, reasoning, planning, decision-making, task solving, and communication (Wilson, R. A.- Keil, F. C., 1999, pp. 15-36.). Current research into cognitive processes shows that human cognition rests on biological, social, and cultural foundations. Cognitive systems can appear as biological systems, machines (artificial intelligences), or various combinations thereof that interact with an external, dynamically developing environment. The physical realization of cognitive operations is represented by neurochemical processes taking place in the brains of studied animals. However, cognitive science research also takes place in parallel at the level of functional analysis of cognition. The results of this research are applied in the fields of medicine and therapy, upbringing and education, design, software programs, advertising, etc. (Smelser, N. J., Baltes, P. B., 2002, pp. 2154-2158.)

An important role in the research of human cognition is played by cognitive neuroscience, which has developed rapidly since the 1970s with the advent of new imaging methods in brain research. Cognitive neuroscience examines brain activity during cognitive processes, e.g. in thinking, learning, perception, etc. It seeks answers to questions concerning the role of individual brain structures in particular cognitive activities, in information processing and storage. Cognitive sciences are characterized by multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity. It is precisely the interdisciplinary approach that represents the synthesis of two or more disciplines and opens a new scientific discourse and the possibility of creating new scientific disciplines, e.g. biochemistry, biotechnology, and in the field of education, for example, neuropedagogy and neurodidactics.

Today, pedagogy and didactics pay greater attention to the activity of the brain in the educational process. New interdisciplinary fields, neuropedagogy and neurodidactics, are therefore becoming relevant. These sciences increasingly emphasize the importance of active use of the brain in teaching and learning by the pupil, but also by human beings in general in the process of lifelong learning. Neuropedagogy is understood as the pedagogy of the 21st century, which uses knowledge about the structure, functions, and integrity of the brain. This includes, for example, knowledge of sensory preferences, differences in the functions of the cerebral hemispheres, in the dominance of the cerebral hemisphere in connection with the dominance of the eye, ear, hand, and foot, and the resulting consequences for learning styles as well as correct reactions in stressful situations. It also deals with the influence of stress on various types of memory, on the creation of one’s own psycho-emotional attitudes that optimize the course of learning, and on the effectiveness of learning. (Petlák, E., 2009, p. 12)

At present, the OECD is also concerned with ways of making education more effective using knowledge about the brain. Cognitive neuroscientists pay increased attention to education as an area for applying knowledge from cognitive neuroscience, as a source of significant research questions. A teacher’s knowledge in the field of neuroscience can significantly change teaching, teachers’ teaching strategies, and their approach to pupils. Knowing the brain and its activity forces us to change methods and forms of education, as well as the conditions in which children and pupils learn. Neuropedagogy and neurodidactics therefore strive to raise the level of the educational process, in which knowledge from the cognitive sciences about the structure and functions of the brain, about sensory preferences, about differences in the cerebral hemispheres, about learning styles, and on this basis to understand the laws, mechanisms, and possibilities of human development would be used. They make it possible to learn about the real possibilities of the human brain and preferences in learning, increase the need for self-improvement and the possibility of achieving success in life, emphasize the diversity of intelligence and the large individual differences of human personalities, and enable the individual development of a person through his or her own independent self-improvement.

Neurodidactics deals with linguistic, mathematical-logical, spatial, musical, natural, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and motor intelligence. It emphasizes all kinds of intelligence and their specific position in the brain. Every person has a different combination of stronger and weaker points in these types of intelligence. Therefore, neurodidactics attaches importance to knowledge of the brain so that a person can subsequently know how to use and improve it properly, but also so that the teacher knows how to strengthen strengths during the lesson. This includes, for example, involving all senses in the processes of cognition and learning, increasing interest in self-education, and exercising the brain, for example by working with multiple pieces of information.

According to Petlák, the following factors also belong among the neurodidactic aspects: (Petlák, E., 2011, p. 19)

• Allow pupils to learn in a style that is natural to them
• Allow pupils to interpret new knowledge in their own words, with an emphasis on correctness and essence
• Connect new subject matter with all the old material the pupil already knows
• Enrich teaching with many examples
• Involve as many senses as possible in learning
• Present the subject matter so that the pupil sees meaning and significance in it
• Emphasize that the pupil can present his or her knowledge in various ways
• Prefer positive evaluation
• Teach in such a way that there is as much positive emotion as possible
• Create space for mutual interactive relationships among pupils

Based on the contribution of neurodidactics to teaching, which is grounded in findings from brain research and which emphasizes not only learning and memory but also emotions and motivation in learning, Petlák formulates some requirements for teaching:

• Learning should be informal, fun, and pleasant
• Children’s learning should be supported in a timely and comprehensive manner
• Learning should be life-oriented
• Learning should be carried out through independent problem solving
• The content of the curriculum must be mediated by various methods
• The teacher must know more about the processes taking place in the brain during learning and adapt his or her pedagogical-didactic work accordingly
• The teacher must be a model on which the pupils’ interest and motivation depend, or from which they develop

For neuropedagogy, which appeals to the appreciation of knowledge of the brain in teaching, motivation is of great importance. Many neuroscientists consider motivation important because pupils’ results and an individual’s success in general depend on good motivation. Motivation plays a significant role in building an individual’s self-confidence. Neuroscience points to the importance of reward, praise, and the role of dopamine, because they affect motivation. It is a signal to the relevant parts of the brain that we have achieved more than we expected, and then positive consequences may follow. Released dopamine affects clarity of thought and neuronal activity, and conversely, a lack of dopamine causes a lack of neuronal activity and low brain activity. The dopamine signal affects the experience of subjective effect, which has a great impact on further learning. Our brain always reacts when our motivation changes or when we are inspired by someone else to achieve a new goal. M. Spitzer says that “people are intrinsically, by nature, motivated, it cannot be otherwise when this is served by a very effective system ‘built in’ to their brains. If we did not have it, we would not survive. This system works continuously, it cannot be switched off, perhaps only when we go to sleep.” (Spitzer, M., 2007, p. 145)

The field of motivation proves to be complex not only because we know several motivational methods but also because of the internal predisposition to motivation. An important factor for motivation is the teacher. Neuropedagogy highlights positive evaluation, teachers’ praise, which is very effective for everyone because it has a strong motivational effect. “In other words, the teacher’s very statements about pupils are extremely motivating. Also motivating is how the teacher teaches, what interest he or she has in the subject and in teaching it.” (Petlák, E., 2011, p. 24) According to Petlák, the external aspects of motivation, methods, emphasizing the pupil’s interest, etc. are not essential. What is decisive for motivation is not “...a transparency projector, various photocopies or even a PowerPoint presentation, but a teacher engaged in his or her subject, a teacher for whom the center of interest is the subject itself and not some ‘tricks for implanting’ the material/curriculum/...” (Spitzer, M., In: Petlák, E., 2011, p. 25) On the one hand, the teacher is a motivating factor, and on the other hand, the fact that motivation is also internal and is extraordinarily closely connected with brain activity. Therefore, reference is made here to the theory of so-called brain-compatible teaching, which understands motivation comprehensively.

Petlák points to non-traditional aspects of motivation, which are important from the perspective of neurodidactic aspects of brain activity during the lesson. In his description, he draws on the description of teaching according to R. Caine and U. Herman. (abridged and adapted by A. J., according to Petlák, E., 2011, pp. 25-30).

• The brain is a parallel space (it works comprehensively as a whole - it thinks, experiences emotions, imagines, encourages, etc.). Teaching should therefore be organized so that it is stimulating from several aspects, enriching lessons with aids so that we act on the pupil’s brain comprehensively.
• The brain processes the whole and the parts simultaneously - in learning, both cerebral hemispheres must be involved - tasks must be approached comprehensively.
• The brain understands and remembers best if knowledge and skills are stored in natural, spatial memory - provide the brain with natural learning, use teaching methods that approximate pupils’ informal learning.
• Every person’s brain is unique, and the structure of the brain changes through learning - the structure of the brain differs according to environment, learning, and heredity. Therefore, it is not appropriate to teach all pupils in the same way. For the effective work of each pupil, it is optimal to choose differentiated approaches, respect pupils’ learning styles, and build on their interests and experiences. “How many mistakes (emotionally painful for pupils) do we make when we set better pupils up as a model for weaker pupils (while as teachers we know that there are no two identical individuals in the world).” (Petlák, E., 2011, p. 28)
• The brain is an active organ; it is impossible to stop brain activity, we can only direct it. In the teaching process, we should create the best possible conditions for creation, discovery, and curiosity.
• The brain perceives not only what it focuses on, but also peripherally, everything that surrounds it, so disturbing influences must be eliminated.
• The human brain is oriented toward seeking meaning, which is carried out through recognizing and generating pattern schemes, so the teacher must create meaningful and relevant pattern schemes.
• The brain understands and remembers best if knowledge and skills are stored in natural, i.e. spatial and not mechanical memory. In teaching, priority should be given to natural teaching methods that involve as many senses as possible in learning and that enable the pupil to use his or her intelligence and his or her own learning style. Memory is unstable, adaptable, and therefore needs to be continuously active, which strengthens synaptic connections between neurons.
• The brain creates the most connections between neurons when it can take risks and when it has support in doing so. A feeling of fear and threat slows learning and can even stop it. Learning is strengthened by challenge and attraction and weakened by threat. It is therefore important that communicative teaching methods be applied in teaching, by which the pupil is motivated and not threatened by a directive approach to pupils.
• Learning should be joyful and pleasant. From the perspective of knowledge about the brain, we can say that success causes increased dopamine production, and this in turn affects further learning and memory processes. And it increases interest, which motivates. In his research, M. Spitzer found that a sufficient stimulus for neurons is a prerequisite for successful learning. The resulting neuronal activity equals the amount of energy it receives.

According to the theory of brain-compatible learning, interest should be aroused through problem situations, space should be created for pupils to express opinions and experiences, and positive communication should be supported.

Philosophy for Children and Brain-Compatible Learning

Brain-compatible learning uses the results of neuroscience, which prove that learning changes the physical structure of the brain, that structural changes also cause changes in the functional organization of the brain, i.e. learning organizes and reorganizes the brain, and that different areas of the brain are ready for learning at different times. According to Petlák, teachers should help create as many neural networks as possible in pupils’ brains and strengthen existing neural networks, and they should connect instruction with real life as much as possible. R. Cloniger (In: Petlák, E., 2011, p. 61) points to 3 passions of the brain: seeking novelty, seeking satisfaction, and avoiding danger. Therefore, teachers in the teaching process should strive to satisfy these passions of the brain by finding new methods that support pupils’ activity and creativity. Activities should satisfy and please pupils. Emotions and pupils’ emotional intelligence play an important role in brain-compatible teaching.

At the end of the 1960s, professor of philosophy and logic Mathew Lipman (1923-2010) of Columbia University in New York created the Philosophy for Children program, whose goal was the development of thinking as well as the development and cultivation of personality as a whole. Later he founded the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children. According to him, Philosophy for Children in education affects not only the development of cognition, creativity, and engaged thinking, but also the social and ethical spheres, especially the development of communication skills. Lipman theoretically built on the psychology of J. Piaget and L. S. Vygotsky. Piaget’s research on the relationship between thinking and behavior showed that a child in the 8th year of life is capable of creating and understanding abstract concepts on the basis of ideas of concrete activity. Vygotsky, by emphasizing the contact of adults and of society as a whole with the development of the child, the knowledge of the inner and outer world, explained the process of children’s thinking and its development through dialogue, which he understood as a means of learning. Lipman also drew on some philosophical foundations - the pragmatism of J. Dewey, the well-known American philosopher and founder of pragmatic pedagogy, the analytical philosophy of G. Ryle and his study of the relationship between language, teaching, and learning, as well as the philosophy of language of L. Wittgenstein.

Lipman articulated philosophical education in the context of the development of multidimensional thinking, which creates a balance between critical, creative, and engaged thinking, a balance between reason and affectivity, between perception and concept formation, between corporeality and psyche. He understood Philosophy for Children as a tool for developing critical thinking in the joint solution of problems of everyday human life. He placed emphasis on the practical use of judgment in everyday life, in which he saw a tool for strengthening pupils’ ability to analyze various life situations.

Philosophy for Children, as presented by Lipman, offers a way of working that didactically expands the educational process with a sophisticated approach to the cognitive aspects of human development, his or her morality, and develops pupils’ ability to make moral decisions and act on the basis of rational argumentation and with regard to the argumentation of other people.

For the representative and founder of the Philosophy for Children program, this meant, on the one hand, the development of critical thinking, which leads to proper justification of statements, to setting logical criteria, correct argumentation, and action; on the other hand, it emphasized creative and engaged thinking, which also stresses the emotional dimension of education.

Why philosophy?

Philosophy, the Philosophical Question of Care for the Soul, and the Question of Humanism

The very question of upbringing and education, what they are and what their meaning is, is a philosophical question. The word philosophy comes from Greek and is commonly translated as love of wisdom. For the ancient Greeks, wisdom did not represent a sum of knowledge, skills, or information about a certain observed object. It was the highest form of knowledge, of understanding the world and human place in it. Philosophy represented a theoretical way of life, of viewing, an insight into how things really are (not how a person imagines them or wants them to be), it was a concentration on the experience of truth, a direction toward the Good, it realized areté - virtue in human beings. It was the desire of logos, of thinking, for the truth that a person expressed in speech and dialogue. The one who is wise, the sage, ho sophos, was also called by the term sophistés, a teacher who leads a philosophical way of life, philosophical upbringing of the soul, who leads dialogue as a meeting in what is real, as a meeting in speech. Philosophy takes place in questions; it is the art of thought to ask the right question and to make better, it is the movement of the mind toward meaning. The term sophistés later became pejorative under the influence of Plato’s work. Plato distinguished between the term sophistés as one who instructs, forms the educated, and whose reward is money, and the term philosopher as one who awakens the consciousness of the educated, who cares for the soul and realizes paideia, the goal of which is perfect knowledge - epistémé.

The philosophical question of care for the soul has its roots in ancient philosophy, and is articulated in the question of human action, which always takes place in connection with the world. The connectedness of the world appears as the free space of our action. The matter of human action is the search for human identity and especially its formation, in which according to the well-known Czech philosopher Jan Patočka the public space and education have the most important role. Through them, not only the concrete, life possibilities of the immature human being were realized and developed, but also his or her inclusion and grounding in the community. The world, as Jan Patočka says, is the condition of the possibility of the experience of freedom, which is “an experience of overall meaning.” ( Patočka, J., 1996, p. 322.) This experience forms, cultivates human beings, and creates the whole of human life. Life, however, according to Patočka, is entrusted to human beings as a task - “care for the soul is a lifelong, probing, self-controlling, self-uniting, thought-life practice.” ( Patočka, J., 2002, p. 87.)

For the ancient human being as well, life became a task, and the means of fulfilling this task was education. The Greek concept of paideia represented a movement within the human being, a turning of the soul toward truth. Care for the soul appeared as care for what keeps a human being in relation to truth. This turning represents a radical reversal of understanding residing in the soul. Education helps free the soul from bonds, conventions, and authority. Among Greek philosophers, according to Patočka, Socrates was such a figure, because he freed himself from the bonds of convention, thought without support and from his own freedom. His dialogue, questions, or constant questioning do not make sense in the answer, but in the awareness of the impossibility of a final positive thesis. In this way, a person gradually creates distance from what is given, as a detachment from everything that is. It is precisely this distance from the whole of the world that, according to Patočka, establishes one of the fundamental contradictions of human beings, namely the contradiction between the relation to the whole on the one hand and the impossibility of expressing this relation in the form of ordinary finite knowledge on the other. By means of dialogue Socrates shows that nothing is valid absolutely and that the subject exists in permanent care and openness. Patočka tries to show that the constitutive elements of Socrates’ approach, namely relation to the whole, negative knowledge about transcendence, and the related freedom, are essentially proper to human beings: “Socrates thus discovered the human being as the being most different from everything else - the human being as originally unfinished, but given into his or her own hands.” (Patočka, J., 1996, p. 143.)

Socrates also emphasizes the inner freedom of decision-making. Correct decisions are born in the soul, and since they have the status of knowledge, they are unshakeable. In other words, true decisions of the soul do not assent to external influences (the pressure of conventional rules, laws, and expectations), but to one’s own reasonableness, which alone can weigh all circumstances. Socrates emphasizes ethical knowledge, which compels a person to constantly care for himself or herself. Care directed toward one’s own life, arising from the need for self-knowledge, knowledge of one’s own possibilities and abilities, is the condition of the possibility of care for public affairs, for the polis. For only the one who knows himself or herself knows what is beneficial and recognizes what he or she can and cannot do. Such a person does only what he or she understands and avoids things he or she does not understand, thus avoiding mistakes and doing well. Conversely, people who do not know their abilities, who do not know what they need, fall into misfortune and therefore make mistakes in everything. Socrates identifies constant care for oneself with care for the soul, truth, and reason. Self-knowledge must be based on grasping what the object of this knowledge means. According to Socrates, in the activity that is care for oneself, a person must prioritize spiritual goods over bodily and external ones. Socrates simultaneously conditions practical care for oneself with the answer to the question: What is human being? This leads to the question: In what way can we take care of ourselves?

Socrates approaches answers to these questions from the perspective of ethics as practical knowledge, which is present in every individual kind of knowledge to the extent that it is related to the formation of oneself. We can say that, in comparison with modern understanding, Socratic ethics has a distinctly non-theoretical character, i.e. it is neither a theory of the good life nor a theory of morality. No ethics will teach us how to live properly if I myself do not know how to make proper decisions. Self-knowledge is therefore not a problem that we pose before ourselves as some object of inquiry. It is always about the way of life we choose, therefore self-knowledge is the art of living. We cannot separate it from the way we live and examine it as something that is both ours and foreign to us. To care for oneself means to continually create one’s own life. However, life must be continually guided by rational decision-making.

Paideia as care for the soul keeps the human being in contact with the truth of being and leads him or her to understand his or her place in the world. It brings the person to who he or she is. Care for the soul is a life movement toward responsibility, maturity, and dignity. We can see this in Socrates, Plato, but later also in Comenius, Masaryk, Patočka, Jaspers, Fink, and Arendt. These thinkers developed the concept of paideia as humanitas. In Greece, human beings were understood as beings endowed with the ability to understand the order of the world, to ask questions about truth and the essence of things, which are accessible to them through spiritual insight. Knowledge realized in paideia was an act, self-action, as Patočka points out, because it commits human beings to transformation and to the preference of eternal values over temporary ones. “Philosophy as care for the soul is Socrates’ answer to Socrates’ question. Behind this question, as its justification, lies also the reality that makes it possible; but it is the reality of our soul, which among all things that occur has the singular peculiarity that it not only is, but must also care and strive for its own being, for being something proper and lost in the external and improper. Only because a human being must care about the meaning of life, must work it out, wrest it from himself or herself, is the Socratic question possible ... this knowledge of not-knowing; because Socrates has no dogmas to recommend to people, and no positive moral doctrines to present as recipes for life; his task is to awaken people to their own being, to their own essence.” (Patočka, J., 2007, pp. 23 - 24.)

This gives birth to true humanism as a thought and real process of transformation of being and the conception of human beings, which poses the moral question about the human being as the question of what is humanly good. However, it does not seek a definitive answer to this question, but keeps it in the tension of problematicity, incompleteness, or openness. Those views that emphasize the problematic nature of being do not understand truth as something absolute, but as a happening uncovering. “They also understand moral norms as changeable, in constant motion and as dependent on human existence as a choice of possibilities. A person does not act on the basis of some rule, model, but in a changing, indefinite situation. Action is not based on any certainty of the situation. The changeable ambiguity of the situation forces a person to decide and to take responsibility for his or her decision. Every value, including a moral one, can have meaning and significance only in relation to a situation that has just and uniquely arisen and must be exposed to the activity of relating: re-evaluating, deciding, responsibility. But then it must itself be capable of change.” (Javorská, A., 2012, p. 405.)

As we can see, in Patočka care for the soul is connected with the condition of living a truthful life, as well as with the question of humanism as a moral question about the human being, the question of what is humanly good. It is about practical care for oneself, constant attention, and care. According to Patočka, the realization of the movement of truth appears as care. Care for the soul, as Patočka says, makes it possible to understand the relationships within the whole world, their penetration into individual things and processes we encounter in life. It enables us to understand the importance of penetrating to the origin of things. Care for the soul is connected with the ability to understand one’s place in the world. And this is made accessible to us by philosophy.

Holistic Learning in Contemporary Education Philosophy for Children is meant to mediate to students the elementary procedures of philosophical thinking, which make it possible to cultivate and develop a comprehensive understanding of oneself, the world, and one’s place in it. It brings philosophical thinking closer by means of solving concrete philosophical questions related to human beings or human existence. Its mission lies in education at all levels. From the lowest level to the education of top politicians and managers.

Philosophy for Children is based on these fundamental definitions of philosophy:

• Philosophy and its questions lead to deeper insight; it is reflective and critical, but also metareflective, that is, it is also thinking about how we think; it is metanarrative because it is speaking about how we speak. In the context of critical thinking, creativity and flexibility of thought develop in a person. The ability to solve problems, cooperate, develop self-respect and respect for others.
• Philosophy helps change human consciousness more deeply, over the long term, because it helps a person create his or her own opinion and be capable of looking at people and events around him or her independently, critically, and sensitively.
• Its goal is the development of personality as a whole, therefore it is holistic.
• Philosophy as critical examination of the meaning of experienced reality is based on life.
• We must deal with philosophy in order to have imagination and perspective; it is the overall shaping of pupils’ perception of the world, and above all their own human personality.
• The importance of philosophical argumentation. Philosophy as a systematic and critical study of the basic questions of everyday life. Training of critical thinking, clear expression in language and writing.
• Philosophy as love of wisdom does not mean only love of knowledge, rational knowing; philosophy is not based only on cognitive performance, but contains something more - understanding, comprehension of the world and of human beings, it also carries, for example, ideas about what a good, happy life is, and also thinking about what the conditions are for the preservation of life in general.

Wittgenstein in “Various Remarks” reminds us that “Philosophical work is actually - like the versatile work of an architect - rather work on oneself. On one’s own view. On how one sees things. (And what one demands of them.)” . (L. Wittgenstein, 1993)

The development of critical thinking is also part of the state educational program in the Slovak Republic. We include it in the group of so-called cognitive competencies in the system of education as a whole, from pre-primary to tertiary. The State Educational Program for pre-primary education - ISCED 0, includes emphasis on creative thinking and problem solving: for example, the child compares similarities and differences of objects, phenomena, persons, etc., justifies his or her opinions, expresses attitudes, makes simple judgments, evaluates spontaneously and independently in his or her immediate surroundings what he or she likes/dislikes, what is right/wrong, what is good/bad about things, persons, opinions. Primary and secondary education - ISCED 1 and 2, also set as a goal the development of cognitive processes and the ability to think critically across a whole range of subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, Slovak language and literature, foreign languages, informatics, history, geography, and various kinds of education - religious, ethical, civic, music, art, and art education. Recently, the development of critical thinking has also been part of educational programs for leisure activities. Today, managers, journalists, IT specialists, teachers, doctors, architects, artists, that is, creative and inventive workers, increasingly use critical thinking in their work. We see a special role in the teaching profession, because the teacher’s task is to teach other people and younger generations to think critically as well.

We can state that the Philosophy for Children program represents, from the perspective of brain-compatible learning, a holistic concept of learning that includes the creative, emotional, moral, physical, and intellectual potential of every child. Philosophy for Children as the development of critical thinking in philosophical, theological, psychological, and pedagogical contexts is implemented at the Czech Center for Philosophy for Children at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. They have noticed that the phenomenon of the development of thinking is an interdisciplinary problem and includes the ability to be open to new thinking, to avoid cognitive laziness by thinking about things, not to accept information passively but to form one’s own judgment, to verify information and analyze different views on the matter, to prefer an objective approach over a subjective one, not to trust ambiguous concepts but to work with facts. Before making a final decision, one must learn to consider all possible alternatives and try to predict their consequences, and if possible, be able to rationally explain and justify why we have taken precisely such a stance or on what basis we decided to act in this way, thereby trying to understand the connections more thoroughly and discover the theories and information related to them. This is not about presenting knowledge, about acquiring it. Pupils learn to think through dilemmas, not only problems that have a clear solution. Dilemmas do not have one correct solution, yet people often encounter them in life and are forced to act.

The Philosophy for Children program uses stories, philosophical novels, and identifies logical problems, ethical problems, problems related to violence, etc. in them. Pupils define concepts, justify their thoughts, become aware of their ambiguity and contradictions. The questions that pupils formulate are written on the board, and the teacher leading the discussion follows the way of thinking, argumentation, and justification from a procedural perspective, and points out logical errors in pupils’ thinking, or violations of the rules of respect for others and the principles of social behavior. He or she leads them to reflection and self-correction. In this way their thinking, creativity, and emotionality develop. Philosophy makes it possible, through the story, to reach thinking in the process of open dialogue with the whole group. This is the philosophical dimension of dialogue, which is the formation of oneself.

In this way reason, will, and feeling are engaged. At the end of this deliberative process, a conclusion or decision is reached at the level of knowledge and an action is carried out at the level of will. Pupils learn in this way to weigh their actions, and they themselves perceive that the issue in question personally concerns them and that they must find an appropriate way of approaching it for themselves and on their own behalf. This is the “shock” that Jan Patočka spoke of as a basic element of true education: “..the pupil should not only learn in school which means are suitable for certain ends, but should learn to want something higher.... It is not only important for a person to get used to something, but to something more...” (Patočka, J., 1996, 367)

According to the founder of the Philosophy for Children program, Lipman, the teacher should act as an inspirer, a guide, and not a manipulator. What should matter above all is the process inside the human being. Only in this process does education truly take place, which means liberation, that is, the discovery of freedom and responsibility. Something can address a person only when he or she is a free being. This subsequently leads to positive self-evaluation, creativity, initiative, confirms the dignity of the human person, leads to tolerance and the renewal of humanism.

Conclusion Philosophy for Children develops intellectual abilities in the interest of strengthening pupils’ ability to analyze various life situations, develops pupils’ ability to make moral decisions and act on the basis of rational argumentation and with regard to the argumentation of other people. Emphasis is placed on the practical use of judgment in everyday life, as well as on logic, by means of which it is supposed to reveal faulty and false argumentation. Philosophy for Children aims at the development of human thinking. Neuropedagogy and neurodidactics aim to draw attention to the phenomenon of thinking, or to the development of thinking as an interdisciplinary problem. As we have stated, phenomena such as mind and language are the subject of intensive interest by scientists and philosophers. The significant role of neuroscience in our lives, the knowledge of brain functions brings many social and ethical implications. Neurosciences touch on the biological foundations of human existence, but also make it possible to change human nature. This is why neuroethics, for example, arose, which on the one hand deals with the search for the neuronal bases of moral behavior, the study of why we behave as we do, and on the other hand is concerned with the search for norms in the field of neuroscience, with the study of how we should behave. Today there is discussion, for example, about the ethical implications of medical practice and biological research, about the extent to which we can intervene in the neuronal substrate of humanity, how far we can change or even improve the nervous system and also the human psyche.

In our text we wanted to point to the significance of the development of neuroscience, to its interdisciplinary overlaps into the field of education, and also to the importance of philosophical reflection for pedagogy. Philosophical questioning opens the question of the meaning and purpose of education as well as pedagogical theory. “Education and upbringing are actually philosophy: it is care for the movement of life; it brings us into relation with human transcendence. All other views of education and upbringing are only an opportunity for this.” (Kratochvíl, Z., 1995, 12) Philosophy, however, should be the element of thought and not an instrument of upbringing and a cultural enterprise. Through it we could conduct a humanistically oriented dialogue about what it means to be human and what his or her life means in a time of global transformation. This also points to the importance and irreplaceable significance of the social and human sciences, which make possible the development of thinking through the development of social and communication skills, the development of moral character and action. For they support the creative thought process of human beings.

The Philosophy for Children program is not identical with the study of philosophy. However, pedagogues should have philosophical education and should continually develop the ability to move understandingly between “myth and rationality; between feeling, experience, art or religion on the one hand and the precision of thought forms of conceptual language or science on the other hand.” (Kratochvíl, Z., 1995, 177) Or as O. Funda emphasized in an interview: “As teachers, we should deal with philosophy in order to have imagination and perspective, because even when we pass on knowledge of biology and chemistry, we shape our pupils’ overall perception of the world, and above all their human personality. And someone who does not himself work through philosophy on becoming a personality can hardly shape anyone into the form of a human personality. More important than passing on formulas and rules is whether we pass on to pupils amazement before the reality of the world and life.” (Funda, O., 2007, 728)

Author: Mgr. Andrea Javorská, PhD., Department of Philosophy, FF UKF in Nitra List of Bibliographic References

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