Danish school kids are going to become philosophers

Danes consider that philosophy studies should be paid more attention at school. Citizens of the smallest Scandinavian country have their reasons for that. The main reasons are that studying this subject develops child’s ability to systematize their ideas and knowledge, as well as helps them to see the fact that viewpoints can often be groundless.

 

“Thanks to philosophy children would not only shape their outlooks with a greater deal of discretion and tolerance, but also wouldn’t take on trust dogmatism and extremism the society imposes on them”, Henrik Vestergaard Jørgensen, Candidate of Pedagogic Sciences believes. His Doctoral thesis presentation is held in Aarhus, the theme of the thesis is “Philosophy and children: theoretical grounds and religious-didactic potential”.

Due to Jørgensen, there are three reasons for teaching children both philosophy and philosophical thinking. Firstly, it’s essential to get them acquainted with such ideas as ethics, cognition, perception, values and grounds, which is being done to a poor extend now. Secondly, thanks to analysis and reasoning children learn how to structure their own thinking that often lacks logic. Thirdly, they will be able to see complexity of some ideas and things.

It’s quite possible to carry out the idea of Danish teachers, as kids not only naturally can but also want to think philosophically while growing up. *Children are native philosophers, unlike us, the grownups, who already has forgotten how to think philosophically. But, can that be, that we were made to forget that a t school?*, Sanne Nielsen, a teacher and a philosophy consultant considers. That’s why the project *School of the Future* is based on the idea that studying philosophy is to become a permanent part of educational school program. Pedagogic and philosophy tend to go together, because many philosophy issues are important factors in teacher’s and pedagogue’s activity.

Denmark is one of the few European countries where philosophy is not a compulsory school subject, as it is in Germany and Norway, where it has its place in the schedule as a subject.

According to Danish Ministry of Education, ethics and philosophy are going to become a part of the course “Principles of Christianity” at schools. However, these two studies need to be worked at and examined more in order to make them suitable for school teaching. It’d be more reasonable though to teach philosophy as a separate subject or let it go together with principles of Christianity and religion course at least, as it makes the meaning of many religious notions more clear to children, when they look at them from a philosophical point of view.

 

 

Original text, photo:  Kristeligt Dagblad