We are witnessing what can only be called an anti--critical thinking trend in contemporary society. In this brief essay I want to describe how and why critical thinking is in crisis, and what this means for the promotion of critical thinking as an educational aim. Several of my examples show how this crisis has distorted the public debate over…

Philosophy for Children (henceforth P4C) is a program and a pedagogy for teaching philosophy in k-12 school that was first developed by Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp. The P4C approach is generally presented as a valuable form of education for democratic citizenship. This relationship is so obvious that it often remains underdeveloped: P4C…

The paper describes activities and reflections during and after a four day outdoor education course from the point of view of four educators: a philosopher, an outdoor educator, social work educator and a literacy educator. During the course, various philosophical and educational activities and ideas were put to the test, issues such as slowness,…

In her thoughtful examination of the complexities of identity in the article "Political and Metaphysical: Reflections on Identity, Education, and Justice" (EJ1277341), Lauren Bialystok provides a full and incisive vocabulary for thinking through the tensions among authentic, political, and social recognition-requiring aspects of…

In teacher education programs, there is a prevalent belief that having teacher candidates compose personalized 'my philosophy of education' (MPE) statements is a valuable exercise that prepares them for the teaching profession. This paper argues that the prevailing intentions for, and common practice of, assigning these MPE statements to teacher…