Philosophical Inquiry with Children:Inviting Uncertainty into the Classroom

This chapter explores the question of whether and how philosophising with children can help to prepare them for a world of rapid change and growing uncertainty in an era of risk, and in particular with regard to the problems of sustainability. There is a growing concern in educational science that, in a world that is changing rapidly, it is essential to prepare children to deal with uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity in a range of contexts [Barnett, R., Studies in Higher Education, 25(3), 255–256 (2000); Higher Education Research & Development, 31, 65–77 (2012); Helsper et al., Ungewissheit. Pädagogische Felder im Modernisierungsprozess. Velbrück Wissenschaft (2003); Hall, B., Planet, 17, 48–49 (2006; Hayden, M. J., Cosmopolitan education and moral education: Forging moral beings under conditions of global uncertainty. PhD. thesis. Columbia University (2012); Fecho, B., International Journal for Dialogical Science, 7, 115–128 (2013); D’Agnese, V., Journal of Philosophy of Education, 52, 316–329 (2018); and Paseka et al., Ungewissheit als Herausforderung für pädagogisches Handeln. SpringerVS (2018)]. Our globalised world is increasingly perceived as a “post-normal” era [Tauritz, R. L., Learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change. Wageningen Academic (2012), p. 299], as a world, “marinated in uncertainty” [Wals, A. E. J., Environmental Education Research, 16, 143–151, 2010), p. 145], characterised by high and growing levels of complexity, the questioning of old certainties, contested scientific knowledge and democratic values, and recently also by a new worldwide pandemic. These developments present new and specific challenges for teaching and learning and for the educational system as a whole. Learning for an unknown and uncertain future, learning to cope with complexity and uncertainty, has become a key concern in education generally and especially in the field of Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development [Wals, A. E. J., & Corcoran, P. B., Learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change. Wageningen Academic (2012) and Lambrechts, W., & Hindson, J., Research and innovation in education for sustainable development EDS (2016)]. Finding ways to deal with the uncertainty of knowledge around complex environmental challenges such as climate change, and being able to make value-based decisions with implications for the future, is becoming an increasingly urgent priority. Being able to handle complex and uncertain knowledge and ethical issues is seen as a “premise for sustainable development” [Tauritz, R. L., Research and innovation in education for sustainable development. Environment and School Initiatives (2016), p. 91]. Special skills and “future” or “uncertainty competencies” have been designed to prepare children for an unknown and open future, but experts generally offer limited guidance as to how such competencies can be achieved. And given that an uncertain future is by definition hard to predict, educational aims and processes are in themselves increasingly uncertain and need to be questioned. The integration of philosophical inquiry with children into teaching and learning throughout the curriculum could make an important contribution to the demands of a rapidly changing and increasingly uncertain world in a variety of ways. Uncertainty is at the very heart of philosophising with children since there are no right or wrong answers to philosophical questions, and philosophical inquiry aims to develop critical, cooperative, creative and caring thinking, and ethical judgement, which is crucial for dealing constructively with uncertainty. As a critical pedagogy, it can confront the specific problems of educational processes and aims and is designed to prepare children for a future that we neither can nor should predict or predetermine. I propose to frame the concept of philosophising with children as a “pedagogy for the future”, then present the result of some empirical research relating to the ways in which children and teachers experience uncertainty in the context of philosophical inquiry.