In July 2015, P4C Texas hosted its first educators’ workshop in order to gauge how much interest there might be in P4C or other types of programs in pre-college philosophy. With fifty registrants, we concluded there was enough interest to hold a day-long workshop that next fall. The October 2015 workshop attracted forty registrants, many who traveled from Houston, Dallas, or Austin in order to attend. We have continued the day-long workshops and in May 2017, we introduced an advanced workshop for educators who had previously attended a P4C session. The workshops are appropriate for educators at any level: pre-K through university. In the past, many teachers have found it helpful to attend with one of their school administrators so that the administrator has a better understanding of the program and how it might enhance education on their campus.
Introductory workshops are designed to accomplish several goals:
- Develop an intellectually safe professional community of inquiry.
- Explain the components, history and the theories/philosophies p4c Texas is based upon.
- Understand the difference between a classroom discussion and a philosophical classroom discussion
- Be able to implement a P4C discussion in their own classrooms using materials already available to them
Advanced workshops are designed to guide educators to accomplish these goals:
- Learn to develop a community of inquiry.
- Facilitate Philosophy for Children dialogues/discussions.
- Choose or create pre-college philosophy materials use in your classrooms
- Enhance critical and creative thinking through philosophical dialogue