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 not just local registrants, but many who traveled from Houston, Dallas, or Austin in order to attend. We have continued educator workshops and have introduced an advanced workshop for educators who had previously attended a P4C session. Along with our workshops for those off campus, we hold workshops for faculty and graduate students who are interested in learning more about the P4C pedagogy. 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