The following article which originally appeared in the Scotsman newspaper is yet another reason to celebrate P4C.
Philosophical approach is a winner for primary schools By SEONAG MACKINNON
EDUCATION EDITOR
"I THINK therefore I am wiser and cleverer" is to misquote Descartes - but it accurately conveys the successful impact of a pioneering scheme to teach philosophy to primary schoolchildren.
The trial, launched two years ago, has caused improvements across the children's "verbal, nonverbal and quantitative reasoning abilities". The possibility of such improvements occurring by chance was found to be less than one in a thousand.
The 200 mixed-ability children taking part in the scheme were encouraged not to take things at face value. The pupils - aged around ten - developed reasoning skills by debating issues such as where joy is, what anger is like and was kindness invented.
Discussing happiness, an eight-year-old boy said: "Happiness is inside you. It is sort of chained to you so it can never leave you." Asked by the teacher if we can use happiness up, he said: "No it's like a car going to the petrol station to get more petrol. When something makes you happy it sort of tops it up again."
Evidence from the respected Cognitive Assessment Tests (CAT) which the children involved took suggested that they would enjoy long-term academic success, as the CAT results correlate closely with Standard Grade and Higher results in secondary school.
Educational psychologists also found evidence from questionnaires and video recordings that the children's social skills had improved and behavioural problems declined in the primaries which pioneered the project. The children appeared to have developed a better understanding of their own and other's feelings and behaviour.
P4C was developed at New Jersey's [Montclair State University] by Professor Matthew Lipman.

Bypassing the history of philosophy and high-profile exponents such as Aristotle and Scotland's own David Hume, the children involved take part in practical classes applying the subject. The lessons are based, however, on the Socratic method of critical inquiry into issues.
Stories and poems are used as a starting point to stimulate classroom debate. Pupils generate their own questions which are discussed briefly by the group before one is selected for more intensive discussion.
The lessons involve critical questioning, linking questions, collaborative enquiry, building on each other's ideas, reflecting, problem-solving, decision-making and summarizing.
Before beginning lessons, the children are asked to concentrate on each of their senses in turn so that they develop their consciousness, becoming focused physically and mentally. They feel their feet as heavy objects, see colors and shapes in the classroom, hear sounds near and further away.
Professor Keith Topping, of Dundee's faculty of education, said he expected the results to surprise some experts. "Some educators argue that improvement in thinking is impossible to measure," he said. "However, this review identified ten rigorously controlled experimental studies of P4C."
Clackmannanshire Council has now implemented the programme across the authority, involving over 100 teachers.
Paul Cleghorn, the headteacher at Sunnyside Primary School in Alloa said that some teachers were initially reluctant to have another subject squeezed into the curriculum but were pleased that they had planned lessons and by the knock-on impact of the scheme on children's learning and behaviour. Commending the scheme to schools across Scotland, he said: "People can discuss issues such as drugs and smoking on a superficial factual level giving all the right answers but it doesn't impact on how they will deal with those things. This reaches them at a deeper level and encourages them to make informed decisions."
He added: "By creating situations where every child has a right to be heard and who knows their views are worthy of discussion, they will come to see that their views are important to others."
The value of the scheme is immense, he said: "It can be shown to benefit not only the children who take part in it but society as a whole."

This article:
  http://www.news.scotsman.com/archive.cfm?id=1032922003