Teaching philosophy to children enhances reading, writing and math skills

Philosophy is not as scary as many students think because scientists have discovered that teaching philosophy to children not only helps them better understand the reasoning and the nature of the surrounding reality but also create conditions for good math and reading when entering primary school.

The experiment was conducted by the UK Education Promotion Fund (EEF) - a charity created to find ways to erase the gap between families' income and their education. The experiment was based on 3,000 students aged 8-10 in 48 primary schools in the UK. These students are taught additional Philosophy for Children (P4C) with weekly time.

And surprisingly, the results after two months showed that the ability of these children to read and do math has improved markedly compared to children who did not study philosophy. The more remarkable point about this result, the philosophical lessons are not designed to enhance the ability to do math or reading but instead, the goal of the lessons is to develop a child's confidence in placing sentences. ask, develop arguments and discuss with others.

The goal of the lessons is to develop a child's confidence in asking questions.

Lessons take place by enabling children to engage in dialogue, asking questions that focus on philosophical concepts, exploring concepts such as truth, justice, knowledge, friendship and publicity. equal. Questions that stimulate children's exploration are also posed as "should we give a healthy heart to someone who does not take care of themselves?" or "depriving a person of freedom? " or "Can a person bring their religious symbol to the workplace?".

Because all students participating in the research are scattered throughout the UK with different family components and conditions, scientists can also assess the impact of circumstances and income on ability. learning of the child. Specifically, they found that children in difficult circumstances can still improve their reading ability after 4 months, their math skills after 3 months and writing skills after 2 months. With a philosophical lesson that lasts only 1 hour per week, scientists think this is really a significant benefit.

In addition to improving learning ability, putting a small amount of philosophical content into teaching children also creates educational benefits for children. Researchers believe that philosophy also helps to build a way of thinking, listening, speaking, using logical reasoning, increasing confidence, patience and self-esteem for children. In the near future, the research team continues to follow the research results in the hope that there will be enough solid foundation, officially put the philosophy into teaching children early in order to create more effective education. .