TPO Foundation – Transcultural Psychosocial Educational Foundation
Porodice Ribar 53, 71000 Sarajevo, Bosna and Hercegovina Tel: +387 33 663-350 email:tpo@tpofond.org
International Interdisciplinary Symposium, Sarajevo 24.08.2022
Philosophy for (with) Children P4/wC: Golden Jubilee – Reflections, Perspectives, Challenges
About us
TPO Foundation established SAPERE B&H Programme in 2018, the first in Bosnia and Herzegovina to develop critical thinking, according to the P4C – Philosophy for Children method. The programme is primarily intended for teachers and students of primary and secondary schools in B&H. To contribute to positive changes in the B&H education system, TPO Foundation has established cooperation with SAPERE Institute in London and has started training 12 professors and teachers who are now certified to hold TOT (training of trainers).
Dr Patricia Hannam as a representative of SAPERE Institute in London and certified P4C trainer led a group of first B&H trainers over the period 2018-2020 and thanks to her, SAPERE B&H has made its first steps. Using the SAPERE Institute Handbooks and other materials, TPO Foundation has also developed the first P4C Philosophy for Children Handbook in Bosnia and Herzegovina to contextualize this approach in developing critical thinking and to adapt it to the needs of this area.
In addition, TPO Foundation became part of the ICPC
(The International Council of Philosophical Inquiry with Children) network https://my.icpic.org/members.html#membership
In the previous two years, we have developed and implemented P4C trainings for primary school teachers. Thus, in the next school year P4C program and method will be implemented in 20 primary B& H schools. Due to our desire to continue to affirm P4C in BiH, TPO foundation decided to celebrate 50 years since the beginning of P4C, in the most appropriate way, opening a dialogue on the perspectives of P4/wC and reflecting on what has been achieved so far around the world.
About jubilee
In 1972 Professor Mathew Lipman left Columbia for Montclair State College and began to take philosophy into K-12 classrooms. In the same year, he published his first book Harry Stottlemeier’s Discovery, a book that we can consider as the first book designed to help children practice philosophy. Soon, Lipman established the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children and that is how the story about philosophy for children came to be.
This year, on the fiftieth anniversary of Lipman’s beginnings in philosophy for children, the TPO foundation Sarajevo is organizing a symposium in which the goal is to reflect and evaluate on what has happened in these fifty years with philosophy with children. We will try to analyse what has happened to Lipman’s teachings, Lipman’s successors, as well as determine the most important schools that have emerged in philosophy with children in different parts of the world. We will also try to evaluate how much influence Lipman’s school has on various schools of philosophy with children around the world. Likewise, we will try to anticipate what the perspectives of philosophy with children in the next 50 years are.
The proposed thematic blocks are:
- P4/wC in the local context – enhancing intercultural learning (celebrating diversities and bridging the gaps),
- P4/wC and improvement of academic achievements: theoretical and empirical approaches,
- P4/wC perspectives and challenges– Where are we going from here?,
- Horizons and limitations of P4/wC in globalized world,
- Ethical dimension of P4/wC,
- P4/wC in and beyond the classroom settings,
- Openness to criticism and dialogic character of P4/wC.
Given thematic frameworks do not exhaust all research possibilities, so we invite and encourage you to submit your papers which will even open the new questions, issues and approaches to P4/wC.
Key note speakers: Dr. Patricia Hannam, United Kingdom and Dr. Marjan Šimenc, University of Ljubljana.
Working language of the symposium is English. Symposium will be held in hybrid form – online and live. Expected duration of your presentations is 10-15 minutes. After each session, additional time will be left for discussions.
The deadline for sending completed application forms with summaries (approx. 900 characters) is July 15, 2022.
Please, send your application forms to an email address: assist2@tpofond.org
TPO Foundation plans to publish a selection of delivered papers that pass two blind reviews. The deadline for sending papers based on presentations given at the symposium is 31 October 2022.
Symposium Programme Committee members:
Dr. Zilka Spahić-Šiljak, Associate Professor of Gender Studies, President of the Programme Committee
mr.sc Elmana Cerić, Philosophy and Theory of Knowledge professor, member
Nejra Džananović, MA of Pedagogy, member
