Daily quiz

It's probably been a few years since I last prepared a school lesson for Mulan or Miya.

But a few days ago I spent a couple of hours working on a worksheet handout to give to them.

It was all Mulan and Miya's idea, and they demanded that I write it for them.

The reason?  Lately Mulan and Miya have got into doing the Stuff news website's twice daily trivia quizzes.  Each quiz has 15 multi-choice questions on general knowledge and newsworthy happenings.  Often the girls answer it first (separately) and then they grab me and watch me attempt it.  Results are slightly competitive, and this morning Mulan scored higher than me (Miya equaled me)!

A few days ago the girls decided that we could make up our own quizzes.  So, the plan was that the four of us would each design a 15-question quiz, and then we would each answer everyone else's quizzes.  Mulan and Miya wrote up a list of possible question topics, and our questions couldn't repeat topics.

The end result was that I had to research and write a quiz for the family.  It was a shock to the system to actually have to sit and prepare a lesson.

On Friday we sat around the dining table together and answered each others' quizzes.  Mama chose to do a China-focused quiz, while Mulan chose super-tough questions.

Lots of family fun, and some learning, too.

Term 1 2021 activities

The new school term is starting, and we're finalising Mulan and Miya's activities.  Some things have already started, and we're easing back into our normal busy routine.

Mulan:

We're thinking about Mulan going to school in 2022, for Year 11 and NCEA 1, so this may be her final year of doing multiple activities.  Last chance to squeeze in lots of stuff, before the desk work gets serious!

Ballet/dance continues to be Mulan's main activity.  She's got a term pass at Mainly Dance Studios, to attend as many classes as she wants.  This year she's working towards the ballet Advanced Foundation exam and the contemporary Level 5 exam.

Athletics is Mulan's second activity.  We've joined the Takapuna Athletic Club for the season.  Her big aim this season is to be selected for the Auckland Interprovincial team, competing in Easter.  The big competitions for the season are all coming up over the next several weeks.  Mulan does well at all events, but especially does triple jump, 80 metre hurdles and long jump.

Music: Mulan continues to have private recorder lessons each week with Kevin Kim.  After dislocating her finger a couple of months ago she took some time off cello, but is just now re-starting to play.  Once she has de-rusted, and the finger strengthens up enough, she'll probably return to weekly private cello lessons.  We're looking at maybe doing Grade 4 theory and Grade 5 cello exams.

Swimming: Mulan has newly signed up for classes at NZL Swim -- she has two classes each week with the Swim Fit squad.  

Gymnastics: Mulan is again in the Extension 2 class at North Harbour Gymnastics, having one two-hour class each week.

Miya:

Rock climbing is Miya's main activity.  She and I have got memberships at Northern Rocks, and we go there about three times each week.  She's signed up for weekly classes, and we're starting to look at whether she might want to join some competitions.

Music: Miya is continuing to learn multiple instruments.  She's having weekly private clarinet lessons with Brendan Dalton, and has signed up for saxophone and trumpet lessons at Belmont Music Centre.  She may do the Grade 4 clarinet exam this year.

Dance: Miya decided to stop doing ballet, and this year is just having contemporary lessons at Mainly Dance Studios, working towards the Level 1 exam.

Athletics: Miya does athletics with Mulan and me, especially doing well in all the field events.

Gymnastics: Miya is again in the Extension 1 class at North Harbour Gymnastics, having one two-hour class each week.

Horse riding: We've been seriously looking into regular horse riding lessons, especially for Miya but maybe also for Mulan.  It's not happening in term 1, but we'll see if we can squeeze it in after athletics has finished for the season.

NZ history

The girls and I have just finished watching the 14 episodes of The Aotearoa History Show.

It's an excellent series, and we highly recommend it.

Our activities in term 1 2019

We're already four-ish weeks into term 1, give or take a week depending on when our activities started.  It's about time I listed out what outside scheduled activities we're doing these days.

Mulan:
Ballet: 6 classes (5 3/4 hours) per week, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays
Mulan is continuing with her ballet at Rowe Dance, this term doing two Intermediate Foundation classes, two Intermediate classes, one Contemporary class and one Conditioning class.

Music: 6 classes (5 hours) per week, on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays
Mulan is continuing to learn cello, flute, recorder and ukulele.  She learns ukulele with Yeye, while the other three instruments are with Belmont Music Centre.  She is also doing private cello lessons with her Music Centre teacher.

Swimming: 2 classes (1 1/2 hours) per week, on Fridays and Saturdays
Mulan is continuing with her swimming lessons at Swim Lovers' Swim School, but this term has also joined a one-hour squad training group.

Gymnastics: 1 class (1 1/2 hours) per week, on Sundays
Mulan has moved to North Harbour Gymnastics for her lessons.

Athletics: clubnights Wednesdays plus coaching Mondays
We've got another three weeks left of our athletics season with Takapuna Athletic Club.

Miya:
Ballet: 2 classes (2 hours) per week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays
Miya is also continuing with her ballet at Rowe Dance, this term doing two Grade 3 classes.  She plans to start a Contemporary class in term 2.

Music: 4 classes (3 hours) per week, on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays
Miya is continuing to learn violin, recorder and ukulele.  She similarly learns ukulele with Yeye, while the other two instruments are with Belmont Music Centre.  Mulan's cello teacher also gives Miya a few minutes at the end of Mulan's private lesson, with the girls playing together.

Swimming: 2 classes (1 1/2 hours) per week, on Fridays and Saturdays
Miya is also continuing with her swimming lessons at Swim Lovers' Swim School, and has also joined the one-hour squad training group.

Gymnastics: 1 class (1 hour) per week, on Tuesdays
Miya is still at the YMCA for her lessons.

Athletics: clubnights Wednesdays plus coaching Mondays
We've got another three weeks left of our athletics season with Takapuna Athletic Club.

Book review: Alice in Wonderland

I mentioned before that I was reading aloud to the girls Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  Well, we finished them a few days ago.

I'm pretty sure I read the first book to Mulan several years ago when we were still living in China, but she didn't remember much of it.

We were motivated to read them because Mulan and Miya's ballet production this year is inspired by Carroll's books.  (Mulan is in three dances -- the Mock Turtle in the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, part of the Caterpillar, and a Card.  Miya is also in three dances -- the Sea of Tears, a guest at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, and a Chef.)

Carroll's famous books are, at one and the same time, both a simple story of a Miya-aged girl dreaming about meeting up with some funny/crazy people and also a complicated social commentary.  We didn't get into discussing the social commentary stuff much, but the girls enjoyed the crazy humour of Alice's adventures.  They also really enjoyed connecting it with their dances.

Carroll includes some really interesting poems/songs in the books, and we did the typical school-ish activity with Jabberwocky.  You probably know what I am referring to:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

One night when Mulan was in bed (and Miya was already asleep) we got to chatting about what it meant.  She had some ideas, and we started thinking about how different people might see it differently.  So, we decided that all four of us (Mulan, Miya, Mama and me) should secretly write down on a piece of paper what we think it means, and then "present" our interpretation to each other and compare.

Well, we did just that the next day.  Independently, Mulan did a poster-style analysis of the poem, complete with pictures, "biological/geographical information" and "history" of how researchers learnt about the animals and environment.

It really is interesting that, unschool style, Mulan did something that would not look out of place on a classroom wall.

I mentioned what we had done to Gugu, and the cousins all did the same thing.  We plan to meet up and compare everyone's interpretations, but so far it is hard to find a time when everyone is available and in one place (maybe next week at Nainai's birthday party.)

We are now a couple of chapters into reading aloud Harry Potter number 3.  (I read aloud 1 and 2 earlier this year.)

Crash Course Philosophy

Just over a year ago I mentioned that I was using the video series Ethics Matters with a couple of my paying young-teen students (both teens separately, as one-to-one students).  We finished it a few months ago.

It is an excellent series and it was well worth the time spent on it.  There are 12 12-minute videos in the series.  It took us about 24 one-hour lessons to go through it all.  We'd stop and start the videos, discussing the content as we went.

With one of the students (who prefers to learn through videos rather than books) I have now started working through Crash Course Philosophy, which is 46 10-ish-minute videos.  After 12 lessons we are now partway through #12 in the series.

From what I see of the series so far, it is like someone has looked at the standard first-year university philosophy courses (metaphysics/epistemology, ethics, logic) and grabbed the topics covered.  Each episode then summarises in ten minutes what might have been an hour-long lecture plus readings.

Honestly, Crash Course Philosophy is not nearly as good as Ethics Matters.  In general I really like Crash Course (I've written about it before here), and while their philosophy series is not bad, it doesn't have quite the same sharpness that Ethics Matters has.  The presenter, Hank Green, is very smart and well-read, but it is clear that he has not had much philosophical training and his logical reasoning is sometimes not quite so spot on.  He misses things and blurs things every once in a while.  It really is a shame that they didn't get a trained philosopher in to head the series.

I plan to continue with Crash Course Philosophy with this student, and I recommend it as a nice introduction/advertisement for philosophy, but, yeah, Ethics Matters is still my favourite teen-level online teaching video series.

Term 4

We are now into the first week back in Term 4.

(Yup, even though we homeschool, we still have to follow the school term system.)

For most of the two-week holiday break we were over in Sydney, Australia.  It was my first time there in 25 years, while Mama and the girls had never been there.  I wrote a travel diary while we were away.  I'll probably post it here in the near future.

This term, our big focus (once again) is ballet.  The girls' ballet school will be doing a performance (Alice in Wonderland) in December, and they are learning dances for that.  Mulan is having 8 1/4 hours of lessons each week (four days a week), while Miya is having 4 1/2 hours of lessons (three days a week).  They often do ballet at home, too, including teaching the cousins.

As part of getting the girls more independent, last term we were often catching the bus to ballet rather than taking the car.  At first I went with them in the bus, but they are starting to go on their own now, too.  We bought a basic mobile phone for them to take while out and about.

The girls are still doing their music, though lessons don't start until next week.  Mulan is still learning flute, cello, recorder and ukulele.  Miya is still learning violin, recorder and ukulele.  They practice daily, alternating instruments.

Both Mulan and Miya still love the water, and are continuing with their swimming lessons.  In addition to lessons, we go to the public pools once a week for a fun/training session.

The girls are both still doing gymnastics once a week.

And finally, we have (sort-of) started athletics.  I say sort-of, because it clashes with ballet.  Both girls have chosen to prioritise their ballet, but they squeeze in a bit of athletics when they can.  Miya can attend the last half of Wednesday clubnight as well as some of the Monday coaching session.  Mulan may attend the occasional athletics evening when ballet is not on.

Oh, and our "schooling" stuff?  Yeah, that gets done quickly and easily, squeezed into our day:

For maths, both girls are still doing Khan Academy daily, and both are still about two years ahead of their ages.

Both girls are reading heaps -- both our own books and borrowed books from the library.

I continue to read aloud daily to the girls.  At the moment we are (unsurprisingly) reading Alice in Wonderland.

The girls still practice their typing daily.  Mulan gets up to 80 words per minute while Miya gets up to 60 words per minute.

We watch a YouTube video each day while eating lunch.  This varies depending on what jumps out at us.  Sometimes it is from Crash Course.  Sometimes it is ballet.

Both girls are still having Chinese lessons daily with Mama.  They have now joined Mama's Chinese teaching business as paid assistant teachers.  They work with the preschool students, doing Chinese language games and activities.

Our other subjects are typically done more "unschooling" style.

Crash Course

Back in January, I mentioned that we had been watching the Crash Course YouTube channel as part of our*** Social Studies learning.

(***And when I say "our" I officially mean Mulan and Miya, but I am learning a lot, too.)

Most days we watch it together for something like 20-30 minutes, while eating our lunch.  We stop and start it, as appropriate, chatting together about any ideas that jump out at us.  Crash Course has fitted into our studies very nicely, and we thoroughly recommend it.

So, this is just a quick update of which courses we have done or are doing.

We have completed:

• World Mythology
• Games
• Big History
• Crash Course Kids

We are following:

• Theater and Drama
• History of Science

And we are partway through:

• Media Literacy

The Kids series was great for Miya, as it was much more her level in terms of being slower, shorter and simpler.  But it also worked well for Mulan, filling in some gaps and solidifying concepts.

I think the girls liked the Mythology course best, because of the storytelling aspect to it.  They both also especially chose Theater, and really enjoy each new episode as they come out.  But all courses have been good in their own way.

UPDATE (6/5/2018): After watching about five episodes each of History of Science and Media Literacy, we've decided that both are going a bit fast for Mulan and Miya.  We'll stop those for now, and try out Film History and Production.

Book review: The Neverending Story

I finished reading aloud The Neverending Story (Michael Ende) to the girls last night.

It is a complicated, multi-layered, thought-provoking book, which also manages the double-task of being an un-put-down-ably exciting story.  I completely and utterly recommend it to everyone.  It definitely deserves to be on the list of the world's great novels.

If you have watched the movie, but not read the book, then don't be mislead -- the movie is less than half the book, and completely misses the heart and soul of the book.

Giving this sort of open-ended praise for the book, as above, is easy.  What is more challenging is trying to review the specifics of the book.  Saying too much will definitely spoil it for those who haven't read it.  Each idea and aspect of the book builds on previous twists, which really shouldn't be revealed until you have read it.

So, what can I say?

The story is centrally about a boy, Bastian Balthazar Bux, who has an unhappy life.  His mother died, and his father is grieving and distant.  He is fat and awkward, and gets teased by his peers.  While getting chased by bullies he stumbles into a bookshop where, after talking with the owner for a while, he steals an interesting-looking book.  He is late for school and wags class, hiding in the school attic to read the book he stole.

The book Bastian reads is The Neverending Story, an adventure story about a strong, heroic boy, around his own age, who is trying to save his world from destruction.  And thus we, as readers, start to read a book within a book.

And I had better stop there with the retelling.  Any more than that will spoil the amazing twists and turns that happen next.

Except to say that Michael Ende's father was one of Germany's first Surrealist painters.  And that is worth mentioning.  I encourage you to read up on Andre Breton, the founder of Surrealism, and Dada, one of the big influences on Surrealism.  Understanding the reasoning behind these artistic movements will give even more depth to this book.

Alongside reading this book to Mulan and Miya, I have been wanting to recognise that if Mulan were going to school she would have started intermediate school this year.  Amongst other things, I have been trying to think of ways for Mulan to start writing responses to set questions, rather than simply free writing as she typically does.

So, for this book, my first set writing task for Mulan was to get her to write a creative "what happens next" piece.  This was at a point in the book, about halfway, where it was particularly open-ended (I won't say where or what, as it would spoil things if you haven't read it).  Mulan wrote a few pages, very fluently continuing the story as she saw it (Mulan's continuation was very different from the actual story).

This morning, I explained to Mulan that I would now like her to write more of an essay-style piece, reviewing the book and perhaps comparing her story with the actual book.  Mulan looked a bit worried/shocked at the thought of doing this, so she might need some encouragement/nagging.  But I know she has lots of opinions on this, as she was often talking about it as we were reading together.  It will just be a matter of getting her to order her ideas in her head and get them onto paper.  We'll see what happens.

Introduction to ethics

The TV series Ethics Matters is a really good basic introduction to some of the key issues in Ethics.  I highly recommend it.

It  is currently a series of 12 12-minute videos, each of which introduces a different topic/issue in ethics, such as the environment, nationalism, justice, rights, religion, freedom, etc.

I've decided to start using these videos with my critical thinking / philosophy students (young teens).  We watch the videos together, stopping and starting them and discussing it along the way.  So far it is working well.

Maths update

Here's another update to what I wrote four months ago on Mulan and Miya's maths learning.

Both Mulan and Miya are still using Khan Academy, logging in and doing a few problems every day, seven days a week.  Some days this might just be a few minutes each, while other days it may be 30 minutes or so.  But the important thing is that they do something every day.

I sit alongside the girls 90% of the time while they are doing their work.  Even though Khan Academy is theoretically a self-teaching resource, with video lessons, etc, I am still there alongside as the primary teacher.

Both girls have now got to their right level with their learning, both completing all the way from the beginning at US Grade K.  What they are each doing is challenging for them, but still doable.  As of today, Mulan is 92% through US 6th Grade, while Miya is 52% through US 3rd Grade (making them both, as far as I can see, about two years or so above their age level).

Now that the girls are at their right level, we have slowed down with introducing and mastering new skills.  What we now do for both girls is this:

1. We look through the skills at their grade level that they have not yet started, and choose one that looks good.
2. On one day, they complete the "Practice" problems for that skill.  Sometimes they may need me to explain things a bit, possibly working through some problems together before they can do it for themselves.  Occasionally we may watch the video lesson together, to give another perspective on how to do it.
3. For the next two or three days, they then complete "Mastery" problems, one per day.  They level up that skill until it is mastered, while at the same time review other skills that have previously been mastered.
4. When that skill has been mastered, we return to step 1, choosing another skill to work on.

At the rate we are now going, my rough guess is that the girls might complete a grade every eight to ten months.

Using a nonsense maths question

On Monday, the children and I had an excellent maths / critical thinking lesson, based around a couple of YouTube videos that had popped up on my YouTube homepage.  (You know how it is -- you watch a few videos on a topic, and then YouTube suggests more videos on the same theme.)

The first video showed up because I had been watching Sal of Khan Academy introduce Common Core (the US maths standards) in a series of videos.  YouTube then suggested lots more videos about Common Core, including this one.

In the 3-minute video, the authors introduce a maths question, which they claim is a US 4th Grade Common Core question, asking a few "random people on the street" to have a go at answering it.

Of course, it is all fun and funny, because the random people fail completely.  These stereotypically-standard middle-class USers flounder around with half-starts and guesses to a question supposedly for 9-year-olds.  Most finally give up and conclude that the question doesn't have enough information to be meaningful -- that it is a nonsense question.

While nothing is said directly by the video authors, I assume they are trying to imply that Common Core is Bad and Wrong, as it includes crazy nonsense questions like this one that no normal adult could answer.

I am not going to get into a discussion here about whether this question is a genuine one, or a genuine Common Core one, or whether Common Core is Bad and Wrong.

What I want to do here is show that the question asked in the video is actually an excellent question to ask children, and it can form the basis of an excellent lesson.  In my opinion, it is definitely not a worthless question.

If you haven't clicked on the YouTube link above, here is the question:

Juanita wants to give bags of stickers to her friends.  She wants to give the same number of stickers to each friend. She is not sure if she needs 4 bags or 6 bags of stickers.  How many stickers could she buy so there are no stickers left over?

For those of us who have recently been doing maths at around the 4th Grade level, the question seems structurally pretty familiar.  There are stickers and there are friends, and we want to share the stickers evenly between the friends and have no stickers left over.

A lot of 4th Grade maths work is about getting familiar with using the basic multiplication and division facts, and learning to divide by one-digit numbers with and without remainder.  Word problems verbally similar to this one are introduced to check that the students understand the meanings behind the equations (one of the big aims of Common Core is to ensure understanding, not just rote memorisation).

But there are a few weird things about this particular question:

1. We don't know how many friends she has.
2. We don't know the relationship of bags to stickers -- is Juanita buying stickers and then putting them into her own bags, or is she buying bags of stickers directly?
3. How does the 4 or 6 bags fit in?

It is obvious that if this was a standard 4th Grade maths question we would say, as the adults did in the video, that there is important information missing.

So, knowing that this was a weirdly-worded question, albeit structurally similar to questions that Mulan is familiar with, I introduced the question to her and Miya, then sat back and waited to see what they would do.

Just like the adults in the video, Mulan wanted to know how many friends Juanita has.  She puzzled for a while over the ambiguity of bags/stickers, as well as the 4 or 6 bag thing.

But then Mulan came up with her own solution, and one that I hadn't thought of.

Mulan said that Juanita could rip the stickers to divide them evenly among her friends.  Then they could draw in the other parts themselves.  So, it really didn't matter how many stickers she bought or how many friends she has.

This solution is typical Mulan, seeing sharing, compromises and communal DIY pen-and-paper activities as the way to go.  She would not see it as important to buy more of something to make it even between everyone, but just jointly use whatever they have got to keep things fair.

I immediately agreed.  Solution number 1.

But then I challenged Mulan further by adding a new requirement that they want to keep the stickers whole and so won't rip them.

At this point the three of us discussed it together for a few minutes.  I can't remember exactly what any of us said, but one thing I did want to emphasise to both Mulan and Miya was the importance of not being fooled by distracting information.

We observed together that the 4 or 6 bag point was not phrased as a definite requirement, but simply that Juanita was unsure of what to do.  I hoped the girls would see that people can easily get into the habit of scanning a maths question for numbers and then thinking that any number mentioned must be part of the calculations.  But it need not be; extra, unnecessary numbers may be sneakily put in to test our understanding of the question.  And we all agreed that the 4 or 6 bags thing was surely there as a distraction.

Mulan then returned to the problem of the missing information about how many friends there were.  She said that, since she couldn't rip the stickers, she would buy as many stickers as there were friends.

I then suggested that we could let x stand for the number of friends that Juanita has.  Mulan quickly caught on, and said that then she could buy multiples of x stickers.

Solution number 2.

I then said that there was one more possible solution that I could see.  When they stalled, the girls asked for a hint.  So, I directed them to the idea that there is one number of stickers in which there will always be no remainder, no matter how many friends there are.

Still no bites.  So I wondered out loud if it is always necessary to buy things.

At that, Mulan's grin grew wider with understanding, and she said that Juanita could buy 0 stickers.  0 stickers divided by any number of friends will always have 0 remainder.

Solution number 3.

Mulan liked the question so much that she wrote it out by hand to show the cousins.

Yesterday, with great delight, Mulan and Miya presented the question to two of their cousins (ages 11 and 9).  Without any adult initiation or involvement at all, the four of them discussed it together in a very systematic way.  I didn't catch all of the conversation, but I overheard Mulan clearly and accurately articulating the points that we had made the day before.

At the same time, I asked the question to Mama.  Mama immediately said that Juanita could buy all the stickers in the shop.  After all, there would then be no stickers left over in the shop.

Brilliant.  Solution number 4.

When our two discussion groups came back together, I pointed out Mama's new solution.  11-year-old cuzzie immediately said that she had said the same thing.

So, there you have it.  Excellent discussions and four possible solutions from a maths question that at first glance looked like silly nonsense.

---

The second YouTube video we watched on Monday was this one from Derren Brown.

For those who don't know, Derren Brown is a UK TV personality who has been doing TV shows for several years centred around hypnotism, mind reading, etc, but from a psychological / scientific perspective.  After the impressive trickery, he points out some of the main psychological techniques.

This particular video that I showed to the girls showed up the unconscious aspects of advertising.  (I thought it fitted in with the theme of appearances and question misdirections.)  It is pretty impressive.  I highly recommend it.

After watching the video, Mulan made the connection between this and the political advertising that we are seeing around our home these days (local body elections).  This then turned into a discussion about how the politicians use advertising to try to influence us unconsciously to vote for them.

---

UPDATE 29/10/2016: I see over at Math Mammoth they mention this question (Example 2 in the section titled Bad examples of "common core" or "new math").

They focus on the 4 or 6 bags of stickers sentence, linking to a conversation on The Math Forum and agreeing with Bart Goddard, who writes:

Presumably she's giving one bag to each friend (although this is a bit ambiguous, too) so she is expecting either 4 or 6 friends to show at the meeting. (I suppose that there's a set of twins who have a habit of not RSVP-ing, but crashing the party anyway.)

This means that they treat the question as a common multiple one.  Since common multiples of 4 and 6 are 12, 24, 36, ..., they think that any multiple of 12 is the correct answer.

While I can see that this is one possible interpretation of the situation -- that the reason she is not sure how many bags she needs is because she is friends with unreliable twins -- I think it is important to remember that this was not what was actually written there.

What they have done is give a possible interpretation, which includes additional made-up information that has consequently constrained their answer.  But this possible interpretation is not a necessary one (Juanita's uncertainty may have been for other reasons than what they have presumed), and so the constraints they put on the answer are also not necessary.

To put it another way, I think it is important to always read exactly what is written in a question, and not invent extra requirements through our own presumptions and interpretations.  The Math Mammoth answer is wrong because it adds requirements and constraints which were not part of the question, as written.

P4C: Fairness and sharing the burdens

Two days ago, I did an English-language P4C lesson with the six children (Mulan, Miya and the cousins).

Since we have been doing a lot of walking lately, I decided to do an activity that gets them thinking about what is the fairest way to share the carrying burdens.

Unschooler-style, I left six copies of the dialogue (the first page of the above-linked pdf) sitting on the floor of the children’s play area.  As I put it down, I casually said to the children that they could look through it if they want.  On one of the pages, I had written out a suggestion of who could read which lines in the dialogue.

I then left the children to continue their free play.

A little later, I heard the children reading through the dialogue out loud, with each child taking the parts that I had suggested.  Soon after, Mulan came to me and said they were ready to do it with me.  So, we all sat down together on the floor in the playroom.

I had done no other preparation for this lesson, so everything that followed was just off the top of my head.

I started with some general points of clarification, just to make sure they understood the background.  I asked if they knew where Edinburgh was, who the Duke of Edinburgh is, and what is the Duke of Edinburgh Award.

They didn’t know much about this (one thought Edinburgh is in England), so I talked about these three things for a few minutes.  I concluded by saying that the award is an international skills-based learning programme for teenagers.  They can do it in New Zealand.  The teenagers in the dialogue are doing a tramping expedition as part of the requirements of the award.

The children then read through the dialogue together.  Each of them had circled on their own paper the lines they were saying, so it went smoothly (I helped Miya say her line and Cousin Rosa helped the youngest cousin, who is still learning to read).

I asked for a volunteer to be in charge of the blackboard, and Mulan was eager, so I asked her to write out the names of all the characters, which she happily and neatly did.

Once that was done, we discussed each characters’ ideas in turn, and I summarised their main thoughts on the blackboard.  This naturally turned into a general discussion about each of those ideas, and the reasons for and against each idea of fairness.

I think the main point of this activity was to introduce to the children the possibility that different people could have different ideas about fairness.  All too often, a child will shout out, “it’s just not fair!”, and when they do this, they usually assume that it is their idea of how things should be which the fair one and what is actually happening is precisely not fair.  So I wasn’t too worried that we didn’t get into a lot of depth in our conversation.

If they could see that several different views could all potentially be seen as fair, depending on which values we prioritise, then in my eyes the lesson was a success.  Looking at the reasons for and against in more detail can wait until another lesson.

Finally, I selected out four of the views I had written on the blackboard (even though there were plenty more possible ideas):

• Aaron: everyone carries exactly the same weight
• Jeb: base it on money, so that people (the richest?) can buy their way out of contributing
• Charlie: start out the same weight then change when some start to struggle with their load
• Frank: people who can do more, do more from the beginning; those who need more help receive it from the beginning

I allocated each of the four corners of the room one of the four views.  We all then stood up and walked around the room in a circle.  When I said go, the children had to go to the corner that they most agreed with.

Well, this was a nice idea, except that some of us forgot which corner was for which view!  (I should have put a sign at each corner, but I was too lazy!!)  Only one person (Cousin Rosa) remembered, and went to her preferred corner.  So, we had to ask her which view was each corner.  Once she told us, everyone followed her into her chosen corner.

They had all preferred Frank’s idea.  (Or was it that they all preferred Cousin Rosa’s idea?)

I asked them if they had heard of Karl Marx.  No one had.  I pointed out that, similar to Frank, his view of fairness is “from each according to his ability; to each according to his need”.  They all thought this was quite sensible.

Hehe, all our children are Marxists!

In the evening, after the other adults came home, the children performed the play for us.  In the middle of their “stage”, they set up a mountain made of cushions and soft toys, and at the end of the play they all piled on top of it.

AAIP: Introduction

FYI and FWIW, AAIP is short for Alien Adventures inPhilosophy.  AAIP is a “philosophy in role” programme.

We decided that instead of doing one-off P4C lessons, we would do one activity each week of AAIP.  Mostly, this means that I don’t have to do too much work looking for, or creating, one-off lessons each week.  The pdf I linked to above should give us about three months of lessons (after that, I may write some more lessons using the same thematic template).

We also decided to only do the lesson in Chinese (my Big Sis’s children won’t join in).  This is mostly to give Mulan some Chinese time with her friends, rather than spending all her time with the cousins.

We did Activity 1 yesterday.  It didn’t have a lot of philosophical content, so I wasn’t needed much.  All I did was suggest to Mama a few activity ideas before the lesson, and then she took charge of the rest.  From what I overheard, it all went very well.

The class consisted of Mulan and three friends.  Miya was there for a bit, too, but very soon she decided that she preferred having some one-to-one quality time with me.  She and I had a snack, tidied the kitchen, and played hairdressers together.

In addition to following the lesson structure given in the pdf, we decided to expand the astronomy discussion.  Mama led a discussion on the solar system—naming and locating the planets and moons, discussing orbits and rotations and picking out interesting features of the planets.  They acted out being planets circling around a central sun.  Office chairs helped emulate planetary rotations and movements.

After that, they drew pictures of planets and aliens.  The children introduced their ideas, explaining the features of their planet and the types of aliens that lived on them.  One child had an ice planet, with ice-aliens.  Another was a fire planet.  Another was a spiky planet.  Mulan’s was a rain planet and the aliens were rainbow coloured.  Each child seemed to think it important for their aliens to have some sort of weapon.  Mulan said that her alien had long eyelashes which can shoot out and spike the enemy.  There was an arms race between the ice and fire aliens, and both creators claimed that their aliens were robust enough to withstand the opposing forces of the other.

Next Monday is a public holiday.  We will continue with Activity 2 in two weeks time.

P4C: Happiness

Today we did another P4C (philosophy for children) class.

This time, we had eight students—Mulan, Miya, two friends from last week, and my Big Sis’ four children.  The translations back and forth between the non-Chinese speakers and the non-English speakers slowed the conversation down a little, and it meant that the adult translator had a little too much power, but, despite this, it still went pretty well.

When preparing the lesson, I thought it would work best if we got the children to initially work in two separate groups, with me facilitating the English speakers and Mama facilitating the Chinese speakers.  Then at the end we could join together to discuss the findings.  So, with this in mind, I chose a small group based “In or Out” activity called What do you need to be happy?.

Each group was given 16 cards.  Each card had a picture on it of something that we possibly need to be happy, such as family, laughter, holidays, food, cars, and so on.  All 16 cards were dropped inside a circle drawn on the floor (a chalk circle on the tile floor—easy to wipe off!).

The task for each group was to decide whether each card should be inside or outside the circle.  Cards should stay inside if the group agreed that it was something we need for us to be happy.  Cards should be taken out of the circle if the group agreed that it was something that we don’t need to be happy.

Some cards were ones in which everyone agreed weren’t needed for us to be happy.  Everyone quickly agreed to throw out things like TV and cars.  And some cards were all ones in which everyone agreed were needed for us to be happy.  Everyone agreed to keep things like food and water.

But many of the other cards were debateable.  And on these debateable points, they needed to give reasons for their opinions.  This turned out to be quite hard for some, and there was often an initial tendency for them to go back and forth with “we can be happy without X” and “no, we can’t, we need X to be happy”.  So, as the facilitator, I needed to try to extract something more.  One way was to ask them to give stories about someone who doesn’t have X and then to consider whether such a person could possibly be happy.  For example, could a person who doesn’t laugh still be happy on the inside, or will a happy person always show it with laughter?  Or, is it possible for a deaf person, who can’t hear music, to be happy?

Good discussions were had, and lots of interesting points were made.

We then returned to the big group, and compared answers between the two smaller groups.  Mama had to act as translator.

It seems that everyone agreed that if we don’t have the basics for survival, such as food and water, we can’t be happy.

But one interesting finding was that the English-speaking group (my Big Sis’ four children), had far fewer cards remaining in their circle than the Chinese-speaking group (Mulan and her two friends).  Apparently, in the Chinese group, Mulan’s two friends thought that many of the “higher” goods, like school, music, laughter and thinking, were necessary for happiness.  Mulan and my Big Sis’ children often disagreed.

With some cards, such as laughter and music, neither side could convince the other.

With some cards, such as school, Mulan’s friends were convinced by the discussion that followed that they could be happy without them.  (Actually, their reasoning was more complex: they thought school led to knowledge, which led to jobs, which led to happiness.  The English-speakers disagreed with every step in this line of reasoning.)

With some cards, such as thinking, the English-speakers were convinced that this was needed to be happy.  (They decided, for example, that it was important to be able to think to decide which games to play, and how to play games.  They had already said that playing was necessary for happiness.)

One of Mulan’s friends liked the game so much that she wanted to ask her parents what they thought; she took home a set of cards with her.

P4C in Chinese

Yesterday, we had a P4C (Philosophy for Children) class in Chinese.  It went well, and we plan for this to be a regular Monday after school event.

Mama had mentioned to a few friends that the girls and I had been doing some P4C lately, and the friends liked the sound of it.  So, in addition to Mulan and Miya, we had three other children (the same age as Mulan) join us.

Earlier in the day, I prepared the lesson.  But Mama took charge of the actual class (with me sitting alongside whispering in her ear when needed).

Again, the lesson we used was inspired by The Philosophy Man.  We took his basic plan here and modified it.  Mama printed off the cards, and wrote the Chinese words for each object on them.

We all sat on the floor in the playroom, and started with introductions.  I had suggested that each child give their name and then say one thing that is not true about themselves.

Mama then briefly said what would be happening in the class.  The main point was that P4C is different from normal school lessons in the same way that storytelling is different from story reading.  In P4C, the children do the storytelling; they are not merely listening to a teacher reading the story.

The rest of the lesson was spent doing various activities with the cards.  Since this was the first lesson, the topics themselves weren’t deeply philosophical.  It was more skills preparation and development.  The main objective was to get the children used to “because-ing”.  That is, giving ideas and then giving reasons for those ideas.  A second objective was to get the children thinking about similarities, differences and categorising.  A third objective was a general one about the P4C environment—getting them used to contributing and listening to others contributions.

These were the activities I listed to do with the cards:

1.      Place all cards face down on the floor in the middle.  Children each choose three cards.  Each child then chooses from their three cards the animal they would most like to be, and in turn they tell the class why they chose it.  They keep that card and return the other cards face down.  Do two rounds of this.

2.      Children each choose three cards.  Each child then chooses from their three cards the animal they would least like to be, and in turn they tell the class why they chose it.  They keep that card and return the other cards face down.  Do two rounds of this.

After this, each child should have four cards.

3.      Noah’s Ark activity.  Someone should briefly tell the Noah’s Ark story, if some children don’t know it.  The ark is just about to depart and there is only space left on the ark for one more pair of animals.  Each child must choose one animal from the four they have.  In turn, they say why they think their animal should be saved.

Put all the cards back in the middle, face down, and mix them up.

4.      Children each choose two cards.  In turn, they give three similarities between the two animals.  Return the cards.

5.      Children each choose two cards.  In turn, they give three differences between the two animals.  Return the cards.

6.      Children each choose two cards.  In turn, they choose whether to give three similarities or differences between the two animals.  Return the cards.

7.      Children each choose two cards.  In turn, they say how their pair of animals could be related to each other (A eats B, A is a pet of B, A is cuter than B, etc). Return the cards.

8.      Turn all the cards face up in the middle.  Get the children to work together to sort them into categories (eg, size, or type, etc).  All animal cards need to be categorised.  Mix them up and re-sort them again into different categories.

9.      Turn all the cards face up on the tile floor (lots of room needed for this).  Get the children to work together to move the pictures around and draw (with chalk) relationship arrows between each of the pictures.  Write one word next to each arrow to explain the relationship.  All animals need to be connected in the web of relationships.

Our lesson lasted about one hour, and we completed up to activity 8.  The children were all active and talkative, and were all very happy to do the activities as planned.  Good answers were given by all.

The main problem was that it went on a little too long.  After about 45 minutes, they were starting to get overly excited and bouncy.  Activity 8 wasn’t done quite so well, as it required more cooperation, discussion and patience.  Their bounciness meant they weren’t able to take the time to organise themselves first.  So, some children started sorting by size while others started sorting by type.  At the end, when we went through the “fish” category, we were able to ask whether the goldfish could have equally gone in the “small” category and the whale in the “big” category.**  In future, we will aim to keep the lessons to no more than about 45 minutes.

** This reminded me of Michel Foucault in The Order of Things where he quotes Jorge Luis Borges quoting “a certain Chinese Encyclopaedia”:

[A]nimals are divided into: (a) belonging to the emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies.

Either / Or

I’ll try to keep summarising our P4C lessons for the moment.  I think it is interesting to see the ideas.  And maybe later on it will be interesting to look back on them.

Today, after our maths times tables, we did another either/or activity.  I can’t find this one online, though I did get it from the same place as the previous ones.  (Have I said that I think that The Philosophy Man is brilliant?  He has got so many lessons already prepared, and openly, encouragingly available.  It is so easy to skim through them and pick one to form the basis of my lessons.)  This is what we did:

Which are better, dogs or cats?

Both Mulan and Miya immediately said cats.  I first asked Miya why she thought cats.  Miya said that cats like to cuddle you, and are very cute.  And dogs don’t cuddle?  No.  I asked Mulan if she agreed.  She said yes.  And dogs push you over.  Are all dogs not so cute?  What about the pictures of the dogs that we have on our playroom wall (Papillion dogs)?  They are cute too.  I wouldn’t mind a Snowy dog (Snowy was the dog I had when I was a child, and looked similar to a Papillion).  Small ones are okay.  So, how do small, cute dogs compare with cats?  They are about the same.  Just not big dogs?  Yes.

Which are better, boys or girls?

Silence, for a long time.  Is it too difficult to decide?  Mmmm.  Girls are better (said more tentatively).  Why?  Because boys are too bustle-y.  And girls aren’t?  Not so much.  Are all boys bustle-y or most?  Most.  How about girls?  Are any girls bustle-y?  Some are.  So some boys are and some girls are?  Most boys are, but just some girls are.

Miya agreed.

If we put your brain in my body and my brain in your body, which would be you, where your brain is, or where your body is?

My body.  Why?  Because that is what people would see me as.  What if someone phoned you?  Your body/my brain answers.  It would sound like your squeaky voice talking, but it would be my ideas and thoughts being said.  Would people think it was you or me?  Some parts they would think were me and some they would think were you.

Is ibloggdyobdebog a real word?   If yes, what does it mean.

No.  And if yes, it doesn’t mean anything.  (At this point we were all laughing hard, and trying to pronounce it—i-blog-dee-ob-dee-bog.  Then Miya tapped me on the head with the pencil she was holding, while saying the word.)  Is that what it means, “hit Daddy on the head?”  (Lots more laughing.)  What if in our family, we all start using ibloggdyobdebog to mean hit Daddy on the head?  Would it then be a real word?  No.  How are real words created?  Was there someone at the beginning who decided what they mean?  (Thoughtful silence.)  How many people need to use the word before it becomes a real word?  Everyone.  If everyone in our apartment building used ibloggdyobdebog in that way, would it become a real word?  No.  It has to be everyone?  Yes, everyone in the world.  What about the word ni hao?  Lots of people in New Zealand don’t know what that means.  Does that mean that ni hao is not a real word?  All English speakers need to know the word before it is a real word (in English).

Is it better to be a child or a grown-up?

I asked Miya first.  She said a child.  Mulan agreed.  I asked Miya why.  She said because children play.  Mulan agreed.  But I play with you, too.  But you also need to do housework.  And you don’t?  No.  But I also get to be the boss.  Isn’t that good, too?  Or not as good as playing?  It isn’t as good as playing.

Are you the same you you were when you were two?

Yes.  Why?  Because I am still called Mulan.  When Gugu was younger, she changed her name.  We can go to the government office and fill out a form and then we get official paperwork that changes our name.  What name would you change to?  Mula.  If you changed your name to Mula, would you still be the same?  Yes.  Why?  Because I would still look the same.  (At this point Miya, who was sitting on my desk, looked like she might fall off.  So I warned Miya to be careful and not fall on her face.)  What if Miya fell off the desk and fell on her face and squashed her face flat (and we also changed her name)?  Would it still be the same Miya?  Yes.  Why?  Because her body would still look the same.  What if it was ten years later?  And Miya would be 13.  Yes, oh dear, a teenager.  And I would be 16.  Almost 17, oh dear, driving cars, and partying and boyfriends!  At 13, Miya would have grown a lot, and her body would look very different.  Would flat-faced, name-changed, different-shaped-body Miya still be the same person?  Yes.

Is the hole in a donut part of a donut?

No.  Do you know what a donut is?  Yes (of course).  Miya said she couldn’t eat a donut because it is a nut.  Mulan and I laughed and explained that it was called a donut but it wasn’t a nut.

Can anything last forever?  What about nothing?

No.  Nothing last forever.  If nothing lasts forever, then does that mean that something (the nothing) lasts forever?  Haha, no.

Is there anything everyone thinks is beautiful?

Yes.  What?  Me!  I asked Miya if Mulan is beautiful.  She said no.  So, Miya doesn’t think you are beautiful.  Do you have any other examples?  Miya!  I asked Miya if she is beautiful, and she said yes.  So, we all agree that there is something that everyone thinks is beautiful, and that something is Miya?  Yes (laughing).  (Sometimes solving deep philosophical questions is easy!)

What makes someone a good person, following the rules or making people happy?

Both.  What if there are two people, one follows the rules but doesn’t care about trying to make people happy, the other tries to make people happy but doesn’t care about following the rules.  Who is the better person?  They are both equally good.  Neither is better?  Neither is better.  Bobbie (in the book The Railway Children, which we are currently reading together) wants to make people happy.

The senses

We did about two hours of school time today.  After an hour of doing times tables, we moved on to P4C again, and did another hour of that.

We started by reading SenseStory.  It is quite similar to Dr Seuss’s story The Big Brag (which we have here at home).

I then got Mulan to write down a list of the five animals mentioned in the story (crow, dog, fly, bat, mole).

(Miya also got out a piece of paper and drew for the next hour.)

Next to each animal, I asked Mulan to write the sense that that animal is proud of about themselves (the crow could see, the dog could smell, the fly could taste, the bat could hear, and the mole could feel).  This was a bit of reading comprehension for her.

I then asked Mulan to think about each sense and decide which animal she would most like to be (thinking only about the senses, not about the cuteness, or otherwise, of the animal!).  She wasn’t sure.

So, I asked her about her least preferred.  She quickly decided that taste would be the least important.  But she thought all the others were equal.

So, I rephrased the question and asked her if she woke up one morning and couldn’t see, would that be worse or better than if she woke up and couldn’t smell.  This thought experiment gave her a structure for her to rank her preferences.

We had quite a long discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of each of the senses.  At first she thought that seeing was best, because then when she plays hide and seek she can see best where to hide.  I pointed out that a dog might be able to smell her, even if she was hiding in the closed wardrobe.  The bat might be able to hear her movements in the wardrobe, and the mole might feel her movement vibrations.  She realised that seeing wasn’t always best.

In the end, she ranked the senses in the order of hear, feel, see, smell, taste.  She wrote 1 to 5 next to each sense on her paper.  (Interesting that seeing only ranked third.)

I then asked her to think about which senses might be the best for discovering about the world.  She clarified the question, by saying that it was like she was a newborn baby who didn’t know anything about the world, and wanted to find out.  I agreed.

I asked her if this list would be the same as her first ranking list.  She said no.  Mulan decided that even though she still personally preferred to hear, hearing was not the best sense to find out about the world.

After more discussion, she ranked the senses in the order of see, feel, hear, smell, taste.  She wrote 1 to 5 next to her earlier ranked list.

I then asked her which of the following items in each pair is more real.  (She wasn’t sure at first what this meant, but after a short pause she soon made sense of it.)

The feel of an ice cube or the way it shines?  Mulan thought the feel was more real, with it being both hard and cold.

A ball dropping to the floor or the sound it makes?  Mulan thought the sound.

The weight of an apple or its colour?  Mulan thought the colour.

The flavour of an orange or its colour?  Mulan thought for a while but couldn’t decide at all.

A person in a dream or a person in a painting?  Mulan thought the person in the painting.  She said that the person in the dream is imaginary and we soon forget it.  But we can still see the person in the painting (even though it is also imaginary).

We then talked about animals that have senses that are alien to us, such as snakes than sense the difference between hot and cold, and bats that echo-locate.  I asked her if she could imagine what it might be like to be able to echo-locate, like a bat.  She said she couldn’t.  But she said that she could imagine what it would be like to be a cat (our new kitten, Mickey, was on my knee at the time).

I told her about one of my university teachers who was blind.  He said that he could echo-locate a little.  But he still couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a bat (at the time we were discussing Thomas Nagel’s article What is it like to be a bat?).

I suggested that we stop to eat, but Mulan insisted that we still keep talking more.

We talked about the moon illusion (how the moon looks bigger when on the horizon).  Mulan didn’t think that the moon would really be bigger.  That it just seemed bigger.  But she wasn’t sure why it seemed bigger.  She thought maybe the moon is closer to us at that time.  I asked if she thought the moon would go in and out that much while circling the Earth.  She wasn’t sure.  I didn’t push this too much; it is a bit too complicated.

Mulan still wanted to keep talking.

So I asked her if she remembered Dr Seuss’s book, The Big Brag.  She did.  I asked her if the worm in the story could really see that far.  She didn’t think so; she said no one could really see that far.  I asked her why the worm might have said he could, if he really couldn’t.  She thought maybe he was just tricking the other animals, for fun.

At this point, I sort-of walked Mulan through the idea that the worm was criticising the other animals for each thinking that he was personally better than the other was.  I asked Mulan if she thought the worm was right that no one was better, just because of their particular senses.  She thought he was.

I asked her that if the worm is right, is it okay to rank the senses, like she did.  She said it was.  She said that she was just giving her own personal preference for herself.  And that is different.  Fair enough.

I then asked her that since we cannot know what it is like to be a bat, to what extent can we really rank the senses (here, I was trying to draw Mulan’s attention to the fact that when we rephrased the question from ranking animals to comparing her own senses, we were actually changing the subject).  When Mulan said that taste was the least important, she was basing it on her own experience of taste.  But we cannot know how wonderfully delightful a taste experience might be for a fly.  For all we know, a fly’s taste might be experientially far more pleasurable than a bat’s hearing.  She agreed.

Finally at midday she agreed to end our lesson and have our elevenses (morning tea).

---

As you can probably tell, the final part our conversation was turning into a bit of a Socratic dialogue, with me doing most of the talking and Mulan saying “yes, Socrates” to me!  (The earlier rankings and preferences, with their reasons, were all of Mulan’s thoughts, though.)  Clearly, with just the two of us (and Miya drawing alongside us) what we do can never be a pure P4C lesson (even though it is still philosophy).  For it to be proper P4C, Mulan needs to be having these sorts of conversations with other children her own age.  The children need to be bouncing these ideas off each other, rather than me (authoritatively) putting forward suggestions.

Another would-you-rather

After doing some maths times tables for most of our school time today, we tried another would-you-rather P4C activity.  This is probably our final would-you-rather for now.  I might try a few other types of P4C activities, if I can find/think of something that will work with just us three.  Any suggestions, anyone?  (I’ve got some awesome group stuff, but I sort-of don’t want to ruin them by just doing them alone.)

Question: Would you rather be chased by a bear, slithered on by a snake, or kissed by a monkey?

Mulan said she would rather be kissed by a monkey.  Why?  Because she would be slower than a bear, and would get eaten when she got caught.  And a slithery snake would be tickly.  But a monkey kiss would be slobbery.  Yes, but still not as bad as a snake.

Miya agreed.

Question: Would you rather play snap with a crocodile, swim with a shark, or lie down with a lion?

Mulan couldn’t answer.  Why?  Because I’ll get eaten in all of them.  Is there a least-bad one?  Still can’t answer.  But she pointed out that the shark in the picture has a broken tooth.

Miya agreed.

Question: Would you prefer to be sat on by a spider, sit on a pin, or pecked by a parrot?

Mulan said she would rather be pecked by a parrot.  Why?  A pin would be painfully spiky.  And a spider might bite.  Are you sure?  Well, maybe a nice spider might be okay, like a hoppy spider.  But not others.  But parrots’ beaks are quite sharp, and they may peck a lot.  So you might get even more stabs than you would with a pin.  And most spiders don’t bite.  Hmmm, yes.  But the webs are sticky.  Okay, a spider, but only if there is no web.  And she thought the parrot in the picture was not very colourful.

Miya agreed.

Question: Would you rather be king or queen for one day, rich for your whole life, or a superhero for a week?

Mulan said rich for her whole life.  Why?  Because a day and a week are a short time.  A whole life will be a long time.

Miya liked the picture of the superhero.

Question: Would you rather hear the world’s funniest joke, the most surprising fact, or the world’s best story?

Mulan said, with a big grin on her face, she would like the story.  Why?  Because she likes stories.  Big grin.

Miya also had a big grin, and agreed.

Question: Would you rather have dinner with a witch or a frog for dinner?

Mulan said she would rather have dinner with a witch.  Why?  Because a frog would taste yuk.  And poor little frog!  But a witch might be scary.  Yes, but a frog would be worse.  Mulan also commented that she had never seen a witch like the one in the picture before.

Miya agreed.  She also liked the witch’s cat and wanted to cuddle it.

Would you rather …

Today, we took our first baby steps with our introduction to P4C (Philosophy for Children).

I think Mulan is old enough to do P4C lessons.  She is certainly argumentative enough!  But to date we haven’t done much.

The reason for this slow start is that an essential part of P4C (and, I think, philosophy in general) is doing it with a community of people.  You need to have other people around to bounce ideas off and be inspired by.

Here in China, it is not easy to pull together a group of people willing to chat deeply in English.  (My Chinese is not good enough to try P4C in that language.)  I discovered this when I enrolled in a philosophy PhD programme here.  It is equally hard to find peers for Mulan.

So, I have had to put off starting P4C until we move to New Zealand later this year.

But now with my sister and her family coming to visit us here in a few weeks (and we are all planning to continue with regular school times while they are here), I thought I should prepare Mulan for some proper P4C lessons that we will no doubt have with the four cousins.

So today, after we completed the last page of the science book we have been working on, we switched to P4C.  It was really just a warm-up that we did.  But it went quite well.

We did a “would you rather …” activity.  We looked at the pdf document on the computer.  This is what happened.

Question: Would you rather be a giant or a wizard?

Mulan said she would rather be a wizard.  Why?  Because then she would be able to do stuff.  What stuff?  Like making herself able to fly.

Miya said she would rather be a giant.  Why?  She liked the idea of being able to step over a mountain (like in the picture).

Question: If you were bigger than your parents, who would be in charge?

Mulan said she would be in charge.  Even though Mama and Daddy know lots more stuff than you?  Yup.  So, is size the most important thing for deciding who is the boss?  Hehe, yup.  (I am not sure if Mulan really believed this, but she clearly liked the idea of being the boss!)

Miya just liked the idea of being big, and she said the big girl in the picture was her.

Question: Would you rather be a bird or a plane?

Mulan said she would rather be a bird.  Why?  Because planes crash sometimes.  But they almost never crash.  Mmm.

Miya said that she would rather be in a plane.  She said that she likes it when she is in a plane and she loses her tummy (she still remembers that feeling from when we went to Europe six months ago).  Mulan pointed out that the question was what you would like to be, not what you wanted to be in.  Mulan said it didn’t make sense to be a plane.  I think in the end Miya agreed with Mulan to be a bird.

Question: Would you rather live at the top of a skyscraper or in a country cottage?

Mulan said she would rather live in a country cottage.  Why?  Because you can do whatever you want.  You don’t have to share the building with other people.  (I can’t argue with that powerful logic!)

Miya agreed.

Question: Would you rather choose no sweets or no television? (This was not so easy for us, because we have no TV at home, and we mostly don’t bother with sweets.)

Mulan said she would rather keep having sweets.  Why?  Because TV is boring.  And sweets are yummy?  Yup.

Miya agreed.

Question: Would you choose to be rich or famous?

Mulan said she would rather be rich.  Why?  Because she could then buy fun stuff.

Miya agreed.  (I doubt she knows what famous is.)

Clearly, each of these six discussions could have been extended much more.  With a bigger group of children, more reasons would have been put forward and potentially argued about.  I thought it best, though, that I don’t question Mulan too strongly about her choices.  Like it or not, I am the authority, and my “yes, but …”s can easily move from being helpful thought-provoking ideas to authoritarian shut-down criticisms.

As I say, baby steps.