Philosophy

THE STUDENTS GAIN THE FOLLOWINGS AT PHILOSOPHY COURSES IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL;

• They understand that thinking is an activity peculiar to the human beings.
• They understand that thinking improves the quality of being a human.
• They want to research by triggering the feelings of curiosity and surprise.
• They care about and are responsive towards the problems around them.
• They take an interrogating approach to understand the situations they encounter.
• They understand that thinking is an action which has a positive influence on the perspective of life and which makes human beings happy.
• They understand the importance of thinking for producing information, solving problems, and improving life.
• They understand that the act of thinking occurs with criticism and creativity.
• By seeing that different thoughts may occur about a subject, they understand the importance of finding their own perspective and developing their thoughts.
• They understand that the differences of thought contribute to the culture of living together.
• They adopt an inquiring and critical attitude.
• They question the reliability of information.
• They begin to gain the habit of using evidence to support or disprove ideas.
• They realize that new opportunities may come out of a difficult situation.
• They understand the importance of expressing their thoughts openly and effectively, but in a respectful and courteous manner.
• They understand that self-criticism is an attitude that improves the common life and reduces mistakes.

PHILOSOPHY ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL  

• The Philosophy for Kids program was designed based on a thematic approach. Different themes were determined about different aspects of the thinking activity and different number of acquisitions were produced for each theme. In addition to the theme-related acquisitions, values and concepts are also involved in the program.
• The program is mainly intended to develop the skills of questioning ideas, producing new and alternative ideas, and expressing their thoughts without hesitation and openly. In this respect, it is a student-centered program designed to reflect the nature of thinking training.
• During the classes, the teacher frequently uses the “Socratic Questioning” technique to make sure that the students develop reasoning and inquiring skills.
• With the circle activities named “Questioning Group,” an atmosphere is created in which the group members care about each other’s thoughts, effectively listen to each other, and effectively discuss together.
• Since no content knowledge is included in the program, the students’ interests, needs, expectations, developmental features, and readiness level are considered while planning the activities.
• Several practices that help to develop critical and creative thinking, communication, research, problem solving, decision making, using information technologies, entrepreneurship, using Turkish correctly and effectively, observation, perception of space, perception of change and continuity with time and chronology, social involvement, and empathy skills are used.
• The class activities are designed to balance the knowledge and skills and to make sure that the students interact with the environment by considering students’ experiences and individual differences.
• By using active learning methods and strategies, class activities that help the students display and improve their mental performance are carried out.
• With individual and group activities and cooperative learning method-based activities, the students are encouraged to learn with examples, transfer their learning onto new situations, and summarize their learning.
• The students are encouraged to learn scientific information by doing and experiencing and through first-hand, concrete examples based on discovery, constructive approaches, and activity-based activities.
• The creative drama activities help the students learn and comprehend by feeling.
• Theme-appropriate materials can be used in the classes and real-life areas and materials are also used. In this context, the following materials are used: fairy tales, stories, poems, videos, films, pictures, sample cases and experiences, objects, sample dialogues, etc.

MEASUREMENT-ASSESSMENT FOR THE PRIMARY SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY COURSES

• The fact that the students’ thoughts and interpretations cannot be assessed as true or false in the Philosophy for Kids classes and that the sense that the act of thinking is something true and valuable should be instilled in the students requires a different approach to measurement and assessment.
• This course’s measurement and assessment is not knowledge-based, but skill-based.

Performance-based measurement and assessment tools are mainly used to monitor and assess if the students possess the knowledge, skills, attitude and behaviors required for critical, creative and analytical thinking.