Throughout the year

Delivered by: Dr. Fotini Hamplová

Key features: community; creative thinking; critical thinking; deep thinking; dialogical skills; history; sociology; pre-debating skills.

Dr. Fotini Hamplova is a philosopher specialising in Platonic and Socratic Studies. She doesn’t teach kids about philosophy, they think philosophically together using Socratic methods. In lively classroom discussions children look deeply at key concepts, discovering that what seems simple is full of wonder and interest. The class explores concepts that come up during their schooling that they want to understand more fully.

Concepts explored so far include: mathematical infinity; what is character and how it is formed. The most recent class looked at politics. What is it? Why do people live together in groups? How do people need to behave for social living to work? Why do we have rules and laws? Who enforces laws and why? We have authority to keep the order and protect everyone, but can authority become oppressive? What are human rights? Why do we have them? What rights are specific for children? Dr. Hamplova never gives answers, she only prompts the class with further questions. She doesn’t need to do more than that: children have so much to say that they always run out of time! The only rule is that you need to raise your hand, let other people speak too, and listen to one another’s points.