Philosophy in Schools Readings
The second special issue of the Journal of Philosophy in Schools (the journal of the Federation of Asia-Pacific Philosophy in Schools Associations) was published recently, again focussing on the topic on competition. Competitive philosophy activities are a hot topic in the philosophy in schools world at the moment. VAPS has deliberately moved away from hosting competitive style events to our collaborative PIPS events only - with no judging, scores, winners, or losers at the end.
This article - by three long-standing VAPS contributors - explores some of the pedagogical concerns in greater depth. See the abstract below and click the link at the top for the full article.
Victoria has seen an increase in Community of Inquiry-styled competitions, where students and participant schools are pitted against one another, assessed and ranked according to professed philosophical Communities of Inquiry (CoI) criteria. This has occurred in the context of the introduction of the ‘Capability’ Curriculum in Victorian schools by State and Federal Education Departments. Assessment indicators common to both performance in CoIs and Capabilities have led many to consider CoI as one of the more promising pedagogies of choice. Various competitions model their events on the CoI format, but can they accord with the key characteristics that have historically defined this pedagogical practice? This paper seeks to examine the incompatibility between competitions that encourage contestants to gain superiority over others and the spirit of philosophical inquiry as conceived by the originators of CoI. Ultimately, we argue that competitions are largely incommensurate with philosophical CoI and suggest an admonitory approach if philosophy is to be associated with such competitions.