Matthew Lipman was a philosopher whose main contributions were in the field of pedagogy. Lipman was born in the United States on August 24, 1922 and his work on Philosophy for Children is applied today in more than 50 countries around the world.
It is a way of teaching that aims to give children greater autonomy, providing them with critical thinking.
To elaborate his theory, he relied on the works of the American John Dewey, who tried to reform the conservative way of teaching in his country and focus on the needs of children, giving them tools to think for themselves.
Biography
Matthew Lipman was born in Vineland, New Jersey in 1922. He was a professor at Columbia University when he began to consider the need to change the teaching methodology of the time.
More specifically, it was during the Vietnam War, when he noticed the limited ability of his contemporaries to capture complex thoughts and express their opinions.
For this philosopher, it was too late to equip adults with a critical and analytical mind, so he began to work on a new pedagogy for children.
From there, he founded the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children. Her methodology was first put into practice in various public schools in New Jersey.
Lipman is also the author of several books in which he develops his theories and the methodology associated with his proposal. Among these stands out “The discovery of Harry Stottlemeyer, the first he published. It is intended for children from 10 years
After being able to expand his thinking to more than 50 countries, Lipman passed away on December 26, 2010 in West Orange, also from New Jersey.
Critical Thinking by Matthew Lipman
Faced with the dominant theories at the time, which considered that children were incapable of having complex thoughts before they were 10 or 11 years old, the author thought that they acquired this ability much earlier.
Likewise, he was against the prevailing educational model. This enhanced rote teaching, forgetting the logical and reasoning abilities of the little ones.
Thus, he was convinced that they were capable of having abstract thoughts from a very young age, which led him to raise the need to start philosophical education much earlier to improve reasoning ability.
To achieve his didactic objectives, Lipman turned to philosophy in its most primary meaning: asking why of things and facts.
Through books intended for children and manuals for teachers, he developed a comprehensive teaching guide to teach students to think.
His ultimate goal was to make reason and critical thinking more important than memory. In this way, children end up having a greater capacity to better understand reality.
It also improves the ability to understand the way of thinking of others and to strive to build a better society and work for the common good.
Thanks to that, Lipman wanted freedom of thought and, in short, democratic values not to be lost.
References
- Mexican Federation of Philosophy for Children. Matthew Lipman. Obtained from fpnmexico.org
- HOIST. Philosophy for Children. Retrieved from izar.net
- Martin, Douglas. Matthew Lipman, Philosopher and Educator, Dies at 87. Retrieved from nytimes.com
- Lipman, Matthew. Philosophy in the Classroom. Recovered from files.eric.ed.gov
- The Philosophy Foundation. Philosophy for Children. Retrieved from philosophy-foundation.org