Mind, Personality, and the Gingerbread Man

Philosophy seems to tote around the unfavorable image of being a discipline only for the old and privileged. This is unfortunate, as it seems to me that young children are much more passionately committed to philosophy than many in the academic world. Any educator could testify that young children are constantly studying and questioning the very foundations of the world around them, striving to make sense of the corner of the universe in which they must function. Nonetheless, it is understandable for educators to balk at the idea of doing philosophy with children who haven't even started formal schooling. The way that philosophy is generally done (both in academia and in the P4C arena), is through cooperative argumentative dialogue in a structured environment. It seems like this sort of method in an early childhood classroom would lead to chaos at worst, and an educational dead-end at best. For the intentional practice of philosophy to be successful in an early childhood setting, I firmly believe that it must be as natural as possible and play to the inherent talent that children have as philosophers