14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research
Research Workshop
A Transformational Community of Inquiry for the School Community
Maria Papathanasiou
university of Thessaly, Greece
Presenting Author: Papathanasiou, Maria
This proposal introduces an innovative model with its teachers’ manual that has the form of a flexible guide which primarily and purposefully promotes Lipman’s “Philosophy for Children and Community” mindset as a state of mind for teachers-parents’ relationship enhancement aiming to transform the learners and their relationship itself as well as the school’s perspectives into a learning community/organization.
R.Q.: How plausible is it for the teachers & parents (and implicitly children) to transform school into a learning organization if they form a Community of Inquiry that constitutes a circuit where learning is an ongoing goal for all actors.
The conversational framework that it’s based on, is an invitation from the teachers/facilitators to the parents to build new ways of fostering relations that enable people with diverse cultural, academic, and even language backgrounds to voice and share their needs and experiential knowledge. It is an invitation to the community to open-up with ideas and tools with which they can prompt reason in a Democratic environment where every member has a right to questioning, reflecting thinking, dialogic reasoning, and metacognition as well as try to unite their thinking into a potentially operational consensus for action. As Socrates once said: “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think!”
The pedagogical framework of P4C constitutes a way that children can learn how to think, analyze, and argue—necessarily from an early age—because otherwise their inherent ability to think abstractly is lost. Abstract thinking brings them to Philosophy (in the dialogic sense not in the academic historical one), familiarizes them with discussion and critical thinking honing their reasoning skills as they increasingly engage in Socratic Dialogue (Lipman & Sharp, 1994) that is activated by a text, story, art etc. In addition, Lipman observes (2003), P4C is characterized by reflective, deliberative, communicative, and dialogic actions, which conclude in both reinforcing individual judgment and, at the same time, solidifying a diverse community. Specifically, disparate individuals (eg. in ideas, beliefs, socio-economic backgrounds) are given the chance to voice their ideas in a democratic, empathic, and respectful manner and co-construct a community that promotes trust and well-being, while building a Community of Philosophical Inquiry -CPI- (Lipman, 2009).
Furthermore, according to Mezirow (2012), activating Transformative Learning processes, through the agency of a disorienting dilemma—in this case posed by the stories as a trigger for parents’ critical reflection—creating space to question assumptions (Taylor, 2000), re-think, and perform in new, alternative, different ways whilst actively participating in a Community of Philosophical Inquiry that could potentially lead to instant (epochal) or gradual (incremental) transformation (Mezirow, 2000). It must be understood that such participation does not by any means lead to an inevitable transformation, but it can certainly create a friendly, trusting community where reflective dialogue is more than welcomed!
For the parent-teacher-school complex envisioned in the presented model (Teachers-Parents’ Community of Inquiry) to act and learn together as a unified entity, it is most likely helpful to conceptualize and structure it to operate as a unified learning organization—one that Watkins & Marsick argue, will require deep changes in the actors’ mindsets, and the culture of the organization—ones that occur only in a series of interrelated overlapping stages over time (1993, 1999). This is the process that Watkins &Marsick envision in their widely accepted Model, Dimensions of a Learning Organization. The potential seems real because if it is able to keep learning continually it could potentially transform itself, and its members as individuals, as a group, and, ultimately, as a coherent organization through the three interrelated stages that characterize its emergence in their Model of Dimensions of a Learning Organization (ibid,1998).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe presented Handbook offers brief definitions of family engagement seen through the lens of researchers and practitioners as well Lipman’s Philosophy for children and Community (P4C). In it, you will also find a description of the handbook and how to use stories based on the P4C educational model. Foremost it stresses the use of stories and fairy tales; storytelling; art; and other kinds of triggers for initiation of critical reflection and dialogic discussion among the participants.
Through this innovative and promising practice, it urges fellow teachers to strengthen their relationship with the parents of their students. It introduces a new, effective way of inviting parents into the school community—bringing their experiences and useful resources into the entire school community (Parents–Teachers–Children–Administration) for the benefit of the students- with a learning model that instrumentalizes dialogue and relationship.
As the term workshop indicates, the session intends to include an experiential activity. There will be a short model session to demonstrate the application of P4C methodology:
• Have all participants sit in a circle,
• Setting clear ground rules (i.e., respectful, non-judgmental, open-minded etc.)
• Sometimes start with a warm-up game or an exercise,
• Stimuli for Questions (story, poem, music, art etc.),
• Participants are given time to think and raise questions either individually or in small groups,
• All questions are noted on the board,
• Questions are divided into themes, concepts, or other common segments,
• Participants then vote to select the theme for discussion and inquiry,
• A Facilitator summarizes,
• An Assessment of the process and outcomes (discussion, theme exploration, community, facilitation)
Consequently, the workshop intends to unfreeze old but modern ways of thinking, reflecting and discussing while fostering transformative learning. Through the discussion and not the lecture method the expected outcomes of the AR project will be explored, discussed and revealed. Thus, the great need for effective school-family cooperation with the primary aim of maximizing the pupil's benefit for its full-fledged development can be assessed. The participants are expected to engage into a community-based dialogue that will guide them to integrate into diverse ways of communicating with peers. Perhaps, in this sense, through argumentation, critical and creative thinking, the assimilation of ideas such as family's involvement in school as a dynamic process of developmental character that reflects the social, political, economic conditions can be more fundamental.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe key takeaway of this model and Handbook should be the procedure that needs to be followed based on critical thinking, reflecting, and discussing ideas and thoughts about a matter of common concern which may either change actors’ assumptions or build on others’ new ones. This is a community-based, collective procedure, where emotions and relations are inevitably integrated into the learning experience. Assembling parents’ communities through philosophical discussion within the school setting and mentored by a P4C trained schoolteacher who aims to pursue individual and social change for the actors and the school community as an organization is an innovative model that aims to enhance parent-school relationship and partnership. This acts at the intersection of an Adult Learning theory, Transformative Learning, with an educational methodology—Philosophy for Children (P4C) that has so far pertained to children, which in the new model introduced herein aims also at their teachers and parents. Both of those can embrace the new skills and use them at home and school with their children as a continuum and with other parents or, for that matter, anywhere else in their daily life.
Our goal, the Community of Inquiry, then, builds on a solid foundation of trust and positive emotions and is further enriched with a variety of thoughts, ideas, opinions, and experiences that interact, evolve and provoke thoughtful dialogue rather than criticism—thus, in a variety of ways, creating the right conditions for transformational learning.
Consequently, this Handbook/manual introduces “Philosophy for Children and Community” to children, teachers, and parents who operate as colleagues in learning, thinking, reflecting, and reasoning. Accordingly, it is an invitation to parents to join teachers and students in a dialogue and develop the skills which we all need to learn and adapt in our everyday life at work, home, and as citizens of the world!
ReferencesAronson, J.Z., (1996). How schools can recruit hard-to-reach parents. Educational Leadership. 53(7), 58-60.
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Lipman, M. (2003). Thinking in Education. (2nd Ed.), Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Lipman, M. (2009). Philosophy for Children: Some assumptions and implications. In Marsal, E., Dobashi, T., Weber, B. (eds.), Children Philosophize Worldwide. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Lipman, M. & Sharp, A.M. (1994). Growing up with Philosophy. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.
Marsick, J.V. (1998). Transformative learning from experience in the knowledge era. Daedalus, vol. 127, no. 4, p. 119+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A21262648/AONE?u=new30429&sid=AONE&xid=e40c8f9f. Accessed 25 May 2021.
Marsick, V. & Watkins, K. (1999). Facilitating learning organizations: Making learning count. Aldershot: Gower Press.
Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning to think like an Adult. In J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Learning as Transformation: Critical Perspectives on a Theory in Progress (pp.3-33). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Mezirow, J. (2012). Learning to think like an adult. In E. W. Taylor & P. Cranton (Eds.), The handbook of transformative learning: Theory, research, and practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Watkins, K.E. & Marsick, V.J. (1993). Sculpting the learning organization. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Watkins, K.E. & Marsick, J.V. (1998). Dimensions of the learning organization questionnaire. Warwick, RI: Partners for the Learning Organization.
Watkins, K.E. & Marsick, J.V. (1999). Sculpting the Learning Community: New Forms of Working and Organizing. NASSP Bulletin, 83: p.78-87. doi:10.1177/019263659908360410
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