After presenting the P4C structure, some of the elements will be argued as out-of-date and needing to be adjusted according to the current pedagogy. What Lipman suggested as P4C has to be in accordance with modern pedagogical methods and techniques. P4C
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should take into consideration updates of educational pedagogy and research. P4C should not take place in a traditional and authoritative context. There are two main examples that I identified in order to demonstrate the need for updating some elements of P4C practice.
Setting Rules in a Community of Enquiry
When a class is introduced in P4C, Wartenberg (2009, p.41) suggested that a list of rules should be posted during the first session. Wartenberg described this process as an announcement of the rules of a P4C session decided by the teacher and communicated to the students. More than fifty years after Summerhill (Neil, 1960), where the rules were decided by students and teachers, it would be odd for the teachers to establish the rules and impose them on their students.
Fisher (2003, p. 62) also referred to community rules and particularly suggested that ‘these can be established by the discussion leader or agreed through discussion by the group’. He suggested though that ‘whatever rules are adopted the chances of them being followed will be much greater if the children themselves have been involved in the formulation’ (Fisher, 2005, p. 138). It could be argued that the set of community principles seems to be a contradictory part of a community of enquiry. P4C is a democratic intervention, whilst classroom rules have been suggested as a way to establish the authority of the teacher and help classroom management (Boostrom, 1991).
What is more, when Fisher opted to give an example of rules voted by the students he mentioned the following rule ‘Don’t say anything mean, stupid or unpleasant’ (Fisher, 2003, p.62). It could be argued that this rule implies an authoritative context for a community of enquiry. A rule which suggests not citing anything which would offend at least one of the classmates would be a rational principle. This principle should apply in any lesson, not only P4C sessions. With reference to the ‘stupid’ and ‘unpleasant’ prohibition mentioned above, I argue that it radically contradicts the nature of the dialogue and freedom of expression. During P4C sessions, students should be encouraged to express their opinions and their thoughts unabashedly without feeling that they will be perceived as stupid. Similarly, they should be encouraged to disagree which may not be always pleasant, but the students should feel comfortable to express themselves freely. This indeed entails that they will
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also learn to handle in a gentle way any disagreement which might occur in the classroom.
Students raise their hands to express their opinions
Having discussed the setting of rules, which take place only during the first P4C session, the way students express their opinions should be examined. Fisher (2005, p.137) suggested four steps for this process: a) teacher or the leader of the discussion (if the leader is not the classroom teacher) asks a question b) some students raise their hands c) the leader picks somebody to talk d) while the selected person is talking, the rest of the students remain with their hands risen. This process seems to be problematic for Fisher due to the fact that the students, who remain with the hands raised, anticipate sharing their opinion, and they do not pay attention to the speaking person. This results in disconnected replies. In other words, students waiting to talk usually do not adjust their reply according to the opinion that was lately expressed. Instead, they express the opinion for which they initially raised their hands. After describing this process, Fisher (2005) attempted to suggest a solution by using an enhanced community rule. Therefore, he proposed finding effective rules to solve this problem; “The general admonition ‘Everyone must listen’ is not as effective as a particular rule, such as ‘no hand up while someone is speaking”. (p. 137).
My view is only partially in unison with Fisher on this. The described process is indeed problematic. Several students waiting by having their hands raised in order to express their opinions while one of their classmates is talking is not appropriate for a Community of Enquiry. The solution, however, cannot be an improved classroom rule. Nowadays alternative ways of talking in the school classroom are suggested and abandoning the tradition of raising hands is proposed (Brooks & Dixon, 2013). Therefore, students should attempt to self-regulate the dialogue to some extent. In a P4C session raising hands should not be a common practice, except perhaps for voting. Another technique which is currently used in P4C sessions is the palms out technique, where the students hold out their palms when they want to contribute in the dialogue. However, I find this technique similar to hands up technique.
Instead of these techniques, I suggest students initially to be trained in dialogue skills by discussing in smaller groups. Only in intense dialogue moments should the
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facilitator of the discussion be responsible for choosing a speaker. If students are trained to talk freely and regulate who is speaking, then the dialogue should occur more naturally, and the replies will be more connected to each other.
The Learning Environment
Learning does not take place only in the classroom. P4C should not be linked to a specific space and be presented only as a classroom-based intervention. P4C can be implemented in a less traditional setting. Last year, whilst I was participating in a research team, we investigated implementing P4C in a museum context (Ioannou, Georgiou & Ventista, 2017). Vansieleghem (2011) engaged students in Cambodia in a P4C session where the main activity was walking. These studies can also demonstrate that students do not have to be in a disciplined environment with raised hands in order to participate in a P4C session.