My eureka moment

I have worked a lot with Challenging Learning, which is a very interesting concept. I have thought a lot about how to implement it in my teaching. I have read a lot about Lipman’s description of P4C and the Challenging Learning literature, and have been wondering how all this could be a part of my daily teaching. 

And then – suddenly on the Top floor in Clarion Arlanda Airport Hotel - while I were participating in Challenging Learning Professional Development Opportunity Workshop I did have my eureka moment. 

All the great values in Challenging Learning and P4C are tools, which the students have to learn to use, because they, if they learn and use them correctly have to think for themselves. At the same time they will develop important meta-cognitive abilities. 

Teaching and working with P4C and Challenging Learning could fx. be in one particular lesson each week. This way of working and thinking will then strengthen the students reflective skills in the other lessons fx danish, math or english. All this makes perfectly sense in relation to my many years of teaching in the danish public school.

I think it is very important to start teaching in how to understand and work in the Learning Pit, so the students know what is happening, when they meet a new concept in their learning process and feel save to be in the pit, because they know, that they are helped out of the pit of the teacher or more often and a lot stronger through Peer-Learning.

Next step is to Challenge the Students, and here is it possible and strong to use the principles of P4C, as Lipman has described it, and as it is described in the books Challenging Learning and The Key to Learning. To challenge the students you can use different cases, but you can, as well, use concepts from the “normal” lessons. 

In this description I have stressed that this teaching will typically be one specific lesson each week, which the students know about. 

Working with Challenging Learing however, can as well be a part of the “normal” teaching. It could be, when a problem has to be solved in math. You can here use the principles of P4C and Challenging Learning to strengthen the students understanding of, and thinking about the basics of the concept they are about to learn. In this way challenging and thinking will be a natural part of the teaching in the one specific P4C lesson every week, but also in all the other more “normal” lessons. 

When the students are safe working in the Pit and with the principles of P4C and Challenging Learning you can use this in your teaching as well. You can do that with the element of “expect the unexpected”. This means that your students will be prepared for situations where they have to think for themselves and work on understanding the concept through Peer Learning or individual struggling. This will definitely strengthen students attention too.

Now I am ready to describe my strategies and ressources in my preparation to recording a lesson, using P4C and Challenging Learning.

Thank you Richard Kelly and Martin Renton. I look forward to our working together in the future.