that’s the way children ask, making theories?

Abstract

During 2010 we held our meetings with two groups of five years old girls and boys, at the “Jardín Nº 21” of El Bolsón, Río Negro, Argentina. Other members of the research staff, that we have created a year ago in order to expand the experience of philsophying with children, did the same thing with other groups and in a high school. In this occasion we want to report some scenes and exchanges, as well as the analysis of our records related to the children’s way of asking and how they build their hypothesis. In this sense, we had the opportunity to share with the participants of one of the readings at a Rio de Janeiro Conference, September 2010, our doubts related to how they build their questions. We wondered also, about what should be considered as a question. It is possible that they do so while formulating their hypothesis. At the same time, we could see how teacher’s actions begin to gain in density and rigorous: they become more and more patient, waiting to hear how the girls and boys engage themselves in the construction of a collective and own thinking. We were surprised sometimes by the coherent exchange, availing the decantation of successive hypothesis, while confronting the examples they could bring to the debate. We are still surprised before the size acquired by the influence and power of others socialization agents speech (parents, media), as well as of the speed with which they are evident in children’s words and thoughts. But must important, we could forget our learning of many things, so as to make place and time for the development of new experiences and the occurrence of events. Keywords: childhish philosophizing; questioning; philosophy with children; theory