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Why Friendship? A Plan for Training Children in a Society

Reza Mahuzi

In the course of the eruption of turbulent events in certain societies, only those people can resist and overcome the new problems, and even proceed to benefit from its opportunities that knowingly try to involve themselves collectively in understanding, analyzing and solving the problems. Such cooperation with themselves and others pertains, more than ever, to a cultural issue that should reside in one's life. The present work, with a philosophical emphasis on the concept of friendship, seeks to prove that our education in present and future situation should draw its attention to this issue. To this end, after separating the ideal state from the existing state, friendship should be introduced as a kind of management of the society in an existing concrete way. Finally, this method should be generalized on the whole of educational system of the country ranging from the kindergartens to the universities.

Key words: friendship, education, child

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Stories are used for different purposes. Today stories are particularly used to increase thinking and reasoning power. Indeed, they are the means of teaching philosophy for children (Lipman's method). On the other hand, original and deep-rooted Persian culture has been always associated with story literature. Mathnawi is considered to be one of the best sources of Persian stories replete with a lot of profound and instructive teachings, and naturally can be effective in cognitive and sentimental development of children. Applying Mathnawi's stories in communities of inquiry and using them in teaching philosophy for children, apart from promoting discursive and curious skills of children, can be effective in bringing about a thinking child as well. Moreover, these stories, owing to their provocative contents, usually replete with queries and philosophical challenges, and in certain cases, on account of enjoying certain figures akin to children, can be effective in teaching philosophy for children. Inefficient points of these stories in many cases are resolvable. Being indigenous is a kind of privilege to these stories in applying them for teaching philosophy for children.

Key words: effectiveness, sixth book, philosophy for children, efficiency, Mathnawi maˊnawi

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The Impact of Teaching Program of Philosophy for Children upon the Development of Critical Thinking in Using Cyberspace

Maryam Solgi

Omalbanin Keshavarz Rodaki

Education is considered to be one of the most important activities of human being in all communities. The increasing spread of social structure and the demand for training and preparing the people for a life in progress on the one hand, and the existence of different approaches concerning the role of man in the present age on the other hand, more than ever, have prompted the upholders of teaching systems to undertake the guidance and organization of teaching process. Modern education seeks to focus on promoting critical and proper methods of reasoning and thought in curriculum. Rapid changes of societies, increasing growth of information, intrusion of cyberspace into human life and necessity of proper confrontation with these changes prompt us to think properly and develop our imaginal faculty and judgment in order to come to term with these changes.

In this regard, three decades ago, a program of teaching philosophy for children was worked out in order to modify and strengthen their intellectual power. This program is considered to be one of the latest methods for strengthening the reasoning, judging and detecting power of children as well. Moreover, this program possesses certain cognitive and social objectives and its main objective is to teach thinking method for children. To meet this end, a kind of qualitative method of study has been adopted in collecting data in this work. The conclusions of this study indicate that in this program a great attention has been made to various dimensions of philosophical mind. But keeping in view the changes in the field of internet technologies and cyberspaces and the confrontation of children with these developments, they should be guided through this program toward criticizing the information that come to their mind. More important, threat of cyberspace against children is an important factor for drawing the attention of the educationists to this crucial issue.

Key words: program for teaching philosophy for children, critical thinking, cyberspace

The main objective of this paper is to make a comparative study of the anthropological principles of Ibn Sina and Matthew Lipman. This study is based on an analytic-descriptive and deductive method, for which data were collected from the libraries. First, the components of man from the perspective of Ibn Sina and Lipman are discussed, and then proceeded to elaborate their common and different points on man. According to the conclusion of this work, there are certain agreements and disagreements between them on the issue of man. They agree that man is a rational being, possessing will power, and also enjoying a kind of natural, biological and sensible features, along with individual and social identity. Man is also subjected to a perpetual change and transformation. As for their disagreements, each of them presents his own view on the beginning and end of man. One of their main differences on man pertains to the very proper age for commencing philosophical thinking.

Key words: anthropological principles, Ibn Sina, Matthew Lipman, philosophy for children

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A Critical Approach to the Content of Cyberspaces in Philosophical Communities of Inquiry

Mehrnoosh Hedayati

Elham Sabery

Philosophical communities of inquiry enjoy a practical, rational and philosophical attitude toward the development of critical, creative, and controlling insight into the surrounding issues. Since a great deal of people's ideas, beliefs, thoughts, and worldviews are under the influence of cyberspaces in the present time, particularly in modern communities, it is necessary to develop a critical approach among children in dealing with the contents of the cyberspaces, and teach them how to confront with these immense information provided by these centers. The present paper, as carried out with the participation of children in philosophical communities of inquiry, is an attempt to enhance the critical, creative and accountable ability of children in confronting with the content and existing information of the cyberspaces. An analysis of the data as collected by Covariance method with %99 certainty in twelve sessions indicate that the participation of students in philosophical community of inquiry can affect their critical thought skills including the skills of inductive and deductive reasoning, analysis of media messages, enhancing self confidence, and increasing hypothesis making in internet(p≤0.01). Accordingly, we can benefit from the teaching program of "philosophy for children" in deepening our understanding of information in cyberspaces and reducing the destructive impacts of this invaluable and overall media.

Key words: critical thinking, philosophical community of inquiry, media knowledge, internet

Generally speaking, religious education of offspring is a necessity. Those who turn their blind eyes to the education of children and young adults, and underestimate it by absorbing in daily matters should behold the result of their carelessness. As a matter of fact, deepening of religious teachings in children can prevent them from involving in social and ethical vices, for a great deal of mischievous acts of children is rooted in their lack of religious and ethical education. Internalization of religious values makes them defy any kind of deviation. If parents and teachers wish to familiarize children with religious teachings and institutionalize these teachings in them, they should initiate it from the childhood and young adult age. Thanks to applying a proper methodology education in Islamic system enjoys a particular place. The tree of education will yield fruit when educational theories are implemented by proper methods. The methods that are embellished with encouragement, model, love, insight, and story turn out to be the most effective methods offered by the Quran which can assist parents and teachers to internalize religious teachings in children and young adults.

Key words: religious beliefs, children, education

The objective of the present work is to study the impact of implementing program of thinking skills upon augmentation of happiness of first grade middle girl students in Tehran. This research work includes sixty first grade middle girl students in Tehran and are divided casually into experimental and control groups. The instrument for collecting data is Oxford test of happiness. Meanwhile, pre-test and post-test with control group are used for studying the hypothesis of research work. For the analysis of data the comparison of marks before and after tests have been made, employing the test T Student for independent groups.

A workshop consists of twenty sessions, one session (45 minutes) in a week was held, using the method of Sharp-Lipman's community of inquiry with reference to Philip Kamp and Robert Fisher's intellectual stories. The conclusion of the research indicates that the implementation of teaching philosophy for children with community of inquiry is effective in the development of happiness of children and has positive impact in its wake.

Key words: happiness, pleasure, philosophizing, skills of teaching thinking, communicative skills, interpersonal skills