Seite - 22 - in Reflective Cosmopolitanism - Educating towards inclusive communities through Philosophical Enquiry

22 REfLECTIvE COsMOPOLITANIsM to global cases, or from anecdotal to philosophical. Questions normally go from the subjective (what the students have experienced or may know) to the philosophical, the general, to the inter- subjective. We must insist on the fact that you do not have to answer all the questions. Sometimes, the dialogue that takes place while answering one question includes the answer to other questions in the same discussion plan. It is important to get to know the order and the sense of the ques- tions and to try to maintain both. If we change that order, we must be clear about why we have changed it and what the new structure is. Exercises The exercises in the manual focus on more specific aspects. They are not aimed at sparking free dialogue. The goal is to work on specific aspects related to: • Concepts: clarifying, setting limits, use, translation etc. • Skills or abilities: The exercises aim at practicing some specific skills or procedure. In order to better understand the relation and differences between discussion plans and exer- cises, we may compare the act of thinking with playing basketball. Playing basketball and thinking while we play are two activities, and in both we can do two things: we can play or we can prepare and train before playing. We can have a philosophical discussion or dialogue the same way we play a game of basketball. The discussion plans are the tactics and the instructions the coach gives the players. They are resources the teacher can use in order to organize the game of philosophical dialogue. However, a good basketball coach must also prepare the team and make them practice their defense, rebounding, shooting, passing etc. A good coach must train his team (students) and help them think more efficiently and exercise the skills and tactics they might use in doing so, such as questioning, listening, translating, conceptualizing, inferring, making suppositions, generalizing, giving good reasons, comparing, making analogies etc. The exercises in the manual are a useful tool in this kind of preparation. If a basketball coach thinks the team in not doing well in a certain aspect of the game (e.g. rebounding), he or she normally designs training sessions focused on that flaw. A good teacher should also spend some sessions preparing and exercising some of the specific skills (training) before actually discussing a topic (playing the match). The fundamental idea is that children should exercise their skills, and practice using con- cepts by working through the exercises. We must bear in mind, however, that these philosophical exercises are not independent atoms. They do not work on independent skills. Each exercise represents a wide system which allows the student to develop each part of philosophical reasoning as a whole. Although each exercise focuses on a specific dimension or skill, we must not forget the holistic picture of skills, or the dialogical philosophical framework, in which we are involved. The images The images of the PEACE stories are designed with the same pedagogical aim as the stories. They are not just images illustrating the text, but images that seek to stimulate the philosophical dia- logue. They can be very useful in contexts where there is a lack of reading and writing skills. They are not designed to substitute for the text, but to be used as a complement to reinforce it, and as a motivational tool for certain participants. They can be used the same way as the text: a) Analyzing the images b) Thinking about questions suggested by the images c) Discussing those questions. About games and other activities Finally, we would like to point out that although most of the resources in the manual are Leading Ideas, Discussion plans and Exercises, the teacher should feel free to expand on the topics by using his or her knowledge and creativity. The teacher may adapt other strategies and resources.