Philosophical Education, Questionstorming and Change in School System, By LEO IGWE

Philosophical education could change the school system because the educational sector is in dire need of transformation and an overhaul. This piece situates the problem with basic schooling and explores how philosophical education or philosophy for children(p4c) would deliver the much-needed change. 

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has a problem of out-of-school children. I call it the problem of out-of-formal-school children because different types of schools, formal and informal, operate in Nigeria. The problem of out-of-formal-school children persists. According to UNICEF, about 18 million children, that is, 1 in 3 three children in the country, are out of school. 

Indeed these children are out of school, but it does not mean that they do not receive any form of education at all. Or that they are out of school in all respects. Strictly speaking, no Nigerian child is out of school. All children attend schools and receive some form of education or the other. All children attend or go through family schools. They receive informal education on traditional norms, dogmas, and values as framed by their parents and guardians. Traditional informal education or instruction is a form that children are expected to uphold and hand down. Children are taught to obey and not question or challenge authorities such as their parents and elders of the community. 

Many parents send their children to religious, Christian, and Quranic, schools where religious authorities teach them about the world, and how to live and relate in line with religious dictates. Children are enrolled in Sunday schools and catechism classes where they are taught to memorize Christian and biblical doctrines, which they are not expected to question or interrogate. Children are also sent to Quranic schools. The number of children in Quranic schools all over Nigeria is estimated to exceed 9.5 million, with more than 8.5 million in the northern part of the country. Many of the Quranic school students constitute most of the out-of-formal-school children. While some later enroll in formal schools, others do not because their families are too poor to do so or they embrace the indoctrination that the formal school system is western, corrupting, and therefore, Haram, which means, forbidden.

Meanwhile, memorization plays a key role in the different modes of instruction of children, in family/community/religious schooling. For instance, at a very tender age, children from Muslim families, are sent to Quranic schools, where they are taught to recite and memorize verses of the Quran. For memorizing the Quran, children are rewarded with cash prizes and gifts. Local and international Quranic recitation competitions are organized every year. In Nigeria, state governments in Muslim-majority states, foundations, and individuals sponsor these events. They give scholarships to children who excel in the competition. In 2022, the Bauchi State Government “gifted 10 winners, participants and judges of the 36th National Quranic Recitation Competition held in the state the sum of N25 million”(15,000 dollars). In addition, the government awarded scholarships to 10 male and female winners up to the university level. Children and youths from Christian families are also rewarded for excelling in Biblical, catechism, and Sunday school classes. There is a huge social capital in memorization of what is taught or learnt.

Some Muslim families send their children first to Quranic schools before they are sent to formal basic schools if they do that at all.  Some children attend Quranic and basic schools simultaneously. These religious and authoritarian modes of instruction have an overbearing influence on how children think, believe, behave, and respond to issues in society. These modes of instruction have been linked to cases of cult violence, and carnage, mindboggling bloodletting on campuses and in the wider society. School children and youths constitute mobs that lynch alleged blasphemers, stone, torture or sometimes kill alleged witches. 

These children are products of these dogmatic and authoritarian schooling systems. Meanwhile, the basic education program claims to foster critical thinking and reflective inquiry. The national policy on education states that one of the objectives of primary education is to lay a solid foundation for scientific, critical, and reflective thinking. But this policy exists on paper not in practice. There is a disconnect between policy and practice. The anticipated foundation has not been laid. The existing foundation is anything but solid.

In formal schools, instructions are no less doctrinaire and authoritarian. They steeped in memorization not interrogation or critical reflection of information. Rote learning is the mainstay of teaching and learning. Students are made to commit to memory what they have been taught and to reproduce the information during tests and examinations as a way to demonstrate knowledge and understanding. I illustrate this teaching/learning culture using a piece of homework, Pleasing Everyone, given to pupils at a private school in Ibadan, in Oyo state. The homework shows the four-step process of teaching and learning that applies to basic schools in Nigeria. 

In the first step, teachers present the text, in this case, “Pleasing Everybody”. The text states: “Once a man and his son were going to town. They wanted to sell their donkey at the market. They walked and drove the animal in front of them. On the way, a young man spoke to them, How foolish you are! He said The donkey is strong and will carry the boy! Soon afterwards, they met a young woman You lazy boy! She cried. Let you poor father ride on the donkey!” In the second step, teachers present or generate a set of questions that students are expected to answer drawing from the text. The questions are: “DO YOU REMEMBER? What was the name of the story? Who was going to town? Why were they going to the market? What did the young man say to them? What did the young woman say to the son? What did the old man say to the father? What did the old woman say to them? What did everyone say to them? Why was it stupid to carry the donkey? What did they do in the end?” In the third step, students are given time to respond and answer the questions. In the last step, teachers assess the answers and assign grades. 

As this homework has shown, teachers dominate the learning process. Learners play little or no role. Teachers generate the text, questions, and grades. The students’ main job is to find or supply answers. Paulo Freire calls this form of schooling ‘a banking model of education’ because it is based on the notion that teachers know it all and students are passive receptors of knowledge.  Students are ‘inferiors’ who must accept whatever they are taught or told. Children largely grow up in an environment where notions such as “The tradition is so and so. The Bible says so and so. The Quran says so and so. The elders said so and so. The clerics said so The parents said so…Do not question” constitute the tropes for teaching and learning etc.

However, philosophy for children is set to change this teaching approach because it emphasizes the active participation of students and learners in the teaching practice. As delivered in Nigeria, p4c encourages question-storming, that is, interrogation or challenging of ideas, claims, and experiences in all areas of human endeavor as a way of teaching and learning. In p4c, children are taught how to question, not what to question. As a stand-alone subject, children are equipped with the necessary tools to interrogate everything they see, hear, touch, or smell. They are taught various approaches or formats of questionstorming. For instance, children are taught the question-to-question, question-to-answer, conditional, and referential questioning approaches. As an infused, p4c fulfills a pedagogic value. It enables students to learn and get more involved in teaching through questioning.

For instance, in reference to the above-mentioned homework, teachers need not generate questions for students. Presentation of learning materials suffices. Students generate questions as their main exercise and activity. Teachers only guide and support them in generating these questions. Teachers provide students hints and insights into how to question, challenge, and interrogate assumptions, issues, and experiences. In teaching a topic such as parts of the body, teachers do not need to list the various parts and their functions. Instead through a questionstorming exercise, students can know the body parts and their functions. In this case, students become generators of questions while teachers provide answers and information in response to the questions that students ask.

In conclusion, philosophical education is set to upend the prevailing culture of learning schools, and change a learning regime where students are passive receptors of ‘knowledge’. P4C will transform the teaching enterprise into an endeavor that is more active and participatory. Teaching becomes a collaborative effort, and learning an exercise where both teachers and students are involved cooperators in the creation and production of knowledge, and partners in learning and inquiry.

Leo Igwe is a member of the International Council of Philosophy for Children, and director of the Critical Thinking Social Empowerment Foundation.