The Complete Philosophy Files - India

I would like to thank Anjali Dugar for her excellent work in setting up a philosophy club in a school in Mumbai - using my book The Complete Philosophy Files. I'm honoured to have a played a small part in what appears to have been a great success - read Anjali's comments below. My thanks also to Orion - my publisher - for supplying books free of charge. The children sent me some very nice thank you letters which won't display, but here are some photos which I now show with permission.




Anjali writes:


Teach for India is affiliated to TeachFirst UK, and works with struggling government run schools as well as private schools that cater to the most needy. There are 700+ Fellows in the program this year, teaching about 23,000 children across 5 cities (read more below)

As the school runs in an afternoon shift, 20 children in Grade 7 opted to come to school an hour and a half early for the 10 sessions of Philosophy Club at the Worli Sea Face Municipal School in Mumbai. I was determined to make these children think for themselves and have an opportunity to voice their own opinions for the first time, and the best way I could think of was through philosophy. When I met them for the first time, I was extremely apprehensive as I was introduced to a group of subdued, and uninterested children, and I knew it would take a lot of hard work if I were to make any impact.

After several hours of lesson planning and pushing the class very hard, I saw an extraordinary transformation. As we worked our way from ethics to paradoxes and discussed topics such as ‘Is Capital Punishment Just?’ and ‘Does God Exist?’, the children went from being reluctant to speak or think outside the box, to having heated debates, noisy and passionate discussions and developing opinions while learning to understand other viewpoints as well. I was amazed to see the students starting to take initiative and asking for the topic of the next lesson, and started to come to class having read relevant chapters in The Complete Philosophy Files which was their source of information, having no access to the internet in their school or slums.

The project was a huge success and I left a classroom with children who grew to love philosophy and began questioning things around them, and taking our discussions outside the classroom where they debated and discussed these topics amongst themselves and with their class teacher. I was very encouraged by the response and enthusiasm of the kids and I have decided to continue this project over the next few years and take this to as many Teach for India classrooms as possible. I have already conducted a training session with two Fellows who heard about the Philosophy Club and were extremely keen to get involved. They are using my lesson plans, and a few copies of the book for reference, to spread it across 10-15 classrooms in their own schools, and I will be involved in these sessions in the February half term.