Philosophy for Children – David E. Storey

July 28, 2023December 29, 2023

Episode #34: The Bildung Option: Lene Rachel Andersen on the Nordic Secret

According to the recently released World Happiness Report, all four Nordic nations are in the top 10, with Finland and Denmark leading the way. What is the secret to their success?

In 2020, David Brooks asked the same question:

Progressives say it’s because they have generous welfare states. Some libertarians point out that these countries score high on nearly every measure of free market openness. Immigration restrictionists note that until recently they were ethnically homogeneous societies.

None of these explanations, it turns out, is sufficient. The answer is education, specifically, education policy guided by an understanding of human nature and development captured by the German word Bildung.

Lene Rachel Andersen is a futurist and cultural philosopher who not only tells the Nordic success story, but explains how Bildung can and must be adapted for the 21st century. Can Bildung provide the cultural and institutional DNA for a new Renaissance?

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SHOW NOTES:

Lene’s Website
David Brooks, New York Times, “This is How Scandanavia Got Great”
Lene’s Books:

October 19, 2021October 20, 2021

Episode #21: Grace Lockrobin on Community Philosophy in a Time of Crisis

Grace is a philosophy teacher, trainer, facilitator, scholar and advocate. Over the last fifteen years – through her many projects in the places people live, learn, work and play – she has enjoyed philosophical conversations with thousands of thinkers of all ages, backgrounds and levels of experience. Through her workshops, training, talks and writing, she has shared her thinking and practice nationally and internationally.

Working in the community, she founded Thinking Space in 2008. She is also an accredited trainer with SAPERE and Dialogue Works, a specialist with The Philosophy Foundation, a contributor to P4C.com and a board member of the European network SOPHIA.

Working in academia, she is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Leeds where she runs ‘Philosophy Exchange’ – a project that brings together philosophy students, teachers and children in weekly philosophical enquiry. She also consults with other UK universities, helping to set up similar programmes. Grace is currently finishing a PhD in Philosophy at UCL Institute of Education where she writes on ethics, education and aesthetics, funded by an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) doctoral award.

July 20, 2020July 20, 2020

Episode #14: Amy Reed-Sandoval

What can philosophy tell us about immigration and identity?

Amy Reed-Sandoval, assistant professor of philosophy at UNLV, is the founder of two Philosophy for Children (P4C) initiatives: one in Oaxaca, Mexico, and one at the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso. She is the author of the new book, Socially Undocumented: Identity and Immigration Justice.

Amy was recently awarded the Public Engagement Fellowship from the Whiting Foundation to expand her P4C work. In this episode, she shares her experience working in the conceptual and geographical borderlands between American and Mexican culture, between teaching children and college students, between philosophy and everyday life.