When a Mount Marty College faculty member traveled to a conference on getting philosophy into K-12 schools, he never knew it would turn out to be the basis of a new book.

Nick Shudak, director of the masters in teacher education program and assistant professor at MMC, is a contributor and editor of the new book “Philosophy In Schools: An Introduction for Philosophers and Teachers.” The book is aimed towards helping philosophers and educators bring philosophy into the K-12 classrooms.

“People often tend to think of philosophy as this difficult college-level subject matter that is out of reach, and maybe even out of touch, for K-12 students and teachers,” Shudak said. “This volume, rather, looks at philosophy as a way of being and thinking that is perfectly fit for what goes on in the K-12 schools and curriculum.”

He added that he thinks it’s important that people in the area get some insight into the type of academic and scholarly work that is being done at a college in their backyard.

The book is in collaboration with two other nationally recognized professors. Sara Goering is a professor at the University of Washington and the director of the Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children. Thomas Waternberg is a professor at Mount Holyoke College and has an award-winning website that contains information on philosophy for K-12 schools.

“The Philosophy for Children (P4C) is a movement that tries to get more philosophical thinking and skills into K-12 schools,” Shudak said, “It’s a pretty sizable movement that has been going on for around the last 30 years. One of the difficulties it has faced is when people ask questions like, ‘How do you do it and what do the models look like?’”

He added that philosophy is an eternal and enduring conversation about questions that have been asked for thousands of years on the subjects of justice, goodness and beauty. He said there is already numerous topics in K-12 curriculum that revolves around those questions.

“The questions then become, how can we help teachers look at their already existing curriculum a little bit more philosophically?” Shudak said. “Most of what teachers do is already philosophically-laden, so these topics exist all around them.”

He added that one way teachers can get philosophy into the classroom is through literature groups when talking about protagonists and antagonists. The philosophical aspect of this would be why are these people in disagreements.

“It’s important because these philosophical thinking skills help go deeper into questions of everyday life,” Shudak said. “It’s not always one answer, and sometimes there isn’t an answer. It’s just a way of going deeper into questions.”

He noted that kids are naturally disposed to wonder, enjoy puzzles and play, and if educators can take the ancient saying that philosophy begins in wonder seriously, then it makes sense that there can be better efforts made to bring students in contact with philosophy.

“Teachers talk about the importance of critical and creative thinking, and about the necessity of 21st century skills, and philosophy is a wonderful midwife for making those things happen in classrooms,” Shudak said. “This book brings together K-12 educators, teacher educators and trained philosophers who discuss and describe their efforts at making curriculum a bit more philosophical — there is really a bit of everything in this volume.”

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