Open Accesswhy am i here? the challenges of exploring children's existential questions in the community of inquiry
Author(s) -
Luca Zanetti
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
childhood and philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.14
H-Index - 2
eISSN - 2525-5061
pISSN - 1984-5987
DOI - 10.12957/childphilo.2020.47050
Subject(s) - existentialism , meaning (existential) , community of inquiry , philosophy for children , autonomy , face (sociological concept) , psychology , epistemology , pedagogy , sociology , psychotherapist , cognition , philosophy , political science , social science , law , neuroscience
Children ask existential questions, that is, questions about death, the meaning of existence, free will, God, the origin of everything, and kindred questions. P4/wC has the aspiration to give to children the occasion to discover and explore their questions in a safe environment, the community of inquiry. Thus, existential questioning should be possible in a community of inquiry. However, it is unclear whether the pedagogy of the community of inquiry can accommodate existential questioning. The chief trouble is that existential questioning might be a cause of suffering: children might be unable to contain the emotional intensity that is experienced when we inquire about topics like death and the meaning of existence. In a community of inquiry, the emphasis over the community and the autonomy that children experience in choosing the questions for their inquiry might create occasions of suffering: some children might not be prepared to discuss existential issues or might be troubled by the candidate answers they explore and eventually end up to endorse. In this paper I highlight some of the main challenges that we need to face if we want to make room for existential questioning in the community of inquiry.