Philosophical Inquiry from Children´s Literature: Multidimensional Thinking

Authors: C. Cruz, A. Breda

Abstract:

In the early years, until children’s entrance at the elementary school, they are stimulated by educators, through rich and attractive contexts, to explore and develop skills from different domains. Many of these contexts trigger real or imaginary situations, through resources or pedagogical practices that incite curiosity, questioning, expression of ideas or emotions, social interaction, among others. Later, when children enter elementary school, the educational activity becomes more focused on cognitive domain and critical thinking. Children are naturally curious; they have an intrinsic desire to know more and question what is unknown. Thus, it is important to bring to the classroom issues that seduce or captivate children’s attention, trigger curiosity, and allow them to be heard. The storytelling´s narrative exploration is a pedagogical practice that stimulates children’s insights supported into their experiences, emotions, learnings and personality, and promote opportunities for children express freely their feelings and thoughts, being a promise tool to develop critical, creative and caring thinking. In this work, the "From the Outside In and From the Inside Out" book and a task developed with children in the 3rd year from a Portuguese 1st Cycle Basic School, promoted in a presentation book session, are analyzed from the perspective of philosophical inquiry. This study aims to verify how promising the children’s book "From the outside in and from the inside out" is to develop philosophical thought in children.

Keywords: Children’s literature, non-formal learning contexts, philosophical inquiry, thinking components.

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