Africanising Philosophy for Children (P4C) in the South African Context

Abstract

The paper explores ways in which philosophy for children (P4C) can be Africanised in South Africa. Africanisation is taken to mean a thought world enveloped in African idioms and symbols, the recognition of a diversity of ways of knowledge and alternative epistemologies, and a variety of ways of learning and understanding the world of experience and of constructing the future. Africanisation calls for the teaching and learning that privileges the deliberate and critical engagement with Africa, African histories, African cultures, African countries, African peoples, African promises and African challenges, past and present. At a practical level in the classroom Africanising P4C implies the teaching of school subject through storytelling that is ‘rooted in Africa’. The paper sketches the notion of P4C, and posits that it should not be about teaching the views of particular philosophers. Instead it should be about equipping children with critical thinking skills and engaging them in a structured search for meaning. The stories that are told in order to promote P4C are on animals and nature and have a heuristic value in that they contribute towards the children’s attainment of moral and philosophical literacy.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n9p348