A Study of the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Mathnawi's Stories (Sixth Book) on Philosophy for Children

Stories are used for different purposes. Today stories are particularly used to increase thinking and reasoning power. Indeed, they are the means of teaching philosophy for children (Lipman’s method). On the other hand, original and deep-rooted Persian culture has been always associated with story literature. Mathnawi is considered to be one of the best sources of Persian stories replete with a lot of profound and instructive teachings, and naturally can be effective in cognitive and sentimental development of children. Applying Mathnawi’s stories in communities of inquiry and using them in teaching philosophy for children, apart from promoting discursive and curious skills of children, can be effective in bringing about a thinking child as well. Moreover, these stories, owing to their provocative contents, usually replete with queries and philosophical challenges, and in certain cases, on account of enjoying certain figures akin to children, can be effective in teaching philosophy for children. Inefficient points of these stories in many cases are resolvable. Being indigenous is a kind of privilege to these stories in applying them for teaching philosophy for children.