نشریه تفکر و کودک
سال یکم شماره 2 (پاییز و زمستان 1389)

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether teaching philosophy for children (P4C) could have any significant impact on the development of emotional intelligence of a group of school girls in Tehran. To this end، 30 students who were studying in the first grade of a junior high school were randomly selected and assigned to an experimental and a control group. The study had a pretest، posttest design and the data were collected using Bar-On questionnaire including 133 items. The results of the independent samples t-test revealed that teaching philosophy for children had a significantly positive effect on the emotional intelligence، adaptability، and interpersonal skills of the participants. However، the comparison of the means of the two groups depicted no significant difference in intrapersonal skills، stress management، and general mood of the participants.

Teaching thinking to children (also called philosophy for children) is a program with the aim to cultivate the thinking skills in children and thus، enable them to become competent in dealing with the problems they may encounter in their future lives. This program benefits from stories as one of its main teaching tools since it is believed that stories can assist children in developing a propensity to question، seek for reasons، make rational judgments، and hence، empower their moral values. The present study aims to signify that children’s literary stories constitute a rich source of philosophical elements and thus، can be used as a tool in the process of teaching thinking to children. The literary riches of these stories permit children to use their imagination as well as their cognitive skills while reading. Literary stories allow educationists to penetrate the constraints of using stories with contents that exclusively support the process of teaching philosophical intentions of the writer. Story reading as an educating activity should be included in the curriculum for it possesses the features necessary for constructing fruitful dialog at schools. Stories facilitate adult/ child interaction and thus، contribute to children’s social and cultural understanding.

Before the advent of cognitive linguistics، metaphor was thought to be a characteristic of literary language especially poetry، with little relevance to other language features. However، cognitive approaches to metaphor have strongly rejected this traditional view and have suggested that thought and action are structured by metaphors. They suggest that metaphors، affect systems of knowledge and belief pervasively and fundamentally. According to Lakoff، metaphor is primarily conceptual and part of the ordinary system of thought. As he maintains، metaphor is not any particular word or expression but is the ontological mapping across conceptual domains; not just a matter of language، but of thought and reason. Based on Lakoff’s theory of metaphor، the present study attempted to examine 10 story books written by different writers and to observe the kinds and the frequency with which metaphors were employed. The results showed that among the metaphors presented by Lakoff، personification was the one mostly utilized in these books. Also، the study signified that the metaphors were in conformity with the stages of cognitive development suggested by Piaget. Additionally، as the findings of the study revealed، the metaphors used in these books contributed to the understanding of subjective and incomprehensive concepts like trust، royalty، pride، and friendship by children.

Private speech، which occurs when children play and/or perform tasks، is considered to be one of the most important functions which can illuminate the relation between thought and language. The aim of the present study was to examine private speech among Iranian children while they were involved in the tower of London (TOL) task. The questions of the study included: 1) Do Iranian preschoolers talk to themselves when performing a task? 2) Is there any relationship between private speech and performance of children? 3) Do children talk to themselves more when they encounter a difficult task than an easy task? To find answers to the research questions، 32 five year-old children participated in the study and performed the TOL task while their performance and talks were videotaped and later coded. Results showed that children were more involved in social than in private speech. Nevertheless، their performance in TOL was positively related to their private speech. The results of the study showed that the difficulty level of the task did not have any relationship with the level of private speech produced by children even though some evidence indicating that difficultly level of the task might lead to more private speech could be inferred. The findings of the study imply that awareness-raising among teachers and parents regarding the role of private speech in the process of children’s language development should be emphasized.

Although fostering students'' creativity is currently among the most crucial educational goals in developed countries، this issue has received little attention in our country. Thus، the present study attempted to investigate the ways through which creativity could be fostered among junior school students in the sixth district of Tehran. The secondary scope of the study was to explore the approaches that teachers، principals، and experts had realized as beneficial for the development of creativity as an essential part of school curriculum. To this end، the study proposed nine research questions and accordingly nine hypotheses to investigate the relationship between the variables. For gathering the required data، the survey employed a 51-item questionnaire. Teachers، principals، and learning and education experts of the sixth district of Tehran who were selected based on cluster random sampling and Morgan table answered the questionnaire. To analyze the data، the responses were entered to SPSS. The descriptive statistics obtained from the data analysis provided primary explanations on the findings of the study. Furthermore، to support the descriptive findings and generalizing the results to the population، factorial analysis was utilized. The inferential statistics was derived from computation of correlation coefficient، varimax rotation، and data extraction. The findings of the study indicated five crucial factors which could contribute to the development of the students’ creativity: teaching students to become autonomous learners، paying attention to affective factors in education، social independence of the family، boosting self-assessment in students، and family support in giving students independence.

The present study primarily exemplifies the approaches of relativism, skepticism, and dogmatism by the “elephant in darkness” allegory and then proceeds to introduce another approach called minimal realism. Although, Nietzsche denies truth in his early works, he agrees upon minimal realism in his last six books. Thus, this study attempts to explain his attitude in the light of the history of true world and perspectivism. Eventually, perspectivism not only is not equal to relativism, but is one of the major components of minimal realism. Despite the fact that minimal realism presumes different viewpoints in acknowledging the truth and hence, the necessity of believing in community of inquiry for understanding the truth, it is not equal to denial of truth and relativism. Finally, applying the proposed ideas to the philosophy for children, the study concludes that community of inquiry doesn`t lead to relativism and relativism itself can hinder the formation of community of inquiry.

Today، achieving peace in societies will not come about unless it is primarily institutionalized and promoted through continuous education. Philosophy for children (p4c) is a new program which can crucially contribute to this end via its inseparable technique، that is، community of inquiry. In fact، community of inquiry is the miniature of a larger community in which the teacher and students actually practice the dominant rules of a peaceful society. The aim of the present study was to provide an analysis of different components of P4C and world peace as well as to investigate the outcome of implementing P4C in Iran and in the world. The ultimate purpose was to show how strengthening thinking and behavioral skills in children and youngsters could capitulate to the improvement of dialogs and deterioration of disputes among them and thus، replace war with peace