About the Project

The module is organised by the discipline of philosophy at the University of Galway . It is co-taught by Dr Lucy Elvis, with Dr Michela Dianetti or Dr Orla Richardson.

This project was initially funded by the University of Galway Student Project Fund. The initial module design was completed by Lucy Elvis, Heike Felzmann, Annie O’Donovan and Orla Richardson.

In the ‘Community of Philosophical Inquiry’ (CPI), members identify concepts through sharing an experience, create enduring higher-order questions about these ideas, and collaboratively build answers to these questions through facilitated group dialogue. Meta-cognitive reflection at the end of each session supports the group to appraise the quality of their thinking both collectively and individually.

Bringing a practice like this to school creates a unique opportunity for thinking together and for connecting knowledge across the curriculum with the lives children are living beyond the classroom.

Over the course of the semester, students engage in four weeks of theoretical lectures, where the radical roots of this pedagogical approach and the foundations of philosophical dialogue in the history of Western thought are explored.

During a bespoke training weekend, students experience what it means to participate in and facilitate a community of inquiry. They explore how to design activities that support good thinking and bring democratic practice to life. They learn how to recognise, model and acknowledge dialogical moves such as: reason-giving, providing examples and counter-examples, drawing distinctions or, creating analogies and metaphors. Developing these capacities not only enables student facilitators to identify children's thinking, but are also a powerful set of transferable skills that support excellent academic writing and clear communication of complex ideas outside the academy.

Students' six weeks of practice in schools are supported by close mentoring and theory-to-practice reflection and session design classes on campus.

The semester closes with an in-class celebration where the thinking and contributions of students are anonymously acknowledged through messages from their peers and their instructors. This moment is a meaningful way that, beyond their grade, student facilitators see the impact their work has had.

The module takes place in both semesters and has become a key motivator for JYA students choosing the University of Galway and a key feature of undergraute experience in philosophy. It has built meaningful, lasting connections with local schools, fostered new community partnerships, inspired new theoretical research and public philosophy practices.