The Examined Life

Most young children go through a stage in which they ask, "Why?" No matter what you answer, be it thoughtfully, jokingly, or through clenched teeth, they reply, once more, with "Why?" When our daughter Josephine was in this phase, she encountered another girl who was likewise in it. After going down the "Why?" rabbit whole for several rounds, Josephine finally, in exasperation, said, "Stop asking that question!"

"Why?" is endless. Even when we attempt to shut things down by finally replying, "That's just the way it is," "Why?" is legitimate. It's among the many questions that philosophers have been asking since before there were philosophers. And at the bottom of it all, we know that the truth, the one that every free person must ultimately confront is, "I don't know." And that leaves us with no choice but to turn it around, What do you think?"

I don't know if every teacher must be a philosopher, but as early childhood educators who value inquiry, philosophy is part of the job description.

A person working with young children must constantly confront questions that philosophy has wrestled with for millennia. What is a good life? What is justice? What do we owe one another? What is freedom? What constitutes knowledge? Who has authority, and why? What does it mean to be a person?

Working with young children is necessarily a philosophical undertaking, whether or not the adult recognizes it.

These aren't abstract questions in a preschool. They come up when two children want the same shovel, when a child refuses to join the group, when someone gets hurt, or when an adult decides that a child's behavior needs correcting.

And the adult must respond philosophically. Even the choice to not intervene is a philosophical choice.

Both the beauty and bane of working with young children is that these newly minted human beings have not yet fully internalized the assumptions that the rest of us take for granted. They question things that we've stopped questioning, not necessarily because they're consciously pursuing truth, but rather because the world's conventions are not yet self-evident to them.

They have not yet discovered the frustrations or fear that some of us feel when confronted with yet another "Why?" They haven't yet become so worried about making mistakes or of offending others to know that they are poking around at the unexamined certainty that so many of us cling to in order to survive another day.

"Why?"

It's a profoundly Socratic question, one that pushes the boundaries of knowledge just a little bit further, then a little bit further, and so on. It will always, at some point become uncomfortable which is why we so often attempt to wrap it up with a joke or, like Josephine did, a command to knock it off. But the only valid response, I think is the turn-around, "I don't know. What do you think?" because, with free people, that's where the answer ultimately lies.

And naturally, young children crave certainty. They want to know they are loved unconditionally, for instance. They need to know they are safe and that their basic physiological and psychological needs will be met. They are very young and providing this foundation is the first responsibility of the adults in their lives. And this is what leaves children free to ask "Why?"

Every teacher operates from assumptions about human nature, learning, obedience, freedom, and the purpose of education. A teacher who believes children must be controlled is operating from a philosophy just as surely as one who believes children are competent and deserving of autonomy.

The difference is that the second teacher might have examined those assumptions, while the first might simply have inherited them. Of course, the reverse is also possible.

Socrates, perhaps the best-known teacher in Western history, didn't advocate for a particular philosophy. He simply insisted that we examine the beliefs by which we live.

When children ask "Why?" that is what they are doing. 

And as educators, we owe to both the children in our care, and to ourselves, to examine who we are with children, moment-by-moment, and likewise ask ourselves "Why?"

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Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in ways that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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