By Martin Hamilton
At the end of each school year, I take time as a teacher and philosopher to look back and reflect about what was learned, how our community developed, and the unforgettable moments I want to celebrate. While there were many notable occurrences this year (2023-24), there was a special moment during the last three weeks of school that beautifully illustrated why I think it is essential to integrate care ethics and epistemology into the work teachers do in schools. In this post, I share this experience, an introduction to the concepts of care ethics and epistemology, and suggestions for how we can promote their development in our students with the hope of supporting other educators in laying the foundation for thriving and meaningful classroom communities.
The Celebration
One of the high points of this past school year was a celebratory moment I had with my class of 4th graders at Makawao Elementary School during one of our regular Philosophy for Children (P4C) discussions. The students had voted to talk about the following question together: “Why do people say there is no such thing as a bad person?” I was excited the group had selected this particular question because one month prior, two students who had been paired together in a small English Language Arts reading group had gotten into an argument about this very question. Time was short when the question was first brought up, so I asked the students to put the question on the wonder wall for a future philosophical inquiry. (The wonder wall is a dedicated place in my classroom where students post questions throughout the week–a place we turn to at the start of every P4C inquiry.) One month later, we finally carved out the time within our busy school schedule to think deeply about this question together.
To begin our P4C inquiry, the originators of the prompt launched into sharing their different opinions with the rest of the class. One of the students asserted that there are most definitely bad people in the world. The other student disagreed, saying that there are no bad people, only bad actions. As more students contributed their ideas to the inquiry, the class began to realize there was a shared underlying assumption in each of these perspectives; both arguments assumed all people have the potential to do bad or good things over time. Debates ensued about whether people should even be categorized as good or bad, and how people might be perceived as being a “bad person” transiently. They also debated about whether categorizing people as good or bad was harmful to them, and whether one should only talk about the actions of others, without classifying them. As the inquiry unfolded, I could see the opinions of the first two students, who strongly disagreed to begin with, transforming into respect for one another's opinions, in part because they realized they shared some foundational assumptions. At the close of the inquiry, my heart was full and I asked the class to celebrate how the intellectually safe community of inquiry we created had allowed us to better understand one another's thinking and see common ground where we could not before.
This particular moment out of the entire school year stuck out to me for these reasons, and it beautifully illustrates why I love doing P4C with my students. The ongoing cultivation of safety in a philosophical community of inquiry allows us to see common ground despite all the assumptions and walls we sometimes put up in our day-to-day lives. Practiced on a regular basis, P4C inquiries give students the chance to bump up against each other's thoughts. They are also given the opportunity to experience what it feels like to live with others in an intellectually safe environment, which ultimately supports their individual and collective growth over time. All of this is an important part of a child’s schooling because it prepares them for similar discussions outside of school or on the playground of life.
So why was this particular P4C inquiry a cause for celebration? From my vantage point as a teacher/philosopher, it is a prime example of how “care ethics and epistemology” can be taught in schools.
Care Ethics and Epistemology
Care theory is a philosophical concept that can inform the work we do as teachers. Nel Noddings “fostered and developed care theory, focusing primarily on the value of relationships.” She notes that “all teachers are moral educators” with a responsibility to produce “better adults” (Noddings, 2015, p. 235) and “education is relation” (Noddings, 2016, p. 67); “therefore, individual receptive actions between carer and cared-for serve as the very foundation for care theory” (Mays, 2020). Care theory broadly surmises that philosophical actions (an event that a person performs with a purpose and intention) are grounded in relational care interactions.
Care theory encapsulates the essential features of ethics, epistemology, ontology, and aesthetics among other branches of philosophy. A subset of care theory is “care ethics,” which is an additional philosophical theory that focuses on the relational ethical interactions we have with one another.
Care ethics sees care as a morally rich and generative notion that should be at the heart of ethical thinking and decision-making (and that is often ignored by other ethical theories). In so doing, care ethics emphasizes the value of people’s relationships, the universality of human dependence on others, the significance of emotions and the body, and the context-sensitive nature of ethical deliberation that does not merely follow abstract moral rules (Kwan, 2023).
Philosophers who are scholars of care ethics do not prescribe what actions are ʻbestʻ because it will not be known how actions affect others until the interaction between others plays out. With that said, philosophers who study care ethics have certain strategies they believe facilitate caring relations and the development of care ethics in humans.
To dig a little deeper, the work of Vrinda Dalmiya (2016) in Caring to Know: Comparative Care Ethics, Feminist Epistemology, and the Mahābhārata makes it clear that care ethics is foundational to an epistemology that requires learning from others through care relations. Additionally, Nell Nodding’s (2005) A Challenge to Care in Schools makes the direct claim that care ethics is needed in schools to foster a meaningful education. In the case of my particular students; their patient and thoughtful interactions with one another showed that by caring for the other's thoughts, even when seemingly different from their own, they were able to learn something new from one another to deepen their thinking.
This might not seem like a novel concept, but when you take a look at the current discourse in society, care ethics and epistemology are not being overtly modeled or highlighted in the media at large. Two recent books take a closer look at this cultural impact: Judith Butler's (2024) Who’s Afraid of Gender and Naomi Klein’s (2023) Doppelganger. Both books see an issue with current discourse, a discourse that many children are both actively and passively absorbing. Klein writes about how people with seemingly similar feelings, for example, fear of internet data collection, can take drastically different approaches to solve the problem. Butler sees a similar issue, people having a similar feeling of fear, for example, the fear of the loss of community and stability in society, but once again there will be two wildly different opinions on what to do about it.
Butler also introduces the concept of ‘phantasm’ to make sense of current discourse. A phantasm is a bundle of feelings and fears that are sutured together to a few signifiers, which a group of people or one person holds in their mind¹. Both authors find that the fear – say of precarity, loss of community, and inequality – are placed into a phantasm (in Nazi Germany this phantasm would have been ʻJews’ or ʻLGBTQAI+ people’), which becomes the new fear. So in current discourse, the vital information about the underlying fear becomes an assumption that is forgotten and the phantasm takes center stage.
I saw many of these philosophical concepts, such as phantasms and fears, play out in my classroom this year. For some reason, my students got into asking questions about ‘monsters’ in the third quarter. Twice we had P4C discussions focused on monsters. The students wondered: “Why do people complain about monsters if they are not real?” and “Why are people afraid of monsters and ghosts?” A few common themes arose during the time we spent talking about both of these student-generated questions. The students were primarily concerned with the fear of the unknown, not knowing if something was in the dark, and being afraid that ʻsomething’ was there. This could be considered a type of phantasm; there is a bundle of fears around the dark and the unknown out there, and one way to manage that fear is to gather all the things you might be scared of and displace those fears onto the idea of “monsters.”
When students showed caring for each other's feelings and used thinking tools they began sharing thoughts that maybe we just make up monsters to explain things we are scared of. This is much different than several discussions I've seen before with students where one group vehemently claimed monsters are real and the other group claimed they are not and shouldnʻt be recognized. Discussions that took that route did not reach a deeper level of understanding of why humans or members of a society might think about “monsters” in the first place. However, when we had the P4C discussions within our intellectually safe and caring community of inquiry, the dialogue helped students think through how fear of monsters might be a phantasm.
Connecting back to the P4C inquiry introduced at the beginning of this blog post about good and bad people; for both Butler and Klein, phantasms are often centered around fears and anxieties, and the discussion of “bad people” followed a similar path. There is a fear of bad things happening, and that fear can be displaced onto bad people. If bad people are removed, those displaced fears should be removed with them. But as my students were discussing this question, they identified that it isn't necessarily the people, but the bad/harmful actions that we are afraid of. By caring for others' thoughts they could face their phantasmal fears without having to reject the ideas of others to protect themselves.
From this overview of current societal discourse, explained by Butler and Klein, and the philosophical care works of Dalmiya and Noddings, my claim is that supporting rigorous and philosophical communication within an intellectually safe community of inquiry will help students navigate these complex discourses and develop the care ethics and epistemology needed today. While there are many ways to support the development of care ethics and epistemology in schools, I want to focus on strategies that help support students' abilities to communicate with care as they engage in group discussions, especially about things they are fearful of. The key practices are: (1) the development of meta-reflection, (2) the development of emotional check-ins, (3) integrating mindfulness curriculum, and (4) teaching thinking tools. Additionally, know that by simply engaging in these open-ended discussions safely, students are strengthening their capacity to learn and implement care theory (Mays, 2020).
Creating an Intellectually and Emotionally Safe Community
In a previous blog post, I wrote quite a bit about setting up an intellectually safe community of inquiry, so here I will focus on how I support the concept of intellectual safety throughout the school year.
Meta-Reflection
I always make time for a meta-reflection at the end of each P4C discussion. I have the class answer at least 2 questions: “ How was our listening?” and “How was our intellectual (or emotional) safety?” Then I invite a student to share. They are encouraged to use reasons or examples to support their response and then give a celebration to a student they felt exemplified good listening or good safety and why. This helps place at the forefront the positive behaviors that help students feel comfortable. I find listening and intellectual safety to be the most important questions to pose because they are intertwined, both in the students' minds and in the philosophy of care ethics. For example, my students often will share that someone was being “intellectually safe” if they were not interrupting and looking like they were listening. This connection is supported in theories of care ethics as Nel Noddings (2005) writes that engrossment in others empties our mind of our own thoughts to allow us to really hear, see, and receive what the others are saying, thus creating a caring relation, which improves safety and trust in the community. This recognition of care is needed in order to build a caring relationship, thus having students share who was being safe supports this caring recognition. However, sometimes this trust is broken. As Dalmiya writes, there is almost an impossibility in being completely nonviolent, including breaking trust or hurting feelings, but what must be done in a care ethic is holding oneself responsible and accountable for the actions one did to harm another (Dalmiya, 2016).
Emotional Check-Ins
There are inevitably times when students feel unsafe in discussions – for example a student bursts into tears after being interrupted – and in these situations I check on students and have them talk to each other about what happened. I like to have students use the framing “I felt____, when you ____, I want you to____”. Then the person who did something unsafe would better understand why what they did was unsafe and try to resolve this feeling so we can continue to have a community of safety in the classroom. The other students can hear the feelings of one and become accountable for the way they caused harm, which can help rebuild trust in the community.
Integrating Mindfulness Curriculum
To support intellectual safety, my grade level counselor, Laura Gregg, and I work together to instill emotional safety in the classroom. Throughout the year we integrate a mindfulness curriculum (I use Mindup and my grade-level counselor uses Mindful Schools) to give students a healthy foundation for emotional wellbeing. Students learn strategies to name and appropriately manage their emotions. This is important for students because naming emotions is foundational for understanding our own assumptions. If we cannot know we are scared or mad we cannot begin to understand the underlying assumptions that are making us scared or mad. In addition to this, our grade level counselor works with me to create group discussions about socially complex topics. For example, “What is drama and how do we feel about it in school?” This environment helps students navigate complex social ideas as a class and helps prepare them for disagreements they may have over different social norms.
I also facilitate this mindfulness foundation by having students practice mindful listening and mindful breathing every day. Mindful listening begins with me ringing a singing bowl or G note, then students listen carefully and raise their hands when they hear the sound stop. I support mindful breathing by asking students to breathe in through their nose like they are smelling something delicious and breathe out like they are blowing bubbles. This is accompanied by a breathing ball I use to visually show breathing in and out slowly. Then at every classroom transition (e.g. entering class after recess, after lunch, and sometimes when we come back from specials) I have students practice these two mindfulness activities. This practice helps support the mindfulness habit. With mindfulness habits established students know how to calm down using the practices even when things get overwhelming. So, if a discussion starts to get overwhelming, or is nearing unsafe discussions, I have the students pause and practice our mindful listening and breathing, after which I’ll have us pause and reflect on the discussion to see if we are starting to become more unsafe or are not listening well.
Teaching Thinking Tools
Teaching and practicing thinking tools with students helps them dig deep into these discussions and use their understanding of safety to learn more about what we are discussing. Thinking tools are a set of cognitive moves that help students understand what is being said and how to gather more information from one another to better understand the question (Yos, 2002). From my studies with philosophy for children Hawaiʻi, I teach the following seven philosophical thinking tools: Inference, Counter-Example, What, Assume, True, Examples, and Reasons (IC WATER).
Inference: Connecting two or more ideas together; If____ Then ___
Counter Example: An example different than what someone else said; Used to add to the discussion and give a different perspective.
What: Used to get more information or clarify ideas; can be who/what/when/where/why
Assume: Identify if we are taking something for granted. For example, asking “Why does everyone hate broccoli” is already assuming everyone dislikes broccoli before supporting that claim with evidence.
True: Identify if something is true Always, Sometimes, or Never. This helps us stay on track with our thinking. Saying “Everyone likes Chocolate” is very different than even “Many people like chocolate”
Examples: Examples of a situation to give context to reasons or the question
Reasons: Supporting information for a claim being made
I have individual lessons and discussions throughout the beginning of the year explaining how each thinking tool is used, and as the year progresses, the thinking tools become part of our every-day interactions with one another.
One tool I want to highlight as especially important is Counter Examples. This tool can be used as a foundation to teach students about care epistemology; and by highlighting this tool we, as teachers, are modeling an example of how to engage ethically in caring (Mays, 2020). As opposed to being used as a tool to prove one is ʻcorrectʻ because they have a different example, I emphasize the way counter-examples add to the discussion. Going back to care theory, the counter-example is a way to show that by caring for the different perspectives of others and creating a space for counter-examples and disagreements, we can improve our understanding. More importantly, as Dalmiya makes known, a virtue of humility is also needed as humility allows for recognition that there are things not known by me, and by this recognition, listening to others and welcoming different perspectives allows others to shine a light onto areas of life and thinking that I would never understand if I was thinking alone. I support this virtue of humility in discussions by emphasizing to students how others' opinions (sometimes phrased as counter-examples) have helped us refine our thinking, and emphasizing that without those other opinions, we would not have gained as much. I usually do this at the end of discussions when I am wrapping up and before I ask the two big questions, “How was our listening?” and “How was our intellectual safety?” with the hopes students will connect the humility of listening to others to these two questions. While this cultivation of care epistemology is always present in the classroom, P4C discussions can be used to focus on how counter-examples open a space to ease our ignorance.
Following up on the value of all the thinking tools and making thinking visible, I also use counters (or ways of tallying how many times we use each tool) in class to track how many thinking tools we use in each discussion. This helps identify how our discussion goes. For example, some days we just have lots of examples and it helps us see that it was a day mostly of sharing, and other days we have lots of “what” statements identifying we were digging deep and were curious about each other's thinking. Finally, around halfway through the year, I have students work with me to help identify the thinking tools being used. This gives each student a chance to become more aware of identifying thinking tools in discussions. These strategies help students understand how thinking is happening and prepare them to dig deep to understand others and new ideas carefully.
Conclusion
As identified by Butler and Klein, the current and dominant culture of discussions in our society at-large does not integrate care ethics and epistemology. As a result, the youth of today do not have enough models of the type of public discourse and inquiry that is needed to build community and solidarity that is needed to solve the problems of today, and more importantly tomorrow. With that said, schools have the power to provide children with the opportunity to both see and experience new possibilities for our world through the little caring communities we create in our classrooms. The joy I experience while teaching with a philosophy of care ethics and epistemology reassures me that this important tenet of progressive education is true, giving me hope and insight into how we can build a better foundation for positive communication in our towns, cities, and country through the work we do in schools. For these reasons, care theory must be foundational in every classroom and school, and caring philosophical discussions can be the method for translating this philosophy of education into practice. By helping to develop a virtue of care in our students, teachers can be instrumental in supporting the creation of intellectual safety with students’ friends, family, and community. When strengthened by philosophical thinking tools, we can also show students how to engage in complex problem-solving that will confront fears to protect and support each other while growing their own knowledge base. By making space for students to practice these strategies in the classroom, teachers have a powerful role in preparing the next generation with the tools they need to face the complex decisions that face our world today and in the future.
Notes
¹ While the full philosophical discussion of how a phantasm forms would be too long for this blog, for the curious, Butler (2024) provides a great explanation at the beginning of the introduction to their book, found here.
References
Butler, J. (2024). Who’s afraid of gender? Macmillan.
Dalmiya, V. (2016). Caring to know: Comparative care ethics, feminist epistemology, and the Mahābhārata (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.
Klein, N. (2023). Doppelganger? Macmillan.
Kwan, J. (2023, May 5). Care ethics. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/care-ethics/care-ethics.html#:~:text=Care%20ethics%20countenances%20caring%20for,at%20stake%20in%20each%20circumstance
Mays, R. (2020). Care Theory. Theoretical models for teaching and research. https://opentext.wsu.edu/theoreticalmodelsforteachingandresearch/chapter/care-theory/
Noddings, N. (2002). Educating moral people: A caring alternative to character education. Teachers College Press.
Noddings, N. (2005). The challenge to care in schools: An alternative approach to education (2nd ed). Teachers College Press.
Yos, T. B.. (2002). Educating for good judgment (Publication No. 3070735) [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. http://search.proquest.com/docview/305537853/abstract/F8DB050B9BC451FPQ/1
About the Contributor
Martin Hamilton was born and raised in ‘Ulupalakaua Maui. They got an undergraduate degree in Philosophy with a minor in Fine Art and a certificate in p4c (philosophy for children). After graduation, Martin returned to UH Mānoa to get an MEd in Elementary Education. During this time they had the great opportunity to student teach across O‘ahu including at Hanahau‘oli School. Now Martin teaches at Makawao Elementary where they use progressive strategies to teach 4th graders.
