Children’s Philosophy Across The Curriculum In Primary Schools And The Teacher’s Capacity: The Requirements,implementations And Suggestions

This paper spotlights the teaching competencies,attitudes,and behavioral perspectives of primary school teachers on practicing cross-curriculum classes with the means of Children’s Philosophy in Chinese contexts.In this qualitative research study,interviews were collaborated from ten local primary school teachers that coming from 5 primary schools for a deeper understanding of their teaching practice,attitudes,and behavioral perspectives during the engagement of the crosscurriculum classes with Children’s Philosophy’s teaching method.Three experts coming from3 universities were invited to tender counter-assessments to the respective primary schools’ teachers.It is important for us to recognize the inner voice of the teachers,and useful to explore their contradictions between the teaching roles of “knowledge provider” and “competent craftsperson”,as a means to penetrate the knowledge to students through philosophical teaching method during the class.It comes to focus on fundamental questions like “What is a competent teacher of Children’s Philosophy?” and “What teaching quality they should acquire?”.For the theoretical frameworks,theories of Teaching and Curriculum were being used in various aspects such as Philosophy,Pedagogy,and Psychology.Comprehensive analysis emerged the critical challenges that are facing primary school teachers mainly on the elements of teacher’s attitudinal barrier during the manipulation of philosophical teaching methods,and the lack of teaching knowledge that they required.The attitudinal causes are formed in both micro-and macroscopic factors.For the microscopic factor,inadequate support from schools provides less systematic training opportunities,which leading to the consequences of misunderstanding of the concept of Children’s Philosophy and insufficient teaching knowledge of the teachers.Besides,peers’ communication focusing on instrumental but not philosophical discussion weakens the interactive learning atmosphere in schools.For the macroscopic factor,Children’s Philosophy is not an official subject in compulsory education and neither a consideration of teacher’s assessment under the “Teachers’ Performance Efficiency” system.Teachers’ role is voluntary but not mandatory,teacher’s engagement and teaching progress is highly subject to teachers’ self-motivation.For the suggestions of improvement,the incrementation of Children’s Philosophy as an official subject in primary schools is recommended;In-schools training and support centers to provide professional teaching assistance;urges the awareness of teachers to be reflective professionals to reduce demoralization of teaching practice;create a user-friendly learning environment for teachers to prevent dissimilation are also suggested.