Lynda asked:

I am currently taking a philosophy class for children. We have to make a manual for a children's book.
The book is Rainbow Fish. Some of the topics I picked are Beauty — What makes something
beautiful? Sharing — How much do we share? Friendship — what makes someone a friend? If
someone is untrustworthy are they still a friend? I am having a hard time making up philosophical
questions regarding the topics of friendship, beauty and sharing. Any advice?

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I am a teacher in a Montessori nursery school, working with children from 2 years — about 4. They
are a bit young for philosophical enquiry, most of them, but I did my degree in Philosophy and so am
interested in Philosophy with Children.

I have had some involvement with SAPERE ( http://www.sapere.net), the British association for
Philosophy with Children. An associated organization, Dialogueworks
( http://www.dialogueworks.co.uk), produces a resource called Storywisethat gives ideas for how to
use selected picture books as stimuli for Philosophy with Children.

I always understood that it was normal in Philosophy with Children to ask the children to formulate
questions that interest them, so I'm not sure quite why you need to concern yourself with making up
too many of the questions. Which questions would be most effective will depend very much on the
age of the children you are teaching, which you do not state in your question.

Here are a few questions that occur to me as I read through The Rainbow Fish.Most of them are not
abstract philosophical questions, but you might want to start from more practical questions that the
children can answer by reflecting on their own experience, and gradually move to larger, more
abstract issues.

Friendship: Would you want to play with a proud and silentperson (as the Rainbow Fish is described
at the beginning of the story)?

Why did the incident with the little blue fish suddenly make the other fish stop wanting to play with
Rainbow Fish? (couldn't they see before how proud and haughty he was?).

"Why doesn't anybody like me?" Rainbow Fish asks the starfish. Why don't they like him?

(All these questions are about what qualities are likeable, the qualities of a good friend, and how they
can be recognized.)

Beauty: Why is Rainbow Fish beautiful? Is Rainbow Fish beautiful? Rainbow Fish is male. Can males
(male fish? men? boys?) be beautiful?

(All these questions are about what qualities make something beautiful, and how we decide whether
something is beautiful.)

Sharing: Should Rainbow Fish have to give everyone presents in order to win their friendship?

Rainbow Fish is not actually sharing his scales, but giving them away — giving away his most prized
possessions. Can we become happy by giving away our possessions?

(These questions are about why sharing, or perhaps generosity, is valued, and why we should share.)

Katharine Hunt

I don't know the book Rainbow Fish.However, you have already identified the themes. You also have
a couple of good questions on each of the themes. How do you go on from there?

There are several ways. Firstly, you could look at a philosophical account of each of your themes.
What issues get raised? What are the difficulties? Then you need to try to devise a set of questions
that will lead children to asking, and attempting to answer, these questions.

I always think that the best way to get a good, flowing set of questions is to start in the concrete —
either the text of the book itself, or in the lives of the children (or both). Look for the problematic there.
What difficulties or puzzles did the characters in the book have with (say) friendship? What
experience do the children have of friendship — and what difficulties might arise? Then you can
gradually ask a series of questions that moves from these particularities towards more general and
abstract questions.

Of course, another way to devise your questions is to look at the examples of manuals that have
already been written, and to modify and adapt them. Look for the general principles that seem to lie
behind the way they were put together, and use them in your own task. I'm not sure what access you
have to these, though.

Tim Sprod

Friendship: what makes someone a good friend? A bad friend? Who is your best friend and why?
What makes someone trustworthy? Think about examples. (e.g. if I steal someone's toy and my
friend tells the teacher, is she being a bad friend? why or why not?)

Sharing: What kinds of things do we share? With whom? Do we share different things with different
people? Why might we not want to share things with someone? You can link this to questions about
friends. What do we share with friends? Again examples might be helpful.

Beauty: different kinds of things that are beautiful — flowers, pictures, people.... words, sounds,
images.... Is a flower beautiful in the same way as a picture of a flower? Is a real thing more beautiful
than a picture? What makes a person beautiful? Why do we like beautiful things?

Berta Black

Friendship gives rise to several important questions in normative ethics. What special duties are
owed to friends? If I have a choice between helping a friend and helping a stranger, where the
stranger needs help more than the friend does, whom should I help?

Sharing: How far does our duty to share extend? If I have plenty of food, and others around me are
starving, then most people think I should share some of my food with them. But how much? Do I have
to keep giving until I'm as hungry as they are? Or where do I draw the line?

Jonathan Ichikawa