Teaching Philosophy to Grade 6 Students

My teaching philosophy is grounded in the belief that I should build positive relationships with my students. I try to do this through honest and open discussions where we explore real-world issues and try to make sense of the world together.

Last week, I experimented with a couple of basic introductory philosophy lessons with my Grade 6 students and was humbled to see how engaged they were. These lessons allowed us, as a class, to explore some very challenging questions. Here, I want to share a few of the activities we did.

🧠 Activity 1: Big Questions Circle

The first activity was simple but powerful. I asked students a set of philosophical questions designed to show them that philosophy is an open-ended subject that touches on many areas of knowledge. Here are the questions we used:

1. What is happiness, and where does it come from?

2. Is it ever okay to lie? Why or why not?

3. Do animals have rights like humans do?

4. Can you be rich and still be unhappy?

5. What makes something right or wrong?

6. Are we in control of our own choices, or is everything already decided?

7. What makes someone a “good” person?

8. Can something be true for one person but not for another?

9. Do we need rules to be free?

10. If you could live forever, would you want to? Why or why not?

Here’s how it worked. I presented each question one at a time. For every question, I gave students a minute to think quietly about their ideas. Then, we had an open class discussion, exploring different perspectives and ways of thinking about the topic.

At the end of the activity, I asked students to share how they would define philosophy. Some of my favorite responses were:

• “The art of thinking”

• “Answering difficult questions”

• “Coming up with new ideas”

🔍 Activity 2: What Is Philosophy?

Rather than seeing philosophy as a fixed area of knowledge, I wanted students to view it as a process. So, for our next activity, we worked with a definition of philosophy and broke it down together to better understand its meaning.

I used a definition by American philosopher William Joseph Rapaport, from his article “What Is Philosophy? A Brief Essay”, which you can find here: 

This is the definition he gives for philosophy:

the personal search for truth, in any field, by rational means

Based on this definition, students considered these five guiding questions (also drawn from Rapaport’s article):

1. Why only "personal"? (Why not "universal"?)

2. What is "truth"?

3. Why is philosophy only the search for truth? Can we succeed in our search?

4. What does "any field" mean? Is philosophy really the study of anything and everything?

5. What counts as being "rational"?

After the discussion, we broke the definition into its four parts and explored what each one means in simple terms.

Through these activities, I hope I was able to demystify the subject of philosophy and make it feel more accessible and relevant for my students. It was deeply rewarding to watch them think deeply, express uncertainty, and embrace different viewpoints.

And hopefully, this post helps you bring a little more philosophy into your own classroom too!