In the elementary school “Kovačići” Sarajevo, the teacher of technical culture and informatics, Benjamin Topalčević, held a class using the Philosophy for Children P4C method to encourage critical thinking in children.
In the Fundamentals of Techniques class, a philosophical questioning was held with students of the 5th grade on the topic: Introduction to practical work – Making wallets from textile. An image of a technical culture lesson is used as an incentive, on the basis of which the students should have assessed how practical work should be done and what we must take into account when creating it. After the presented instructions, the students started working and wrote down big ideas on papers that they placed in the center of the circle. After reading the ideas, philosophical questions were formed.
When the philosophical questions were presented in the circle, the students voted for the main questions. The students noticed the details of the stimulus very well and often asked questions and explained what they saw. Through the discussion, they talked about what is good and what is a limitation. Sometimes the students went outside the scope of the lesson, but the leader included them and brought them back to the original topic.
At the end, the conclusions were drawn that it is useful to do practical work, that by doing practical work they practice and learn how to do something useful for the community, and that practical work prepares them for life.
