Why am I here? The challenges of exploring children's existential questions in the community of inquiry

Abstract

Children ask existential questions-that is, questions about death, the meaning of existence, free will, God, the origin of everything, and kindred questions. P4/wC has aspires to give to children the occasion to discover and explore such questions in a safe environment, the community of inquiry (COI). However, it is unclear whether the pedagogy of the community of inquiry can accommodate existential questioning. The chief trouble is that existential questioning might be a cause of suffering: children might be unable to contain the emotional intensity that is experienced when we inquire about topics like death and the meaning of existence. In this paper I highlight some of the main challenges that we need to face if we want to make room for existential questioning in a COI. First, I discuss the view that existential questioning should be avoided in education because it is a cause of suffering. This view is rejected on the ground that existential questioning is unavoidable and that evading the issue might cause more harm than good. Then I argue that existential questions are poorly represented in the original Lipman-Sharp curriculum, and that as a result facilitators lack resources to encourage and sustain existential questioning. Finally, by highlighting some difficulties we might encounter in facilitating existential questioning in a COI, I argue that there is a tension between two key aspirations of P4/wC-namely the aim of fostering inquiry and the aim of taking care of the emotional safety of the children.