Greece Travel – Philosophy For KIDS
Greece Travel – Philosophy for kids
Quick…what do you remember from your studies of philosophy? If you are like me…mostly what I remember is that philosophy was a pretty dull class. So, why should you think about philosophy before a vacation? I mean…it is a vacation, right? Philosophy for kids opens their eyes to so much!
Relax, philosophy for kids isn’t automatically boring.
As a matter of fact, when you can pick and choose what you want to learn anything is really interesting! Better than THAT, introducing philosophy to the kids is a great way to give them a head start in life, increase valuable critical thinking skills, and give them the power to analyze their life in a way nothing else can. Give YOUR kids the power to make EXCELLENT decisions in life AND enjoy the trip to Greece even MORE than you thought possible! Teach philosophy for kids. Boom! You are parent of the year!
Philosophy for KIDS – Only the interesting parts!
Kids are actually really good at philosophical thinking! Remember…these are the kids that manage to come up with questions like “Where does the wind go?” As kids grow and explore the world they have questions and their minds are able to take in and roll around all sorts of ideas.
M. Sowey, owner of The Philosophy Club, teaches philosophy to kids and has this to say,
“…kids, too, have the capacity to enquire philosophically from an early age. They’re nimble in playing with ideas and deft in building on each other’s arguments. They’re endlessly inquisitive, wondering about values (“What’s the most treasured object in the world?”), metaphysics (“Is the earth a coincidence?”), language (“If cavemen just went ‘ugh-ugh-ugh’, how did we learn to speak?”) and epistemology (“Since you can have dreams inside dreams, how can you know when you’re dreaming?”).”
Once upon a time, child ‘experts’ thought young kids were not capable of such thoughts on thinking about thinking, but….they were wrong! Studies have shown that not only are kids capable of discussing philosophy, but test scores indicate discussions about philosophy increase test scores in several areas – not just testing areas but they showed increased participation, better behavior and even greater confidence! We can all agree those are the areas that count in life!
While I think standardized tests are the devil, they are a necessary evil in our world AND kids that do well in school and on tests…do well in life.
Enjoy these quotes by philosophers and use them as conversation starters with your kids! Enjoy the discussions! For our trip to Greece, I’ve written the quotes on slips of paper to give out each morning at breakfast. I can’t wait to hear what the kids have to say.
Greece Travel – Philosophy for KIDS – Socrates
Socrates was the founder of Western philosophy. Introduce his name to your kids and they’ll enjoy their later philosophy classes all the more!
Some of Socrates’ famous quotes:
“Wisdom begins in wonder.”
“An unexamined life is not worth living.”
“There is only one good – knowledge and one evil – ignorance.”
“Strong ideas discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.” (I’ve often seen this incorrectly attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt.)
Your tween will love this one because of the sarcastic flair. (My teen isn’t the only one who loves sarcasm, right?) When Socrates was being accused of corrupting youth with his teaching, he addressed the court.. “I do not know what effect my accusers have had upon you gentlemen, but for my own part, I was carried away by them; their arguments were so convincing. On the other hand, scarcely a word of what they said was true.”
Greece Travel – Philosophy for KIDS – Plato
Plato was Socrates’ student and a prolific writer. All we know about Socrates is from Plato’s writing.
“There is no harm in repeating a good thing”
“Necessity – the mother of invention.”
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
” Be kind, for everyone you might meet is fighting a hard battle.”
“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”
Greece Travel – Philosophy for KIDS – Aristotle
Aristotle was Plato’s student.
“Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.”
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
He came up with the argument based on this logical structure. We’ve all heard!
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
Greece Travel – Philosophy for KIDS – Pythagoras
Pythagoras, we know this guy from the Pythagorean theorem, remember it? To refresh your memory, ” square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides”.
I especially like these two quotes and inspite of the fact that Pythagoras lived a LONG time ago – 570-495 BC, these quotes are still applicable today. Wisdom is truly timeless. Share it with your kids!
“The oldest, shortest words – ‘yes’ and ‘no’ – are those which require the most thought.”
“Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please.”
If your travels bring you to the beautiful country of GREECE, you’ll love these related posts on Greece Travel:
Books on Greece – for kids like cliff notes for the grown ups
Cool information on Greece – olive oil, bread and tea
Traveling with the kids builds memories to last a lifetime. Have fun and make your kids smarter and your family stronger with family vacations!
Multi-generational travel builds strong families!
Keep kids busy and happy on a plane!
OPA! Happy Greece Travels,
Natalie, The Educational Tourist
This post says that philosophy is always not so boring. In fact I may not be with this point, but here its the case of kids. Philosophy for Kids shouldn’t be boring obviously. 😛
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but I love reading your posts so much! I have an incredibly short attention span but LOVE learning, and you really capture my focus, attention AND brain! I know a lot of your stuff are aimed at teaching kids, but you certainly make it fun for adults (sort of – does 24 count?! I don’t feel like a grown-up yet!) too. Before reading this I’d heard of these philosophers (who hasn’t?!) but wasn’t so clued up as to who they were/what they did. Now I’ll be quoting Socrates all day!
This is just the sweetest thing for you to say!! Thanks SOO much! I like to think of my travel guides and info as Cliff Notes for adults. 🙂
Haha I love the idea that philosophy for kids shouldn’t be boring and therefore adults should be able to enjoy it too! I might have to apply that to everything. I think teaching kids a bit about history and philosophy before visiting somewhere like Greece is a great idea!
This is a great idea! I think many kids would love doing this activity and could learn a lot. I especially like this one for kids “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” Kids get bored a lot so I could see how this quote could be used as a teaching tool for that. I’m pretty sure I could learn a great deal from reflecting on these as well!
Greece is absolutely the best place to begin teaching kids about philosophy. There is so much history there surrounding it. I would not have thought of this until you mentioned it. It will be way more interesting to learn it there than in a classroom!
I love that you ask your kids philosophical questions at breakfast! What a great way to wake up their minds! I’m a big fan of focusing on the interesting areas of any subject when talking with kids. I’m excited to incorporate ideas like this in our travels as my children get older.
They look forward to the breakfast readings. This trip is was philosophical quotes but for our Rome trip each morning was an idiom. There are so many that go with Italy and Rome like, “All roads lead to Rome” for example. Lots of fun conversations!
I’m visiting Greece this winter and I’ve learnt a lot about Philosophy in this post, you could change the name of the post, Philosophy for kids and adults. The only one I remember is Pythagorean theorem but kids are still learning this at school so it should be fresh in their minds. My favourite quote from Plato, Aristotle and Socrates is “There is no harm in repeating a good thing”, there are some very positive quotes in there!
Thank you so much! I’d love to somehow get across that my website is for the whole family!!
Great post; there’s nothing like getting kids interested in a topic by going to the relevant place and getting stuck in! This is something I’ll be doing with my kids when they’re a little older – I like your idea of giving them the quotes to think about over breakfast!
WOW! Kids and philosophy? Sounds oxymoronic but you make it so interesting. Loved reading your post. I am sure kids would love it too.
You must be the coolest mom! I even loved this as an adult and I really want to visit Greece because everything about it is so interesting. I love how you took a “deep” subject and turned it into something fun and educational!
Thank you so much!! Every mom wants to be the cool mom. 😉