Philocreation
Philocreation™ captures the combined role of philosophical inquiry and of imaginative engagement with different forms of agency through immersion in creative projects that vary widely from artistic to activistic pursuits. Designed by the educational charity Brila Youth Projects, this unique approach to P4C was born out of a need to honour the diversity of youth (e.g., Indigenous, disadvantaged, neurodiverse, refugee, or immigrant children and adolescents). Its different types of dialogues build in components that are not focused solely on talk—such as written, image and movement-based exchanges—in order to reflect a variety of learning styles and emphasize the embodied, affective dimensions of philosophical inquiry (Fletcher, 2018). At the heart of the philocreation approach, “Owl Challenges” invite youth to to put into practice the very same thinking tools and dispositions that are mobilized by philosophical inquiry in order to address a given social issue by justifying their creative choices in the same way that they would with their philosophical positions, albeit through a practical project which allows them to test and broaden their theoretical claims. The production of philozines—mini-publications produced from mixed media—offer youth the opportunity to ground and share the existential meanings of their perspectives, while the use of philosograms—a metacognitive mapping tool—helps them give meaning to their phenomenological experiences of philosophical practice with others. This multifaceted imaginative engagement aims to help youth see philosophical inquiry not merely as a mental exercise, but rather as an accessible process that can extend to meaning-making in their daily encounters.
For a more complete picture of the philocreation approach, please see the text "Underestimated No More: An Introduction to Philocreation."