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Go Socratic Kids

Turn your kids into Socrates - but without the toga

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About

This is our family. And this is about the best we could do to get everyone to smile at the same time. There’s a lot of us which has me doing many things. Mostly I change batteries and get people snacks because I’m a dad. But a long time ago I started my college path by taking Philosophy 101 because it fit nicely in a schedule gap between Anthropology and Biology. I had just graduated high school and picked classes based on course names sounding like something an 80s film character would take.

The philosophy class was taught by a professor who wore tie-dyed t-shirts, looked like Jerry Garcia and led us through breathing exercises. He also introduced us to Plato’s concept of forms which shifted a paradigm for me when it came to learning. Instead of being given a bunch of facts to memorize for a test, I got to think about things like ‘what is the ideal friendship’ or ‘what is the optimal number of donuts for breakfast’. I found that I loved to do this type of thinking. Needless to say, I also bought the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty on CD that year.

But back to being a dad. I love to read with my kids and better yet, have them read to me. One day I was going through this old antique collection of books from the late 19th century that my wife Emily bought at a library book sale. The books were falling apart but they were full of old classics including Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. I decided to read it with my 8 & 9 year old kids having them take turn reading the role of Socrates. They had loads of questions and put their imaginations to work in deciding how they would handle themselves in a similar situation. Listening to them discuss and probe deeper with their questions was like magic at work.

This made me jump into creating study plans for us to explore other philosophical works. I’m not a professor and these plans aren’t intended to be academically rigorous. The intention of my study plans are to guide our approach in two ways:

  1. Short topics that we can discuss in one session. Topics include a range of subjects such as friendship, identity, ethics and how to better scrutinize information on the internet. I post these shorter exercises, complete with activities or thought-exercises, on this site.
  2. Longer study plans that allow us to dig a little deeper and will span several sessions. I also want to give them exposure to the original texts (or translations) but in chunks suitable for their age. This doesn’t mean we go nuts and read Hegel or Kant — but Plato, Aristotle and Descartes are a good start.

Other goals I have as we go through our discussions:

  • Help guide my kids to understand the arguments.
  • Encourage them to look at counter-examples.
  • Build experience looking at things from different angles.
  • To ask good questions.

So this is my site to share the lessons we do in our family. I hope they can be useful to others.

Contact: mail@gosocratickids.com


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About Me

Hi, I'm Matt. I tried a crazy experiment with my 8 & 9 year old kids and read Plato with them. Yeah, that ancient greek guy. They were engaged and asked great questions which made me realize how well philosophy can encourage their critical thinking. It sparked a project to create study guides for us to explore other philosophical works. [More]

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Purchase Study Guides

20 Fun Lessons In Philosophy

What if an evil scientist switched your brain with Justin Bieber’s? Is there freewill to change who we are? What can the Kanye West of ancient Athens teach us about a simple life. Explore 20 short and fun topics in philosophy together with your kids. Buy eBook – $12.99 Buy Print Copy – $24.99 We […]

3 Classics: Philosophy Lessons For Kids

Introduce your kids to 3 classic philosophical works from Plato, Aristotle and Rene Descartes for one lower price than buying separately.

What Did Aristotle Look For In A BFF? On Friendship - Aristotle

Can you guess Aristotle’s opinion on Instagram followers and Facebook friends? Turns out, he gives us a pretty good answer. What do you think makes a good friendship? How many friends can we have? Try to apply old ideas to modern concepts of friendship.

Are You For Real!? Meditations On First Philosophy - René Descartes

How do I know if I’m real? Are my senses fooling me? Am I dreaming or am I really riding this ostrich on top of the White House? Join us as we dig into René Descartes’ Meditations about what truly exists and what is suspect to doubt.

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