Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization

The Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO) is a non-profit membership organization in the United States dedicated to expanding and promoting access to philosophy for young people. PLATO is governed by a staff and board of directors and includes many volunteers. PLATO has played a key role in promoting and expanding Philosophy for Children (P4C), providing training and support to teachers and other educators, and sponsoring P4C conferences and events around the United States and internationally. The organization is funded by donations from individuals, grants from foundations and corporations, and program fees.

Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO)

Established	1996 / 2012
Founder	Jana Mohr Lone, Roberta Israeloff
Focus	expanding access to philosophy
Headquarters	University of Washington (Seattle, WA)
Executive Director	Jana Mohr Lone
Key people	Arik Ben-Avi, Steven Goldberg, Mitch Green, Roberta Israeloff, Joseph Oyler, Wendy Turgeon, Thomas Wartenberg.
Affiliations	American Philosophical Association
Website	plato-philosophy.org
Formerly called	Northwest Center for Philosophy of Children

Mission

PLATO’s mission is to nurture young people’s curiosity, critical thinking, and desire to explore big questions through philosophy and ethics programs for students, educators, and families. PLATO’s work is based on the conviction that every child’s voice matters, and that philosophy helps young people to express their own ideas and questions confidently and well. Offering philosophy to young people, including those whose voices historically have been marginalized, brings needed new perspectives to philosophy and the humanities.

To serve its mission, PLATO provides resources, training, and support to teachers, students, families, and the broader community to help them engage with philosophical ideas and concepts. The organization's programs include training courses and workshops for educators; classes and other programs for K-12 students, including philosopher-in-residence programs; free webinars and other online programs; open-access online resources; whole school programs; two journals; grants to support innovative philosophy programs around the United States; and a biennial conference.

History

1996 - 1997: Center for Philosophy for Children

In 1996, the non-profit Northwest Center for Philosophy of Children was founded by Jana Mohr Lone. That year, she and fellow philosopher David Shapiro started the Philosophers in the Schools program in Seattle and ran the organization’s first workshop for teachers at the University of Washington. The Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children became affiliated with the University of Washington Department of Philosophy in 1997.

2009-2010: The Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization

After a conversation in 2009 about creating an organization for those interested in doing philosophy with young people, Jana Mohr Lone and Roberta Israeloff (director of the Squire Family Foundation) launched PLATO in 2010 as a part of the American Philosophical Association’s (APA) Committee on Pre-College Instruction, with the support of the Squire Family Foundation, the Center for Philosophy for Children, and the APA.

2012: PLATO Becomes a Nonprofit

PLATO became an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Washington state in 2012. The original Advisory Board for PLATO became the Founding Board of Directors, which included: Arik Ben-Avi, Steven Goldberg, Mitch Green, Roberta Israeloff, Jana Mohr Lone, Joseph Oyler, Wendy Turgeon, and Thomas Wartenberg.

2021-2022: PLATO and Center for Philosophy for Children Merger

In 2021, it became apparent that both PLATO and the University of Washington’s Center for Philosophy for Children would benefit by merging into a single, independent nonprofit organization: their missions and goals were fundamentally aligned, many people were involved in both organizations, and both served the same constituents. The merger became official on January 1, 2022.

Notable Initiatives

Philosophers in the Schools and Other Philosophy Programs for K-12 Students

Since 1996, PLATO has run free “Philosophers in the Schools” and family programs in Seattle’s most underserved communities. This program brings regular philosophy classes into schools around the Seattle area, and through a grant from the Whiting Foundation, expanded its philosophers-in-residence program in 2023 to three high schools – in Boston, Philadelphia, and Seattle. The philosophers-in-residence help design new lesson plans, run professional learning community workshops for teachers, mentor college students, lead parent programs, and are available for consultations with both students and teachers. PLATO also offers an array of online philosophy classes for elementary, middle, and high school students.

Online Intensive Program for Educators

Started in 2022, PLATO offers a virtual Intensive Spring Program for educators, Philosophy in Schools. The program runs each spring for 11 weeks and entails philosophical and pedagogical discussions about such topics as how to foster a community of philosophical inquiry, choosing prompts, the nature of philosophical questioning, philosophical sensitivity, epistemic injustice, social inequalities, and philosophical recognition of young people. PLATO also offers regular online workshops for educators.

Philosophy Toolkit

The Philosophy Toolkit is a searchable index of over 250 free philosophy lesson plans for all ages, including a children’s literature library with lesson plans for children’s books. Each lesson plan has content information, recommended grade level(s), and required time for the activity. Topics include ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, fairness, reasoning, morality, identity, beauty, music, friendship, and more.

Grant Program

Since 2016, PLATO has supported a variety of programs oriented towards increasing access to philosophy through the annual PLATO Grant Program. Applications are due each year on January 31, with notifications of awards in March.

Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice (P4) Journal

PLATO’s journal, Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice'' (P4), published its first volume in 2019. P4 is an interdisciplinary, open-access, peer-reviewed online journal for philosophical and/or empirical research on precollege philosophy and its impact and interaction with related areas such as public philosophy, dialogue-based education, ethics education, and human development. In addition to theoretical and empirical research articles, P4 features book reviews relating to the focus areas of the journal. The journal releases a new volume each year.

Questions: Philosophy for Young People Journal

Aligning with PLATO’s mission of supporting young people doing philosophy, Questions: Philosophy for Young People is PLATO’s journal dedicated to publishing K-12 student philosophical works. Ranging from stories and essays to poems, photographs, and drawings, Questions is a unique venue for showcasing young people’s work. Additionally, Questions publishes articles, lesson plans, discussions, book reviews, and more, written by scholars and teachers about doing philosophy with young people. The journal releases a new volume each year.

Biennial Conference

PLATO hosts a Biennial Conference on philosophy education, bringing together educators, scholars, and students from around the world to share ideas and best practices for doing philosophy with young people and the public. PreK-12 educators, graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, administrators, and others interested in ethics and philosophical education offer interactive workshops that help participants apply new ideas to their own contexts and presentations that introduce scholarly viewpoints and model innovative programs.

External links

• Official website