Forget Toys: French Kids Try Philosophy

PARIS, June 3, 2010— -- While young Americans spend time playing video games or ball in their backyards, French kids who invite friends over for afternoon snacks are leaving such playthings behind for a much deeper activity: to debate the meaning of life, death and love.

Les goûters philos, philosophical afternoon snacks or teas, are a growing trend in France where families have become convinced that children should tackle metaphysical issues at an early age when children start asking existential questions.

The idea of the goûters philos is to have the children discuss and hammer out such issues for an hour, over cakes and fruit juice.

"I do not control the content of the discussion, I'm present to guide the children in their thoughts," Sophie Geoffrion, a philosophy teacher and founder of Philoland, an association offering different kinds of activities around philosophy, said.

"They are free to contradict themselves, to confront with each other, all of this in a nice way," she said. "The goûter allows children to expand their ability to think for themselves and to expand their critical thinking.

"Children are asking themselves questions and are asking their parents questions as well," said Geoffrion, who regularly intervenes in schools, public libraries and at privates homes. "Parents are often lacking an answer."

But parents wrongly think that philosophy can provide an answer, she said. "The philosophy does not find a solution to a question asked by a child," Geoffrion said. "But it will raise questions around a discussion.

"Kids love it. They have karate or dance classes and philo, it's really an activity like any other one."

Oscar Vennin, 12, gathers with his philosopher friends once a month at Le Petit Monceau café in Paris for a café philo. Recent topics included death, truth, lies, fighting. "In these gatherings, we can compare our points of view on a topic" Oscar said. "There is a real discussion among us and it's very interesting."

Dubbed the "mini-Kants" (for 18th century influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant) by the French Philosophie magazine, the group counts about 10 children ages 8 to 13 and plans its future sessions by communicating via the social networking website Facebook.