The Philosophical Human Bar Chart

In this back-to-school issue (in the UK at least), an idea from Wednesday’s INSET at Winterbourne Junior School for Girls – a new Thinkers’ Game that makes the thinking physical – and doubles up as maths revision! I’ll give the “match report” of this discussion, and then some suggestions for how you could use it in other contexts. But before that…
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EarlyBird Offer Extended
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As many schools have only just been issued with their new budget, we’ve extended the EarlyBird offer on the new Primary Curriculum Pack until the 20th September. So for the SlightlyLaterBird, it’s still £199 + VAT rather than £249 + VAT for an indexed compendium of 100 Spot and Stripe videos and over 160 sessions plans and teacher support ideas. See https://www.thephilosophyman.com/primary-pack
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The Philosophical Human Bar Chart 
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As with all Thinkers’ Games, there are four stages – Think, Commit, Justify and Reflect.
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They have four houses named after great women which feature in this display in the hall.
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THINK about a question on which reasonable people can disagree. We started with the concept of power. Which of these women is/was the most powerful during their lifetime?
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COMMIT by making the thinking physical. Stand by your choice, forming into a human “bar” that quickly shows the extent of support for each option.
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JUSTIFY your answer by sharing your reasons in discussion. This lead on to discussing different kinds of power, which is often a feature of discussions of rich, ambiguous concepts.
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REFLECT on what you’ve heard and show if you’ve changed your mind.
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We repeated the exercise with the concept of bravery. You can reuse the same 4 options for multiple questions. Pin the options to the wall so they can seen easily.
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Human Bar Charts Across the Curriculum
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The Three Little Pigs (and the Wolf to make 4, which is a good number of options for this activity). Which character was the most stupid, lucky, kind.
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Human Rights. Which is most important out of the right to a fair trial, the right to vote, freedom of religion, the right to the protection of property
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Peer pressure. Which is the strongest motivator for people going along with something they don’t think is right? Not standing out, gaining status, being part of a group, enjoying danger.
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Best wishes,
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Jason

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