In 1996 Journal 100 started to exist.
It is a journal that is produced by six schools from six regions of the European Union:
The Netherlands, Flanders (Belgium), United Kingdom, Catalonia (Spain), Portugal and Italy. Sofar, these six schools have produced two issues of 100.
Journal 100 is one of the first concrete projects of the Stichting Sophia. In 1992, sixteen persons from different European Centers of philosophy for children came together in Barcelona, Spain, to set up an organization: Stichting Sophia, European Foundation for Philosophical Inquiry with Children. In 1993 this foundation was formally registered in Amsterdam, where it is connected to the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Amsterdam.
Sophia is set up to establish a network within Europe of organizations and persons committed to the implementation of doing philosophy inside educational institutes Most of these centers started translating one or more of Lipman's stories and manuals. One of the first concrete projects of Sohpia is journal 100 which is a collaboration of six different countries. The journal is printed in five languages: Dutch, English, Catalan, Portuguese and Italian.
The idea for such a journal was born during this meeting in Barcelona. There I imagined the idea of a journal for children thinking philosophically as a follow-up of what once existed in Poland: the Little Review.
During the twenties this was a journal for children that was set up by Janusz Korczak, who was a Polish pedagogue and director of an orphanage in Warsaw, Poland.This journal, the Little Review, had an editorial board with children aged between 8 and 14. Children from all over Poland traveled every month by train to Warsaw (sometimes more than 500 km) to join the editorial board of the Little Review, which would appear every friday as a supplement to a daily Jewish newsletter called Our Review. Korczak motivated the start of this journal like this:
'I didn't know what to do with myself, so I started writing books. But writing books takes a long time, and I don't have enough patience. It takes a lot of paper too, and your hand aches. So I thought maybe it's better to start a newspaper, because then the readers will help you. I cannot do it alone.' (1)
That was the way he invited children to take part in the journal and they were supposed to write about the things that made them both happy and sad. The following case is a very nice example of the way Korczak dealt with his editiorial board.
One day Balcerak had to admit to Korczak that he had run out of ideas.
'Nonsense,' Korczak replied, 'Do you have a desk in your room?'
'Yes, but only one drawer is mine.'
'Is it neat?'
'No, it's a mess. Mom's always after me.'
'Well, then dump the contents on the floor and sort through them. Everything has a history, so all you have to do is write the stories connected to them.' And so Balcerak published his 'Stories from a drawer'.
Of course there were adult critics of the Little Review, one critic claimed that such an initiative produced 'big heads on little shoulders'.
Since the twenties, in many different countries journals of children to children were started and all of them failed to continue. Still, there was enough energy to start this journal that focuses on the exchange of children's thinking, as is explained in the subtitle: European children thinking together. It is important to emphasize that this is the English subtitle, for instance the Portuguese subtitle is: O gosto de pensar - Jornal Europeu de Criancas (literally meaning: the pleasure of thinking - European Journal for Children). For the time being the journal is published twice a year, although there are plans to publish an issue every three months.
The name '100' was chosen because a number can function as a logo in the different languages. It was complicated to find a word, even a new word, that was acceptable in all these languages, so finally the title became a number. Numbers are all written the same but pronounced differently. This seemed to be a good combination of what Europe is: unity in diversity. Of course, children are aware of the amount of numbers that exist, so why specifically number 100? Because it is a beautiful number and there is a fine story connected to this number that will travel together with this title. To explain the title means to tell the following story, that was printed on the cover of the first issue:
"There is a beautiful story why this journal is called 100. The story is about a man who lived in Poland before World War Two. His name is Janusz Korczak.
Korczak was director of an orphanage in Poland. He was also editor and organizer of a weekly Polish journal for children with a real children's editorial board. Korzak was convinced that children were not enough respected and appreciated. He was convinced they were not taken seriously. He did not like this. Therefore he started a children's journal with writings of children themselves. There was a boy called Alexander Ramati, nine years old, who traveled several times a year a few hundred kilometers by train to be present at the children's editorial meetings.
In the orphanage of Korczak existed a tribunal who had to judge about all the problems among children. This tribunal existed of five child judges who were chosen every month by all the children of the orphanage. Korczak said: 'This tribunal is not justice, but it strives for justice.' Everybody who thought he or she was treated unfair, was able to lay down a charge. And about the judges said Korczak: 'Judges can make mistakes. They may punish for acts they themselves are guilty of. But it is shameful if a judge consciously hands down an unjust verdict.' The tribunal just pronounced an article from a list of a thousand articles. The first article said: 'Charge is withdrawn.' Article 100 was the dividing line between forgiveness and censure. Article 100 said: 'Without granting pardon, the court states that you committed the act with which you are charged.' Even Korczak himself was charged by children. The worst punishment Korzak ever got from this tribunal was article 100. To keep this story alive of a man who organized a children's tribunal and a children's journal, this journal is called: 100."
The six schools that join this project are all primary schools who started to add philosophy to their curriculum during the last ten years. In most cases these schools were in their region one of the first to start such lessons.
This project was made possible by a grant from an European educational program called: Socrates Comenius action one, that is funding common projects of primary and secundary schools from countries within the European Union. The funding is decentralized: each school gets its grant from a national agent.
The initial idea for the journal was like this: it should provide a European platform for children to present their own results of philosophical thinking, to show that the thinking of children can be considered as a contribution to our culture. This does not mean that the journal has the pretention to show that children have (historical) new ideas about old philosophical questions, because this is rarely the case. It is much more concerned with the import of individual discoveries of children as a qualified element in building one's own personality and improving one's own thinking. Personal discoveries are important, because they shape the forming of your personality, and must be registered to be recognized as such. Even if personal discoveries are plainly false, like 'you cannot make new words, because there are no more letters', this argument itself is for the child a discovery. Discoveries even if they are false, are an influential element in personal learning processes. Once that one has made up his or her mind about a specific question and one has formulated an answer, this answer is available for change. If one has not formulated any answers at all to questions like 'Can you make new words?', one is unable to compare the results of his or her own thinking and argumentation with that of others, for there is nothing to compare it with. One of the ideas behind the journal is to show pieces of argumentation even if it is clear for everybody that the argumentation is false. Quotes like the above one stimulate others to discuss and think about the relation between letters and new words. The journal can function as a means of registration and presentation, to show to other children the importance of writing down the results of their own thinking processes.
The journal has quite a different impact on some adults. It helps them to get back to their own childhood by reading the quotes from children who think aloud about difficult questions, they remember their own answers as a child and compare these with the answers of today's children.
The first issue of journal 100 was organized around five different questions that I deliberately selected to present the idea of the philosophical journal to the children. The five questions were:
a. What can children do better than adults?
b. What do you consider to be the best human invention?
c. What do you think a twelve year old child will enjoy most in 2095?
d. What is most unfair at this moment in your life?
e. What is the first question a human being has ever asked?
These five questions were discussed in all the participating schools. In these schools an editorial board was already organized to select the articles from the school to be published in the journal. In other schools this process was a bit slower, but all the articles for the second issue went through a selection process of editorial boards of children. In the first issue every school had one page. In the schools the teachers experienced that this project stimulated philosophical writings. Sofar, in most schools philosophy was mainly connected to dialogue, now writing is becoming an extra dimension of doing philosophy in class.
For the second issue we used the same format, but this time the questions were grouped around one theme: language. Given all the problems we had to face because of the five different languages and all the necessary translations vice versa, it seemed logical to discuss the subject of language itself. We selected the following questions:
a . Would it be better if everybody spoke the same language?
b. Would you be the same person if your name changed every year?
c. Where do words come from?
d. Is talking to yourself the same as thinking?
e. Can you have a spoken language without ever having any contact with human beings?
f. Can you make new words?
For the third issue we will use a different format. We start with one story about art, then we present the questions which are collected from the different schools. One school will select a few questions that will be discussed in all the schools. The results of these discussions will be published in the same issue together with the story and questions. Schools will also exchange articles with one other school and decide together the ones that are going to be published. Apart from showing this thinking process in the journal another section will present writings on the question: what does it mean to do philosophy at school?
The target of the project is to establish a journal or magazine that is published a few times a year (2 or 4 times). In th near future it will be possible to subscribe to the journal, at this moment this is not yet the possible. We are now in the process of communicating with several publishers about the future of 100.
The first issue of 100 was a stimulance for other schools to begin discussing the questions in the school. For instance, in Spain teachers started an Internetproject to discuss the five questions both with children from primary and secundary schools and this schoolyear they are organizing an exchange between the schools.
100 presents a platform to show results of children's thinking as a cultural contribution. Listen to children and you hear something new about children, the world or even your own history as a child.
Footnote:
In the Netherlands the questions were discussed at secundary schools. One class made its own journal with answers both from themselves and from others, who were interviewed by the class. Question to a secundary schoolteacher: 'What do you think is most unfair in your life?' Answer: 'That I do not get paid enough!' Which shows that at least there are important differences between adults and children and that there are certainly things children can do better than adults.
In The Netherlands the journal was used in a course on doing philosophy with children for student teachers. These students all had to write a personal letter to one of the children from the journal. The task was to select one article they considered interesting and to write their own opinion about the subject. Most popular were the answers to the question: What can children do better than adults? Especially Jo‹o's text was a challenge to them:
In reminding ourselves of something, we are better.
Climbing, we do better.
Acting, we do better.
Searching something, we do better.
Cheating, we do better.
In creating a mess, we are better.
Protecting the planet, we do better.
In understanding correctly, annoying others, breaking things and more, we do better. End
(Joao, 8 years old).
Berrie Heesen 1997.
(1) Lifton, Betty Jean (1988), The King of children, a biography of Janusz Korczak, New York: Schocken Books, p.173.
