All IAPC Oral Histories

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  Allen, Terry L. Interview 6 May 2025

  Terry Allen, Maughn Rollins Gregory, and Megan Jane Laverty

  In this IAPC Oral History interview, veteran teacher Terry L. Allen tells about learning philosophy for children from a class he took from Dale Cannon at the University of Washington in Oregon while teaching school in Salem, Oregon (see attached articles). He describes his masters and doctoral degrees in philosophy for children at Montclair State University – including his memories of Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp, and David Kennedy – culminating in his doctoral dissertation, Exploring Worldview Perspectives with 8th Grade Students: Criteria-Mapping as a Method of Value Disclosure and Worldview Discovery.Allen discusses his 32 teaching at Eastern Christian Middle School in Wyckoff, New Jersey, where he practices a “Pedagogy of Asking,” to engage young people in philosophical dialogue in a community of inquiry to work out their own beliefs and values.

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  Berman, Matthew L. Interview 14 April 2025

  Matthew L. Berman, Maughn Rollins Gregory, and Megan Jane Laverty

  In this IAPC Oral History Interview, Mathew "Matt" L. Berman describes his experience as a student in the Masters of Arts in Teaching Philosophy for Children program at Montclair State College in the 1980s, his use of philosophy as a teacher at the Metairie Park Country Day School in Metairie, Louisiana, and the database of Philosophy and Children’s Literature he created during his 1989 sabbatical funded by the “Teacher-Scholar Program for Elementary and Secondary School Teachers,” awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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  Dianuzzo, Nicholas Interview 17 April 2025

  Nicholas Dianuzzo, Maughn Rollins Gregory, and Megan Jane Laverty

  In this interview Professor Nicholas Dianuzzo describes his recovery from drug dependency, his undergraduate study of philosophy and his experience in the Master of Arts in Teaching Middle School Philosophy at Montclair State College. At the time, he was counseling drug-dependent teenagers and was the first person to use philosophy to do so--an approach he developed in consultation with Colin Clayton, whom he met at the IAPC Summer Course at Mendham, New Jersey, and who became one of the first practitioners of philosophical counseling in the UK. In October 1992 Dianuzzo and Clayton presented their work at the 5th International Conference on Philosophy for Children at the University of Graz. In 1996 Dianuzzo and Matthew Lipman were interviewed about this approach on the public television program Ethics in the 90s (see that episode here).

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  Gazzard, Ann Interview 8 August 2018

  Ann Gazzard and Peter Shea

  In this IAPC Oral History Interview, Dr. Ann Gazzard describes studying with Gareth B. Matthews at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and later working for eight years at the Institute the Advancement of Philosophy for Children, where she conducted research, wrote curriculum, and traveled around the United States conducting teacher workshops, before joining the philosophy faculty at Wagner College. She describes the different roles of Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp at the Institute. She later gave workshops on emotional intelligence for parents using philosophical discussion at an early childhood center. She discusses relationships among yoga, meditation, and philosophy for children.

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  Guin, Philip Interview 1 December 2005

  Philip C. Guin and Peter Shea

  Philip C. Guin was the Director of Teacher Education Services at the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC) at Montclair State College (later University) from 1978 through 2000. He was interviewed on video camera by Peter Shea at the IAPC on December 1, 2005 as part of the IAPC Oral History Project. In the interview, Guin describes his own education in philosophy, how he discovered philosophy for children, and his work preparing teachers to implement the program, in New Jersey and across the United States. He reflects on the impact of doing philosophy on children’s thinking and character. The interview was broadcast on the regional cable and online interview show The Bat of Minerva, which Shea produced and directed for over two decades, with support from the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota. It was transcribed, edited, and annotated by Maughn Rollins Gregory.

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  Jackson, Thomas E. Interview May 2024

  Thomas E. Jackson and Maughn Rollins Gregory

  In this interview, Dr. Thomas E. Jackson talks about philosophical wonder he experienced as a child around the experience of suffering, and how that followed him into his university studies. He describes his undergraduate and masters studies in medicine, psychology, and philosophy at the University of Toledo, and his formative encounter with Professor Ramakrishna Puligandla, who introduced him to Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practices. Jackson took his PhD in comparative Asian and Western philosophy at the University of Hawai’i, after which he co-founded the Hawaiian international film festival. After meeting Dr. Barry Curtis, who had introduced philosophy for children on Hawai’i’s “Big Island,” from the University of Hawai’i’s Hilo campus in 1978, Jackson attended the three-week summer seminar in philosophy for children in Mendham, New Jersey, run by the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC) at Montclair State College. There he met and was mentored by Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp. Jackson brought “small-p” philosophy to schools in and around Honolulu as a faculty specialist in the philosophy department at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa. He discovered commonalities between philosophy for children and Hawaiian culture and found ways to adapt the former to the latter. He created a unique philosophy in the schools program, “P4C Hawai’i,” which was funded by the Hawaiian Department of Education for many years. In the program, teachers facilitated philosophy sessions once each week on their own, and another time with a visiting philosopher or philosophy graduate student. Teachers also met together once a week for a “Philosophy for Teachers” session and received university credit. Jackson created a university course to prepare philosophy graduate students to work in the program and invented several innovations to the Montclair model, including “magic words” like IDUS (I don’t understand), the WRAITEC: The Good Thinker’s Toolkit, and a Philosophy in Schools Startup Kit. https://p4chawaii.org/wp-content/uploads/colvin.pdf”> In 1995 Jackson conducted the first philosophy for children workshop in China. He mentored the first doctoral dissertations on philosophy for children to come from the University of Hawai’i’s philosophy department. In 2005 Jackson met Mr. Eiji Uehiro, founder of the Uehiro Foundation on Ethics and Education in Tokyo, Japan, who offered support for P4C Hawai’i and in 2012 the Foundation gifted $1.25 million to fund https://p4chawaii.org/”>The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Uehiro Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education.

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  Lipman, Karen Interview 22 August 2023

  Karen Lipman, Peter Shea, Maughn Rollins Gregory, and Walter Omar Kohan

  Karen Lipman is the daughter of Matthew Lipman, co-founder of the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children at Montclair State University, and Wynona Moore Lipman, the first African-American female Senator of the State of New Jersey. In this interview by Peter Shea, Maughn Rollins Gregory, and Walter O. Kohan, Karen shares memories of her parents and talks about what she learned from each of them. This interview was conducted on 22 August 2023 in preparation for the international celebration of Matthew Lipman's Centenary two days later.

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  Matkowski, Joanne Interview 2012

  Joanne Matkowski and Peter Shea

  Joanne Matkowski was a business major hired as a student worker at the IAPC in 1980. On graduation she became an office manager and eventually Assistant Director of the Institute. For over three decades, she handled purchasing, printing and sales of the IAPC curriculum and the journal 'Thinking', managed the Institute’s budget, communicated with university administrators, and assisted faculty members, graduate students, and visiting scholars to the IAPC. Joanne developed close relationships with many of these, especially Matthew Lipman, with whom she interacted the most.

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  Pritchard, Michael Interview 13 September 2023

  Michael Pritchard, Maughn Gregory, and Peter Shea

  In this IAPC Oral History Interview, Michael Pritchard discusses his career as a philosopher specializing in ethics, moral psychology, and precollege philosophy. He describes using children's books to teach university philosophy classes and his involvement with the first doctoral program in philosophy for children at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. He shares his views on children's moral education. Pritchard's books include Philosophical Adventures with Children (University Press of America, 1985), Reasonable Children (University Press of Kansas, 1996), and On Becoming Reasonable (University Press of Kansas, 1991).