Dear Friends and Supporters,
We have a number of exciting tidings to report on the inroads we are making in advancing our mission of making ours a more inclusive, thoughtful and participatory world.
As you know, we believe that civil conversation isn’t enough. Nor is it sufficient to construct ‘the right questions.’ Rather, a method of rich and rigorous inquiry is called for, one that ensures that your explorations with diverse souls of many ages and perspectives leads to the discovery of uncommon ground, to a greater sense of connectedness, a keener social conscience — and new portals for flourishing, for becoming all you can be as individuals and as a society, and hence achieving what the Greeks of old called arete, a kind of all-around excellence in which duty to self and others goes hand in glove.
To that end, here’s what we’ve been up to of late, achieving some marvelous goals on less than a shoestring budget, thanks to our super committed board members, who roll up their sleeves and give tremendously of their time and talent (not to mention that we enjoy 100 percent board financial participation):
a) Our board member Dennis Dienst, who has established numerous thriving Socrates Cafes in the Twin Cities, is hard at work spearheading our first-ever Socrates Cafe Symposium, to be held the first weekend in October. This will mark the 20th year since I began Socrates Cafe,. It is sure to be an unforgettable gathering. It will feature panel discussions (e.g., how to deal with ‘challenging’ participants, how to keep dialogues on a philosophical plane, how to best harness the ‘Socrates Cafe method’), a facilitators workshop, and of course plenty of dialogues. We do hope many of you can attend. Our fond hope is that it’ll bring together people — participants and organizers alike — involved in Socrates Cafe from far and wide. Stay tuned for further updates.
b) New Website
Check out our beautifully redesigned website at www.SocratesCafe.com that board member Danielle Olson has created, burning the midnight oil for nights on end.
On the site, we are slowly but surely building e directory that will include on the website all the hundreds of ongoing Socrates Cafes, Democracy Cafes, and Constitution Cafes the world over. Right now, we’re focusing on just the groups that exist in the libraries — one of our great bastions of inclusiveness, where the Socrates Cafes bring together people of all ages and walks of life. Here’s what we’ve put in the directory so far:
https://socratescafe.com/?page_id=74
What’s wonderfully gratifying is that many Socrates Cafes at libraries have been in existence for well over a decade. At the same time, quite a number of new groups form each year.We are thrilled that after all this time, Socrates Cafe still has a momentum, and is made a staple of communities of all sorts
There are also many Socrates Cafes listed on Meetup.com, but that’s just a small portion. Here’s the link to that:
http://www.meetup.com/topics/socratescafe/
c) Constitution Cafe and Philosophers’ Club
An enormous part of our outreach is with children and youth, many of whom are at society’s margins. The impact can be life-changing. The superintendent of schools at our longtime Constitution Cafe with East Central High School in San Antonio attests to the impact our unique form of inquiry. He has told us that outcome studies show that those students who participate in in Constitution Cafe are exponentially more likely to go to college upon).
Our more purely philosophical outreach for our youngest is usually called Philosophers’ Club, and there are many groups established in schools — from Fairfax County Public Schools, where we have given workshops and established new groups for well over a decade, to Queens, to Mt. Shasta, CA (where they just raised funds to have me visit a third time to hold dialogues and give workshops), to Moretown, Vermont.
Teachers who have been using Philosophers’ Club for years have clamored for a digital edition; and their wishes have been heeded.
Digital Editions Cecilia and I have put in a great deal of time producing digital editions on Amazon Kindle, in both English and Spanish, for the Philosophers’ Club books. Please check out these links to our English edition and our Spanish language version.
https://www.amazon.com/El-club-los-fil%C3%B3s…/…/B01E6OQZTA…
https://www.amazon.com/Philosophers-Club-Book…/…/B01DU0R5P4…
All modest proceeds from the nominal purchase price of any edition of Philosophers’ Club goes right back to the nonprofit and is reinvested into our outreach. (and if you purchase via Smile.Amazon.com, then Amazon also makes a contribution)
One aim is to continue striving toward making our nonprofit self-sustaining, and among other things to continue extending our outreach with children and youth, especially those who’ve been excluded. We’re thrilled that educators and parents and kids who are part of our groups find them so meaningful, and often write to tell us what a difference it makes.
d) Philosophers Club: The Series. Parents and teachers and children alike have asked for Philosophers’ Club to become a series, given its unique ability not only to cultivate critical and creative thinking, but to forge stronger relationships among younger and older folks, as each contributes equally their stores of wisdom to our discourses,
Ceci and I are in the throes of producing the next book in the Philosophers’ Club series. Its entitled ‘Worlds of Difference’. The text has already been written, and now we are seeking an illustrator. This second in the series explores in a decidedly Socratic way kinds of difference: e.g., between a winner and a loser, between a fact and an opinion, between right and wrong, etc. I’ve sent the text for comment to teachers who have used (in many cases for over ten years) our Philosophers’ Club book, and they are very excited.
We are now searching for an altruistic illustrator —likely someone just getting started who would like to get the credit for being part of this special effort. If you know of someone, please put her in touch with me (christopher_phillips@me.com).
e) New Kurdish translation of Philosophers’ Club
Ceci and I are now producing a Kurdish-translated version of The Philosophers’ Club. We’re working with an enthused young woman, Pegah Zoiee, from Kurdistan, to create both digital and physical editions for children and youth there. This is not only a region of the world where young people tragically do not enjoy access to a quality education, but rarely have any opportunity to engage in genuine critical thinking of a sort that gives them greater potential for empowerment.
Our great hope and expectation is that this edition of Philosophers’ Club, which we’re developing and publishing at no charge so it can reach as many Kurdish speaking children as possible, will have a genuine impact — and that is of the hope and expectation of Pegah as well.
Pegah, who reached out to us after learning about our work, is an amazing advocate and activist for children’s rights to education; she reminds us of Malala Yousafzai, the youngest ever Nobel Prize winner. Education for critical and creative thinking of a kind that can really lead to greater involvement by kids and youth is sorely lacking in that part of the world, and we hope this will be just the first of many efforts to bring our work to the Middle East and beyond.
f) Matching Funds Challenge!
Last but not least, two of our board members, the incredibly generous Paul Martin and Dennis Dienst, have issued a $1,250 matching funds. Please consider making a donation. Our Paypal link is at the bottom of our homepage
Proceeds go towards helping us maintain our websites, with developing our Socrates Cafe Symposium, will help us pay for an illustrator for our latest in the Philosophers’ Club series, and other nonprofit-related expenses.
I do hope you’ll consider making a donation to the nonprofit to go towards this generous offer on their part. Any donation of $75 or more bags you a signed copy of my just released book, The Philosophy of Childing: Unlocking Curiosity, Creativity and Reason through the Wisdom of Our Youth. Here’s a review of the book, which is all about creating a world in which children and youth are able to contribute every bit as much to our flourishing at every age and stage as we do to theirs — all about childing, in a word..
https://www.forewordreviews.com/…/the-philosophy-of-childi…/
As you can see, we are making great headway in advancing our mission, with lots of exciting ongoing projects and more on the horizon.
With gratitude,
Chris
Executive Director, Socrates Cafe / Democracy Cafe
p.s. And if you really want to see how much young people care about the state and straits of our nation, check the moving Declarations they have created on our Declaration Project site. Our Founding Fathers and Mothers would be proud. We give them a platform to discover and share their voices in a way that charts new possibilities for them to dig into the world solve what they perceive are our most pressing woes.
http://www.declarationproject.org/?page_id=146