FS60 Exploring Philosophical Inquiry with Rosie Carnall

Facilitation Stories

In this episode Nikki talks to Rosie Carnall about Philosophical Inquiry. It’s a way of engaging in a conversation explorating into philosophical questions.

Rosie has used Philosophical Inquiry in a range of situations, from Art Galleries, to pubs, to workplaces.

Nikki and Rosie talk about how to choose stimuli for discussions and learning from a specific example of when Rosie ran the same session back to back, online and in person for a hybrid team.

The full transcript is below.

Links:

Rosie’s website: www.rosiecarnall.co.uk

Nikki on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolawilson2/

Listen to our podcasts: https://www.facilitationstories.com/

Connect with us on Twitter: @fac_stories

Email: [e-mail]

NW

Hello and welcome to facilitation stories brought to you by the England and Wales Chapter of the International Association of Facilitators, also known as IAF. My name is Nikki Wilson and my guest today is Rosie Carnall. So welcome, Rosie. So to start off with, could you tell the listeners a little more about you and what you do?

RC

Thanks, Nikki. So my name is Rosie Carnall, and I'm a Freelance Creative Facilitator. My background’s in mediation and conflict resolution and from that, I learned quite a lot about facilitation and developed that as an interest, and I've also worked in things like Project management. And then, more recently, in my work, I've been able to focus more on facilitation, and in particular, using both creative methods of facilitation to get people thinking and talking, but also facilitating creative sessions. So I typically work with creative writing and the creative field but I'm also really interested in art -based work. So quite a broad range of interests, but at the core of it all, is facilitating interesting and engaged conversations.

NW

Fantastic. And we're going to dig in a little bit more about that, in this episode. So you and I met at the IMF conference, and I discovered that you include philosophy for communities in your practice. So I had a really positive experience as a participant in the past, and I was really keen to, to find out a bit more about how you use it. So for listeners that aren't familiar with P4C, could you tell us a bit more about it?

RC

Yeah, that's great that you had a positive experience. I'd love to hear more about that another time. So Philosophy for Communities is a method of holding a Philosophical Inquiry. And Philosophical Inquiry is kind of what it sounds like, it's a way of engaging in a conversation that takes forward questioning and exploration into philosophical questions. And philosophical questions are all around us in life. And P4C, Philosophy for Communities is a way of, it's a method to enable people who aren't academic philosophers who don't wouldn't consider themselves to be philosophical necessarily, to discover big questions, and discuss them together.

NW

Okay. And so, when did you first encounter P4C and what appealed to you about it?

RC

The first ever time I encountered P4C was when my son took part in it in a P4C inquiry as part of a youth group. And I was just a parent on the edge kind of thing. I wasn't participating. And they, they had in any P4C inquiry, you would have a stimulus, so that's the starting point for whatever the discussion is going to be. But the stimulus always has quite a lot of different ways to go. And the stimulus on this occasion was a children's story, Michael Morpurgo story. And it was the one about the Christmas Truce, the story where in the First World War, there was a truce called on Christmas Day, and the English and German soldiers played football together. And then the young people, including my son, read the story. And then they asked questions, and then they discuss the questions they came up with. And then they went on to create a Christmas play, to put on arising from their discussion.

And the thing that really struck me was how they engaged in such depth with what the story meant. So when they put on the play, they weren't rehearsing lines, they were conveying meaning. And it just felt such a rich form of learning that I thought, well, I really need to find out more about this.

So and that, that brings up the the idea that P4C also stands for Philosophy for Children, and it's used in a lot of schools in Britain. It's an international movement. It's a way of teaching thinking skills and critical thinking. And it's also a way of engaging children in kind of social learning, and how to disagree agreeably. And Philosophy for Communities is the exact same thing. It's just with adults in community rather than children.

NW

Yeah, excellent. I mean, I, as I said, I encountered it as an adult first of all, but hearing that it had been, you know, the stem of it was from, from kind of school based learning, I just thought I wish that we'd done this at school, it would have been so valuable, I think to, to kind of build those skills, as you said that that whole idea of being able to discuss and sit alongside other people and kind of draw out that meaning. And so how did you I mean, obviously, you you learned about it as an observer, how did you first come to try facilitating it in practice?

RC

Well, Ijust, I was already doing facilitation. And I was interested in using it at that time, I was working as manager of a team and a national organisation and I started trying using a bit in that kind of team context. And I also used it in community, I'm a Quaker, as it happens, and so at our Quaker meeting, we offered a couple of P4C inquiries, and I was lucky that I had a friend who's very skilled and knowledgeable about P4C, and the thing that happens straight away, in that classic learning journey is that soon as you start trying to actually do something, you learn so much more about what you don't know about doing it, You know, it looks so easy, “Well, I'm going to give that a go”, and really quickly I was like I need to do some training in this if I want to get really good at this, or even, you know, even as a starting point. I began to understand and for example, in facilitating a group to come up with questions, I just needed to do a much more deep dive into like, “What is a question? And how do we get to good questions?” So I did some training with an organisation locally, who, who mainly trained teachers in Philosophy for Children, but I came along and said, “Well, I actually don’t work in a school I'm going to, I'm going to use it with adults, mainly. So that was how I did the training.

NW

Excellent. And so since then, obviously, you trialled it in practice, and then kind of did this bit of training. But where have you used it since then? Are there any contexts where you feel it particularly works well?

RC

Yeah, so I've used it, I've used it a lot with Quakers, for interest and for kind of, not teaching so much as learning. So getting a group together and inquiring into a shared question, it means that people are sharing their knowledge and their ideas and their thinking, and that fits really well in that context. So that kind of community learning together. And I've used it in pubs. So I set up and run a Philosophy in Pubs group in Sheffield, that's been going, coming up for five years, in fact, and that's just an open access group, anyone who's interested can come along, and each month, it’s a monthly group, and I bring a different stimulus, and we'll see where that goes. And during the pandemic, I moved that online. so I've used it online as well as in real life, so to speak.

And I've used it as part of a more creative focus or cultural focus, as part of the Sheffield Year of Reading, which was a whole year the library set up, of getting people into reading and thinking. And for that we used different excerpts from books or a poem.

I've used it as, I do creative writing, and Creative Writing facilitation. So I use it as a way into creative writing, but also as a way of people engaging with each other's writing to critique. So something I call creative critique. So we use people's passages of writing as the stimulus for the inquiry, and it means they get a sense of whether what they're writing is actually landing with the listener.

And I now also offer P4C sessions in a local art gallery and a few art galleries and I call that “Philosophy in the Gallery”, and so then in that case, it's again, it's an open access session where people would come and we look at an artwork together, and then evolve our thinking arising from looking at the art, so not so much a focus on learning about art, art history, or even the kind of painterly strokes, but what does it mean to us? So always it's about what does it mean to us? And then I've also done some work with organisations. So then right back to the beginning, in a way of working with a team and using it as a way of bringing a team or colleagues together to think about questions and issues together.

NW

So kind of building on that, where do you look for the stimuli that you would use in these sessions?,

RC

Ah that's an interesting question. I look for them everywhere. So in the Art Gallery, my job is easy, because I go into the Art Gallery, and then I can have a look and choose one. For the sessions in the pub, I try and have a really varied range. So, in fact, I did a session on Tuesday this week and our stimulus was an excerpt from a book called Bright New World, which is about climate change, and what we know about how to manage and mitigate climate change. It's a very positive book. And there was a section about trave and I just thought, “Oh, that's interesting. It's got lots of different thinking in it”. and then the group came up with their question they wanted to ask. And I use poems, I use short videos, I used a Hey Duggee episode, which is a children's cartoon, and they had I use it there is in fact, I Hey Duggee on philosophy, but I use the one on collecting, and so thinking about what does it mean that humans collect things. And I might also use something from a philosophy book, but I'm not an academic philosopher. So I don't tend to get you know, I'm interested in people's own philosophising, rather than, you know, I'm not bringing that into the room, we're finding out where that comes from. And with the teams or an organisation or community group who have a particular theme they want to explore, then I will be thinking about “how can I, what can I find that would open up questions on that theme without being didactic?” So it definitely needs to be something that's open ended and isn't arriving with a moral opinion into the room. Although, if there is you know, maybe it's hard to get totally away from morality, but people need to have the sense that they can disagree as well as agree.

NW

Yeah. And that there's presumably that there's sufficient scope within that stimulus to go in lots of different directions and kind of take it their own way.

RC

Yes, exactly. And that is a very common experience. And, you know, in fact, what's quite common, is that I think “Oh, that's really interesting”. And whatever it is, that's interested me, in the passage I choose, or the artwork I choose, it turns out, you know, no one else finds that interesting, you know, that people will come up with these really different questions, and not what I was expecting at all. And that's one of the glorious things about the process.

NW

But I suppose with that in mind, though, are there situations where you'd hesitate to use this kind of technique?

RC

I think it's a tricky question, isn't it? Because in one way, I want to say “no, it can be used everywhere. You know, it's such a rich possibility. And it's so open”, and with my background, in mediation and conflict resolution, you know, it's one of the reasons why I got interested in Philosophy for Communities. But I think, as a mediator, I became a bit frustrated with the idea that people thought, “oh, you know, we need a mediator”. And they typically thought that a lot further on into a conflict, when they may be, you know, if you're going to have a mediator get one early, but also that there's, there's a desire within the idea of having a mediator for a solution and an answer and someone an expert to come in. And so what I'm really interested in as well, maybe if we could all talk to each other more and disagree agreeably, and be able to accept that someone has a different opinion than us, and that's okay, it's just interesting rather than threatening, then that might, it's kind of the groundwork of conflict resolution in a way.

So it's almost like the antithesis of social media where people get into these terrible conflicts because they're, they're just getting reactive and up against each other, where P4C or Philosophical Inquiry is about staying alongside each other without having to agree. And so perhaps that means that I'm a little bit more willing to take risks. Because I think, I think a lot of people are really alarmed by the idea of conflict or alarmed by the idea that people you know, people might get upset. I don't want to upset anyone, but neither do I want to quash emotion, because emotion is part of our human experience. And emotion is part of how we know what we think about something. You know, that's a really clear route, if you hear some information, and it invokes a strong emotional response in you, then, you know, that's telling you something about what you think about that information. For me, that's part of the rich potential for Philosophical Inquiry.

That said, in terms of my responsibility, as a facilitator, I would always want to be sure that I could create a safe space, or a brave space or an appropriate space for sharing within any community. So I would want to do a dynamic risk assessment of you know, you know, what's appropriate, and thinking back, I suppose, partly to my mediation, training or thinking about power imbalance. And if, if power imbalance can't be managed within the group, then it's not going to have the ethos that I would want. So I would be looking to manage that process but so far, no one's asked me to do a Philosophical Inquiry in a situation where I've said, “No, that's not going to work”.

And in fact, family Christmas a couple of years ago, we were just sitting talking, and then we kind of got into a question and really, I was facilitating an inquiry, you know, it was just an area of interest for the five of us, you know, that's possibly quite a bold move, to introduce it completely socially. I mean, there wasn't such a structured thing there.

And I always say that in in terms of this practice, that I feel like I've really developed my own thinking, you know, we talk about teaching children thinking skills, but I definitely feel that my own thinking has improved, and that it's doing P4C has made me better at arguing with my husband. I don't know whether he appreciates that or not, but I feel very strongly that, you know, it's I'm, I'm able to think more clearly and to understand more about how I'm feeling and you know, what is the actual question I want to discuss?

NW

Right and so, with all of those different directions that you've taken it, including into the domestic environment, this might be a difficult question to ask, but where would you like to go next with it?

RC

And well, I'm really excited about my work with Art Galleries and Museums, and opening those spaces out to more people. And particularly with Art Galleries, I have this strong aspect to my practice, where it's really important to me that you don't need to know anything about art to experience art, and so the Philosophical Inquiry, I think, can really help. I know, it does help people to, to open that up to like, “Oh, my ideas and thoughts are the same and different as other people's, and that that's an equal process. And we're just going to look at the art, and then respond to it.” So that's a really exciting area of interest for me. And in getting people, it can be quite social in that way, in that way, can help with reducing loneliness and isolation. As a social, I always say, “Do you like meeting new people, but you don't really do small talk? You know, P4C is for you”.

So I'm interested in that community based work, and particularly with Art Galleries and Museums, and I'm also really interested in the workplace, and teams and colleagues, and bringing people together to think together about what underpins their work. So I think often in the workplace, you can be so focused on action, and practical steps and getting things done, that it can be really helpful to take that step back and think about, well, “why am I doing this? What you know, what is it that brings us together? What are our shared interests and concerns and opening up those bigger questions about the ethos and value of the area of work?” And thinking that through in the background, I think that's very interesting how that works.

NW

Okay. So I mean, obviously, quite different contexts there, I suppose showing that kind of breadth of where P4C can apply and equally have value, and so I suppose thinking or drawing that right back to a very specific example, when we had our initial call about this podcast, you were just about to run the same P4C inquiry twice with a morning online and an afternoon in person. So I'm kind of curious as to how that went.

RC

Yeah, that was a great day it was, was for a national organisation who are now of course, much more dispersed than they were before. So that change into a lot of people working from home and coming back to the office, and how does that workplace community function in those ways. And so that was the reason why we had an online session, as well as an in person session, and using the same stimulus and the same session plan, but of course, getting different thinking.

So that, in fact, the stimulus or use that was a short film, about how trees communicate. So there's this thing the Wood Wide Web, that trees, you might see trees as individual trees, but in fact, they communicate through their roots and through the soil system, and they can create complex communication. So we had that as a stimulus on each occasion, and then looked at what the concepts were that were coming up, and how that related to the idea of a community of colleagues, and particularly colleagues who now don't necessarily see each other so often.

It was a great day, that some of what I noticed about it was the difference between online and in person. And in particular, I've got an interest in the fact that in online sessions, especially in a group, is quite difficult to laugh, and to have humour. Because just purely because of, if someone's speaking, someone else can't be speaking, you know, you get that kind of disjunct between and timelag, you know, whereas in the room, it's much more easy to have that kind of humour and laughter happening. Not that people online, didn't make jokes or enjoy, but there's something different in that in how that works.

And it was interesting as well, because when we were looking at what concepts people drew out, that's the kind of starting point they watch the stimulus together, and then think about what are the important concepts here., and there were a lot of commonalities between the morning and the afternoon, but there were differences as well.

And so then that led to different questions being asked, and a slightly different focus to the sessions, at the same time as having, you know, a lot of common interest as well.

NW

It sounds fascinating to have that that opportunity, really, to actually get that real close comparison of the two, the two sessions so close together. So thinking back then, what was your key learning that came out of that that session?

RC

I think what was was really interesting about having two sessions together, was in future, I would want to bring them back together more. So that it was able it's a very effective process for being able to pull out some learning that's de-personalised. So because you're taking this philosophical approach. And it's asking big questions about the nature of, of life and thinking and attitudes and values, then it does actually really effectively bring out ideas and thinking rather than comments and opinions.

And that felt really helpful to me that for in a work, colleagues situation. And often what you're wanting to find out is that thinking that's behind someone's opinion. So that was really useful and in the future, I would want to develop a clearer way to bring that back round together and to share it between the two groups. I was able to do it, but it was, you know, as you learn that process, It's having some shared learning that's coming out of it together. And I suppose ideally, would be to, in some way, bring everyone together at the end.

NW

Okay, so lots of big thinking to take away then Rosie and no small challenge of kind of working out how to draw all those things together when people are so dispersed, as you said, I think that's, that can be quite a challenge when you know, some people are in the room, and some aren't as well on that whole hybrid way of working.

RC

Yeah. And I think as well, because of the, there's a stage and an inquiry process where groups come up with questions, and those questions often and then you choose one question to focus, a conversation, the kind of dialogue part of the inquiry. And often, you know, if you've got four or five, six questions, they can sometimes they're all really great questions, and in fact, what you really want to do is take them away and create a curriculum. So that there's something about that the questions that come up can be a really important part of what the learning is, and offering them back in to future team meetings or discussion groups or, you know, staff conference or an intranet piece, I think that there's something about the questions that come up can be, this can be really mind for a lot of interest.

NW

Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Rosie. It's been really interesting to hear a bit more about it as I said, I had this one idea of what it was going to be like from my perspective, but so many different avenues that you've taken it ,so I'm sure we could talkl all afternoon or evening about it. But then, thank you so much again.

And so if listeners are interested to find out more about you or to connect him with you house, what's the best way for them to do that?

RC

So I have a website, www.rosiecarnall.co.uk . That's probably the easiest way to get in touch with me or to find out a bit more.

NW

Excellent. Well, thank you, Rosie. It's been great to talk to you bye for now.

RC

Thank you very much. Thank you.

And that's the end of today's episode of Facilitation Stories. Make sure you're subscribed to the show on whatever podcast app you use. And if you would like to contribute to the show, you can get in touch via email [e-mail] Or you can get all the other links from our website facilitationstories.com. This has been Facilitation Stories brought to you by IAF England and Wales.