Examining the experiences of 6th grade religious culture and moral knowledge teachers in philosophy with children

This research aims to examine the experiences of 6th grade Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge (REC) teachers in middle school regarding activities based on the Philosophy for Children (P4C) approach. The Philosophy for Children approach is a pedagogical method that aims to develop children's critical, creative and collaborative thinking skills. In this study, which was structured with phenomenological analysis, one of the qualitative research methods, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 REC teachers working in Kocaeli province who had experience or interest in this approach. Participants were determined using the purposive sampling method, and through the interviews, how teachers incorporated the Philosophy for Children approach into their lessons, the difficulties they encountered and the feedback they received from students were analyzed. The research findings reveal that teachers experienced various difficulties in areas such as lack of philosophical knowledge, difficulties in classroom implementation and student participation. In addition, teachers stated that the Philosophy for Children approach positively supported students' skills such as critical thinking, developing empathy and respecting different perspectives. In addition, it has been observed that this method contributes to the process of students' understanding of religious and moral values. The data obtained provide important results regarding the applicability of the Philosophy with Children approach in DKAB courses and the pedagogical contributions of this approach. Keywords: Philosophy Method with Children, Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge, Teacher, Student, Education