The Fairest Teacher of Them All
The very first story I wrote for P4C, and frustratingly still the surest to lead to interesting questions. A teacher is determined to treat his class equally... but take it to extremes. Exaggerating a concept is a good way to draw attention to its philosophical dimensions. I've included here a full enquiry plan of interest to teachers.
The numbers get fed up with the rough handling they receive from small children, and go out on strike. They insist, naturally, on meeting the Prime Minister.
A brave knight is perturbed to find his motives questioned by the insouciant dragon he was planning to slay.
This is a dialogue, somewhat "Horrible Histories" style, raising the question of what would be the fairest way to allocate spaces in lifeboats. Best staged as a piece of script-in-hand Readers' Theatre.
A dog and a fox argue through a fence about the relative merits of a secure domesticity versus life on the wild side.
A council clerk is unsure of the procedure to follow when a disgruntled time traveller insists on registering to vote.
This is a non-fiction musing about pets, priorities and love.
A rather melancholy musing about aging.
This is a very different story to the others, not intended for classroom use and rather dark. Set in the future, looking back on the time when scientists endowed the great apes with speech.