Amy Reed-Sandoval

Amy Reed-Sandoval is Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso. She founded and directs the Philosophy for Children in the Borderlands program, inspired by the role of praxis in Latin American and Latinx philosophies.

 

1. What civically engaged project(s) or work do you do with students?

I work with University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) students in the Philosophy for Children in the Borderlands program. Participating students—some of whom are involved as part of a course on Philosophy for Children methodology, and some of whom are volunteers—facilitate in small teams bilingual Philosophy for Children classes in cooperation with various community partners in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, México. UTEP is situated right on the Mexico-U.S. border, which enables us to sustain a binational presence in the program.

 

2. What is your role? Why did you choose to become involved?

I founded the program when I came to UTEP in August 2014, and I continue to direct the initiative (which, I am grateful to say, continues to grow). By the time I arrived at UTEP I was already very passionate about Philosophy for Children (P4C). As a graduate student at the University of Washington, I was involved in the UW Center for Philosophy for Children. My experiences teaching P4C through the UW program opened my eyes to philosophical abilities of young children—which, as P4C practitioners regularly point out, often go unrecognized in our society—and I quickly developed a sense of the importance of providing children and youth with opportunities to dialogue about life’s most important questions in supportive settings. Later, when I learned there was significant interest in P4C not only at UTEP, but also in the broader El Paso-Juárez community, I dove right into the rewarding task of setting up the program.

 

3. Give an example of a successful project completed by students you work with.

Thanks to an APA Diversity and Inclusiveness grant, I was recently able to produce a short documentary about the Philosophy for Children in the Borderlands program; the film was directed by Julia Reihs. This documentary was very much a collaborative effort, and many UTEP students got involved in different capacities. Some worked behind the scenes, like UTEP philosophy major Julisa Fernández, who served as a production assistant; others, like UTEP philosophy major Abraham Monteros, appear on-screen talking about the ways in which their Philosophy for Children teaching connects to the history, culture(s) and politics of the Mexico-U.S. borderlands. In addition, many UTEP undergraduate and graduate students appear in the film as they engage philosophically with children and youth in the community. You can access the documentary free via this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnt-XFg90Jk

 

4. What do you think students gain from doing this civic engagement?

Most of my students are from the El Paso-Juárez community. They regularly report that they love being able to get involved in and “give back to” their communities in the form of philosophical dialogue. In addition to the sense of personal satisfaction that is often generated by this form of civic engagement, some of my students have reported that teaching P4C is what led them to subsequently get involved in activism around issues in K-12 education policy and children’s welfare. I have also found that students who lack background in academic philosophy upon getting involved in the program quickly become interested in a wide range of philosophical questions, and eventually end up taking more philosophy classes at the university level. Some report that they come to see themselves as philosophers through engaging philosophically with local children and youth.

 

5. What does the civic engagement project offer to wider communities?

At present, this program provides free Philosophy for Children classes to around 150 local children and youth in cooperation with five community partners: La Mujer Obrera/Rayito de Sol Daycare and Learning Center, La Biblioteca Independiente Ma’Juana, Aliviane, Inc., Austin High School, and the YWCA.

And thanks to our wonderful community partners, we have been able to accomplish even more than that. I have been extremely impressed by how P4C—as a movement and as a methodology—has been embraced, supported, and re-articulated in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. We are fortunate to collaborate with passionate organizations and people, and each site at which we teach offers its own unique vision of how we can build stronger communities through empowering children and youth. Because of this, our community partners are defining P4C on their own terms. For instance, I have seen P4C methodology explained using terms of Chicana and Latin American feminist thought at La Mujer Obrera and La Biblioteca Independiente Ma’Juana, and I have also been in dialogue with community partners who are exploring the ways in which P4C can support children whose parents are undergoing a drug rehabilitation program (at Aliviane, Inc.). The Philosophy for Children in the Borderlands program is very much a community dialogue about philosophy itself and what it can do for us—and in this sense the program both benefits and is benefited by the El Paso-Juárez community.

 

6. If someone wanted to do these projects at their own institution, what steps or resources would you recommend?

I would recommend that anyone who wishes to set up a Philosophy for Children program at their own institution start out by surveying the existing P4C programs (both within and outside of the U.S.). While the Philosophy for Children in the Borderlands program works primarily with community partners outside of the K-12 system, many well-established programs are doing excellent work bringing pre-college philosophy to local schools. Exploring the work of a variety of programs can help you reflect upon where you want to focus your energies—at a public school, a daycare, in collaboration with an NGO, etc.

The UW Center for Philosophy for Children has a useful resource page for people who are getting started: https://depts.washington.edu/nwcenter/#

Second, I would recommend starting out small when developing your list of community partners. When you are just getting started and resources are limited, it can be far more meaningful and impactful to work closely with just one or two community partners as opposed to spreading yourself thin. I have learned from experience that strong relationships with community partners tend to create the conditions for flourishing philosophical dialogues on the ground!

 

7. How does this work connect to your own civically engaged philosophy?

While I am passionate about many forms of civically engaged philosophy, this particular project intimately connects to my interests in Latin American and Latinx philosophies, including their tradition of civic engagement. The open-ended nature of Philosophy for Children classes enables me to learn about the sorts of philosophical and political concerns that are most salient for children and youth living at the Mexico-U.S. border today. Plus, in facilitating P4C classes, I get to learn more about contemporary Latin American and Latinx  thought, so this sort of “praxis” compels me to re-engage on a regular basis with the activist “core” of much Latin American philosophy.

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