CONFRONTING THE EMERGING SOCIETAL CHALLENGES IN NIGERIA THROUGH MATTHEW LIPMAN’S MODEL OF EDUCATION

Résumé

Education as a purposeful process either functions as an instrument of socialization, integrating the younger generation into the logic and tradition of the present system or a means and training people to be able to grapple with a society’s existential tensions of challenges. The latter is called the reflective paradigm of education where children are taught philosophy not as traditionally construed but as thinking skills employing the classroom community of inquiry pedagogy. The aim is to achieve a paradigm shift from educating children for careers as successful medical doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientist, etc. but to produce reasonable human beings in addition to excellence in their various vocations. Nigeria as a nation and the global community is beleaguered by sociopolitical, religious, economic and cultural crisis. The plethora of problems Nigeria have witnessed lately like Boko Haram insurgency, Niger-Delta militancy, and Fulani Herders crisis may also be attributed to the absence of rational thinking by the human person, thinking conducive to common good. It is the view here that if learners are taught thinking skill early enough in schools as advocated by Matthew Lipman, they will be properly equipped with the dispositions to grapple with and mitigate some of the societal problems confronting our nation when they are adult.