At a time when people are facing uncertainty and information overload, philosophy offers something rare: space to think critically, question bravely, and find meaning. However, philosophy is a discipline that is often perceived to be gatekept within the walls of higher education–a perception that members of our consortium are working to change. With support through a Periclean Faculty Leader (PFL) grant in the Spring 2025 semester at Carleton College, Philosophy Professors Daniel Groll and Hope Sample seized the opportunity to bring philosophy outside of the Carleton classroom by developing an innovative, community-engaged philosophy course: Philosophy Lab: Leading a Pre-Collegiate Philosophy Program.
Class planning started when Caroline Stanton, a Carleton student who had prior experience working with Texas A&M’s Philosophy for Children program, contacted Groll to ask about opportunities for a community-engaged philosophy course. When Stanton, Groll, and Sample were creating the course, they were particularly excited about the idea of doing philosophy with high schoolers. “Almost nobody gets philosophy in high school, and we felt that would be a win,” Groll shared. They turned to Project Pericles Program Director Emily Seru of Carleton’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement for guidance on partnerships. Seru suggested that they connect with the Northfield Area Learning Center (ALC), a non-traditional high school that supports students facing social, economic, and educational challenges.
Through this partnership, Stanton, Groll, and Sample opened the door to philosophy for students who might never have encountered it otherwise. “Everyone should be given the chance to find the thing that they find meaning in, that excites them, that turns their mind on,” Groll said. Building bridges between Carleton and ALC also meant preparing Carleton students for a new kind of experience with higher stakes than their usual classes: the PFL Grant allowed Stanton to become a teaching assistant for the course, and she provided invaluable insight and expertise during the course as well.
The team of instructors designed the course with their own philosophy of “collaboration, non-hierarchy, and sparking joy.” They stressed to the Carleton students not to enter the space with the attitude of “I am the teacher, and you will learn from me,” but to facilitate a collaborative environment in which all participants explored ideas in a shared and experiential manner. The syllabus explicitly states:
“We are not experts whose job it is to impart our knowledge to lucky recipients. Do not think in these terms! Quite the contrary: we are fortunate that they are opening up their classrooms for us to do philosophy collaboratively with students with a broad array of life experiences.”
The course was structured to take place twice a week: on Mondays, the Carleton students would workshop an experiential lesson plan around a thought experiment, and on Wednesdays, they would meet with the students at the ALC to facilitate the experience together. These experiences were based on famous thought experiments such as the Ship of Theseus, the Experience Machine, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The lessons were interactive and experiential. For example, in the Singer’s Pond lesson, students physically moved across the room to show what decision they would make in moral dilemmas.
Despite the unpredictable attendance that comes with a non-traditional school environment, the participating students had meaningful experiences. The non-traditional nature of the Area Learning Center meant that students often don’t return to class each week, but despite this known constraint, there were many students who kept coming back—a marker of success! One ALC student attended most of the classes and came out of her shell throughout the course. Another student remarked, “That totally blew my mind!” after learning about the Ship of Theseus. The Carleton students unanimously expressed that they would take this course again in the future.
Groll and Sample were likewise impacted by the experience. Sample shared how the focus on experiential learning affected her pedagogical thinking: “It was an affirmation of what I had been thinking about with making my classes more experiential.” Groll added, “Half of the work is the logistics! If you can do that, go for it—it’s a huge amount of fun.”
In the future, Groll and Sample will trade off instructing this course, but they designed it to allow for any instructor in the department to teach it. In this way, a model for doing philosophy beyond the “ivory tower” becomes a core part of the kind of learning happening at Carleton College. By connecting curiosity with community, Philosophy Lab exemplifies the Periclean vision of higher education as a force for civic imagination and shared inquiry.