BEAUTY. BUT WHAT IS IT?

As I previously mentioned in a recent blog, this term at University I have been teaching Philosophy (to some degree) to primary school children. I wanted to feedback on some of the stuff that has happened, particulary the lesson that we questioned them on what beauty is.

The children (aged 8 and 9) that came to 'Philosophy club' overwhelmed me by some of their smart and deep answers to questions that we raised, often making me think things that have never crossed my mind before. However I was shocked by some of the girls responses to what they thought beauty was!

We showed them several pictures of some more beautiful things, and other not so beautiful pictures, ranging from people (men and women), nature scenes, animals, rubbish bins, characters etc. When we asked them to choose what they thought was most beautiful we had a bit of a group divide. It seemed that the boys saw beauty more in the nature images that we showed them. They thought that beauty was in the views of mountains, and snowy trees and so on. The girls, although thought the puppy was beautiful (because it was so cute), appeared quite stuck in their view that women were beautiful, particularly the images of women that we provided with make-up on. In comparing a picture of a woman with no make-up, and a woman with make-up, it was clear to see that they thought that 'beauty and clothes' was what made something beautiful.

At the age of 8 years old these girls told me that they thought that make-up made something beautiful, and when we tried to ask them to tell us about what they thought was beautiful about them, most of them again said that their make-up was what made them beautiful. Although I tried to dig deeper and ask them 'what about your personality, could that not be something that makes you 'beautiful'', they still found it hard to look past their original answers.

If such young children think that natural beauty isn't a thing, and that to be beautiful you have to be perfect in ways of pysical perfection there is something very wrong with us as adults if we are teaching them this.

One thing that the children did appear to learn however, was that beauty isn't just one thing. It isn't just Beyonce (for wearing make-up and nice clothes) that is beautiful, but animals, nature, flowers, someone's singing voice etc. and I hope that we made some sort of impact on helping them to open their minds to the idea of beauty.