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YOUNG CHILDRENAND ULTIMATE QUESTIONS:Romancingat Day Care

DAVID IUNNIDY

ha t foHows is one piece of a series of conversations that I conductedwith a small group ofyoung children in a day care centerwhere I wasworking in 1983. The children were between theages of 3 and 6, and we had been together long enough tospeak frankly and comfortably with each other. I usedsmall group time to ask six questions, all of them about

the ultimate issues - the origins, ends, and limits ofthings, death, dreams, soul, spirit, self, God, evil. Takentogether, the conversationswe had make for a transcr iptof 65 manuscript pages. The issues raised there are many,and provoke questions not only about how young children think, but about how adults influence them tothink. The issue taken up below - the origins of things- was continued past this conversation, and its sequelwill appear in the next issue ofAHalytic TuuhiHg. Al-though the text tends to speak for itself, a few commentson the pattern of the conversation follow the transcript.The ages of the children involved are as follows:CHA.RLES: 6 years 4 monthsNAT: 5 years 5 monthsMICHAEL: 4 years 1monthKEN: 5 years 8 monthsKRISTEN: 5 years 8 monthsJIM: 5 years 5 monthsFRED: 5 years 8 monthsFAITH: 4 years 6 months

D.K.: How did the world begin?NAT: The dinosaurs . . . It's dinosaurs.CHARLES: No, the world didn't begin with dinosaurs. . .I know something that happened before the dinosaurs,and it's gotta be happening on the ear th. . . What justcan't floatin the air . . . water and mud just can't floatin the air.

O.K.: No, they can't. like you couldn't just throw themup.

NAT: The sun makes them come up into the air andtum into a cloud! It does that to rainwater. . .Puddles.

CHARLES: Well . . . well . . . 1know something thathappened to the Little fish. . . . And I got a fossil, thatthe fish got caught in my coat. . . . Well, Diane [ateacher) told me that happened before dinosaurs.O.K.: Well, what was before that?

MICHAEL: Babies! The first baby was born!CHARLES: Uh uh! People weren't back when dinosaurswere, and I'm saying this happened before dinosaurs.

O.K.: What was . . . you're saying that before dinosaursthere was the fish. Now what was before the fish?

KEN: Nothing.KRlSTEN: Indians.JIM: Just Indians.NAT: Just water!O.K.: Just water?NAT: Yeah, just water and rain and clouds.CHARLES: Just the earth.O.K.: Just the earth. . . .How was the earth made? Whatwas before the earth?

KEN: God was the very first thing.JIM: This was the very first thing - God . . . Jesus.O.K.: Who was before God?JIM: Nobody.KEN: Nobody.NAT: Nothing. . . .God is alive ':Very time. God never,never dies.O.K.: So God has always been, you mean?JIM: God died.NAT: God was alive when dinosaurs were down on theground.

O.K.: O.K. So you are saying that he was f i rs t MICHAEL: He died because men came and killed him.That' s what my Mom said.

D.K.: Oh, you mean Jesus.JIM: My Mom said He died and came back alive.O.K.: Yeah, but we're talking about -

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JIM: He was nailed on the cross.O.K.: Yeah, but we're talking about the very beginning ofthings. How far back can we go, to when thingsstarted? How did things start? How did they begin?NAT: We don't know!CHARLES: When it began all that there was just space.There weren't any stars, there weren't any planets,

there wasn't any moon, there wasn't any sun . . .Space!JIM: Just space.KEN: Just the universe.O.K.: Just the universe, Ken says.CHARlES: That's space.O.K.: That's space. And how far does space go?NAT: Way to the dark clouds.CHARLES: It's all around this earth.KEN: It never does stop.O.K.: Ken says it never stops.CHARLES: That's right. There's no end of it.O.K.: You mean if you could take a rocket ship and go

straight out into space that you would go forever, youwould never come to the end of anything?CHARLES: That's right.KEN: You'd keep on going through space.MICHAEL: You would go up to heaven.KRISTEN: No . . .JIM: I have a spaceship story.NAT: If you took a rocket you could only go the moonand the sun. . . . A airplane might could go t o the sun.O.K.: Well, but let 's -NAT: Airplane can go over the clouds.D.K.: On top of the clouds, yeah. . . . So what you're

saying: Charles says at the very beginning there wasjust space. There was no sun, no moon, no planets, noearth.

KEN: Yeah!O.K.: How were the sun the moon the planets and theearth made?FRED: God made them.OX: How did he do that?FRED: He was kind of magic.KRISTEN: He used his spirit.MICHAEL: I don't believe this.FRED: Twinkle of an eye, and the earth was made!O.K.: So you say it happened suddenly.MICHAEL: I don't believe these people.O.K.: Well how do you believe it started?MICHAEL: I don't believe nothing.O.K.: Oh, you don't believe anything?MICHAEL: Do you?O.K.: Do I?MICHAEL: Do you believe what thefre saying?D.K.: Do I believe that God created the world?MICHAEL: How did God . . .

O.K.: How he did it, you mean?JIM: He had alot of power!O.K.: Well, I 'm asking you. O.K. You say he had alot ofpower. Fred said he was kind of magic. Charles, how

do you think the world came into being?CHARLES: I think . . . I think he just . . . God made thepeople, so I thEnk he made one of them and when . . .and they got a baby and pretty soon -MICHAEL: God made everything!CHARLES: - they started growing up and pretty sooneverybody started having babies so there were millionsof people in the world.

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NAT: Nobody.NAT: Space is still there..MICHAEL: It was already then:. . . . It was the firstthing . . . and God was the next thing.KEN: Vh uh, God was the first thing, and He made thespace and then He' made the planets.NAT: Yeah!D.K.: That's right!D.K.: Who made God?KEN: Nobody. He just made Himself!JIM: How did He?MICHAEL: Maybe His wife, but how did His wifegetherself?

JIM: I know.D.K.: How?]1M: Maybe because . . . the space had magic.D.K.: The space had magic?MiCHAEL: Naah!D.K.: Oh, you think the space made God or God madethe space?

ALL: God made the space!NAT: And the space made God.KEN: No! God made God (laughs). God made space andthe planets and us!

JIM: God made God.NAT: He also made dinosaurs and things.JIM: Jesus made Jesus.MICHAEL: Yeah, Jesus made Pacman.[Silly sounds]D.K.: O.K. Good. Um . . .FAITH: He said Jesus made Pacman.D.K.: Yeah, wel l -TAPE cur

Piaget referred to the kind of thinking and talkingwhich the children in this transcript are doing as romancing/ by which he seems to have meant what children are doing when they are not answering a questionaccording to his criteria of seriousness and intelligibility.It produces, he said, Mfallacies," because its "mythoma-nia" and Usuggestibility" lead to "an answer which he[the child] does not really believe."l Matthews is moreencouraging. He finds that often the child's romancinganswers are the most philosophically interesting, and"will not so much express the child's settled convictionsas explore a conceptual connection or make a conceptual joke."2 Matthews is suggesting which is demonstratedthroughout these transcripts - that there is a fundamentally playful element in logic, and that often youngchildren first discover the operations of logic throughjoking and playing with language.

AlUIlyric TUKlriflg: VoI.1l., No. I

Language play has a strong aesthetic element. Whenit is working, i t works because it sounds right, the waymusic works. It is aesthetic dements - prosodicrhythms, which capitalize on phonological echoes andinterplays, on pitch, juncture, and stress ("Nothing .Indians .. . Just Indians . .. Just water! . .. Just water? ..Yeah, just water and rain and clouds"), and syntacticaland semantic repeating or reversible patterns (Godmade the space . .. And the space made God ...No! Godmade God") - which guide the emergence of meaning.On the other hand, the issues being talked about inthese conversations are ones that are considered serious- when adults talk about them, they typically do notdo so in a joking manner. They tend, in fact to presenttheir opinions about the being-status of things such asthe origins of the universe, the earth or God - whetherin the church or in the classroom - with utter certainty. Hence the atmosphere of serious, even passionate negotiation going on in these conversations. But even thispassionate negotiation is an aesthet ic form, i t is a wayof singing together. This is what adults do too in thesekinds of conversations, but they are taught to ignore theelements of play and song in the interests of the cognitive data, the truth claims and their implications. But itseems to me that the two systems - the aesthetic playof the argument and the series of logical moves - aresymbiotic and mutually regulatory. Logic is groundedand expressed in the body, and the body is groundedand expressed in an interactiveweb of social relations. Itis the musical -jamming" of the individual elements ofthis web which drives the argument, as much as it isdriven by it.Next, I would like to suggest that the conversation

transcribed here has a structure, composed of certain essential characteristics which operate in the communityof inquiry whereverwe find it. First, there is the gathering of information a t t he beginning in response to aquestion - in this case fossils, babies, Indians, dinosaurs, rain, sun, and clouds. The initial framing of an answer to any question emerges, that is, from the knowledge and interests of the participants. Then there is themovement forward through the statement of generalities or principles, which are then challenged by concretecounterexamples (e.g.: "God is alive every time. Godnever, never dies ... God died"), followed in tum by anextended search for a resolution of contradictionsthrough the making of connections (uGod was alivewhen dinosaurs were down on the ground-) and distinctions.

As always i n the function of the community of inquiry, there is the taking of roles, the positioning of oneself within the conversation, a positioning determinedby philosophical experience and authority structure (Michael's mother, for example, is quite consciously not a

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rr-"": t

. . . . . . "-til l, pencI (I l pilP6f. 1991

Christian; Fred's family is very active in a fundamental,participatory, Christian group), by age and training(Charles, at age 6.4, is the oldest, and actually goes toKindergarten in the mornings), and by personality (Natis dramatic, zany, and poetic; Michael, at age 4.1 is theyoungest, but also highly verbal, very bright, and very assertive). There is the matter of individual leadershipwhich irrevocably determines the course of the conversation. So after Nat says "We don't know!" there is a slightpause. Then Charles, the eldest and most authoritative,introduces the space-as-receptacle theory (d . Timalus),which sets the course for the rest of the conversation.There is the element of self-correction characteristic ofthe community of inquiry: a working backwards and forwards through the splitting (analysis) and the joining(synthesis) process of the dialectic, the continual reconstruction of the material according t o the play (or is i tthe working?) of the collective mind which is this groupof children. The interplay of individuals in the conversa-

tion is an intraplay of the one mind which they represent together, and it is this shape of the whole which hasthe character of song.

Characteristic of the workings of the community ofinquiry, there is the introduction of new explanatoryconcepts or principles, in response to the chal1engesposed by the argument as it progresses: so here the concept of "magic as the function of God's "power." Butwhen the not ion of space as the receptacle, or first thing,coequal with God, emerges, then it is suggested that" m ~ y b e the space had magic." It is not far from there tointroducing the notion of space as God which is in fact aposition explored in early modern times by Henry Moreand his followers, for whom, as Koyre, in his history ofcosmology, has described it, "the infinite extension mustbe truly and really, and not only metaphorically, attributed to the First Cause." 3 But that idea is rejected, and itis in this apparent deadlock with which thi s par t of theconversation ends. This is in keeping with the move-

ment - somet imes slow, somet imes fast - character is tic ofthe community of inquiry, ta-wards the edge of a conceptualcliff, an aporia which requires anexpansion or contraction of na-etic horizons, either the recovering of ground already covered in search of another clue, orthe leap into the unknown. Inthis case, the aporia has to dowith the possibility of something coming from nothing, andthe idea of the necessity of a firstcause.

As these children approach thecliff, they do no t shrink fromthinking the unthinkable: "Godmade himself, for example, orSpacewas already there," or"What was there before space?"... "Nothing." Then the aporia,discovered to be unsolvable, forthe moment anyway, becomesthe occasion for the explosion(indeed the real explosion, sinceit ended there) of the conversation in a round of joking, usingas elements of the joke the verylogical structures which havereached the end of their rope,and are spinning their wheelsagainst the mystery of the real.So: "God made the space.... Andthe space made God ... God

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Finally, th e operation o f the community of inquiry is apower struggle, in the sense that this group, like an ygroup, is a complex of forces - per sonal , developmental,ideological, and even biological, locked in th e ago" o f thedialectics of existence. The historical struggle betweenthe belief systems of theism and atheism, a struggledeeply ingrained in late 20th century life, is already implicit in the conversation of these 4 to 6 year olds . In addition, th e relations of power between children andadults are clearly marked here. I, th e adult , act almost asan interrogator, holding everyone's feet to the fire of aquestion - th e origins of everything - which these children may already have decided to be unanswerable, andno t worth pursuing ("How did things start? How didthey begin?" ... .rwe don't know'"). In addition, Jam already framing the terms o f the discourse with phraseslike "What was before that?" which assumes that there

has to be a f irst cause, some ultimate"beginning. And it seems inevitableto me that, although I do my best tosuppress personal beliefs and ideas,my gestural and prosodic reactions, aswell as my repetitions and restatements, discourage certain expressionsof beliefs and ideas, and encourageothers. In fact young children, because they are"aesthetes, often havea very sharp, if unconscious, sensitivity to gestural and prosodic cues. Michael's wavering between affirmationand denial of God (which emergesmore clearly in th e next conversation)is only partly because he has justturned four and is new to this kind oftalk. It is also because he is attempting to read my ideas and beliefs, in order to compare them to those of th eother authority figure in his life, hismother, and compare these withwhat his peers are saying. At onepoint he comes right out and asks mewhat I believe. My attempts to evadethe question, although they are sincere, lead into an assumption of the

argument he is questioning - that God is a necessaryconcept for positing a beginning of things. Now, apartfrom lack of training and/or inherent clumsiness, I mighthave been less likely to make this mistake if I myselfwere no t a theist. So the grounding patterns of the conversation in the community of inquiry are often out ofsight - large framework theories, or sys tems of beliefwhich it is the function of the dialectic to uncover, sothat they can encounter each other "in th e light, so to

We might say, then,that one of the goalsof the community ofinquiry is to clarifythe ground ofpowerrelations, and therebywork for theirultimate resolution inan ideal community ofintersubjectivemutuality, thatvanishing point atwhich personal andcollective goals areharmonized.

made God . .. Jesus made Jesus .. . Jesus made Pacman" ...at which point the whole thing coll.:psed in hiJariousnonsense sounds, and soon after everyone went outside.The reductio ad absurdum is no t just a way of breakingoff, however, bu t also a way of summing up and expressing, if only as an absence, the distant goal for which thedialectic is striving: the ultimate synchronization of allthe individual elements of the collective mind, the heightof their mutual regulation. Garvey, in her discussion oflanguage play, speaks of it in just these terms - as a "ritual," in which "each child controls very precisely the behavior of the other , and this regulation is in itself satisfying, a form of mastery play whpre what is mastered isthe control of one's own ana one 's partner's actions."This is th e implicit telos of the dialectic, th e truth whichbeckons on the horizon - th e last horizon, which promises to justify th e rigors and tortuous twists and turns ofthe conversation. Young children,being "aesthetes," have it alreadyin play. Their reductio ad absurdum reveals, only incompletelyand prophetically it is true, th egoal which the dialectic o f thecommunity of inquiry promises.They demonstrate it to be a coordination of bodies - in rhythm,pitch, juncture, and gesture - asmuch of minds. They show ustha t the ideal communicativestate which is implicit in any conversation (even th e most frustrating), is somatic as wel l as noetic,that, indeed, the tw o are inseparable.In this conversation, as in theoperation of the community of inquiry in general, there are manyopportunities for turns which areeither missed or del.iberately ignored. An example of the latter isthe question about how Godcould die implicit in the phenome-non of Jesus, wnich I brushedpast, anxious not to get entangledtoo soon in straight theology. There is the question ofthe first people; and there are some fairly sophisticatedideas about physics stated right at the beginning ("thesun makes them come up into the air and turn into ac10udl It does that to rainwater - puddles). Each ofthese might have been a tu m which led us on a betterpath than the one we took, or a worse one. There is nounambiguously bes t or worst tum in th e conversation,except in hindsight.

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speak, and thereby become interlocutive. We might say,then, that one of the goals of the community of inquiryis to clarify the ground of power relations, and therebywork for their ultimate resolution in an ideal communityof intersubjective mutuality, that vanishing point atwhich personal and collective goals are harmonized.In fact all decisive action within the community of in

quiry is a tropism of one sort or another, or even more,an error (and each one, potentially, -the graceful errorthat corrects the cave), in the sense that to move in anyone direction is no t to move in another, which mif)1thave been a better one. Inevitably the community of inquiry moves by taking positions, and by the clash and negotiation of realms of influence. We can only be consoledby the fact that the process is self-correcting, bu t certainly situations can be more or less tangled, and take longeror shorter t imes to self-eorrect. But you, dear reader,what would you have done? I welcome letters describingadult moves you Saw as wrong or unperceptive, andmoves you might have made.

NOTES1. See Jean Piaget, The Ollld's Conceprion of rk World ( fotowa,

NJ: littlefield Adams, 1979 (Originally published 1929]),p. 16 H.

2. Careth M.1tthews, PhtloS()phy and rhe Young Clllld (Cam-bridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), p. 39.3 Alexandre Koyre, From rhe Closed World ro the Infinite Uni-\luse (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957), p. 199.

4. Catherine Carvey, Play (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), p. 120. See Chapter 8, -Ritualized Play:

DlJvid KetfNuly, Ph.D., teaches in the Del'tUttrfeNt ofChild atfd FlJtrfily 5twliu at Northern MkhigatfUtfiversity, Marquette, MichiglJtf.

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