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Using visual images as a way to promote and develop philosophical discussion is surely obvious.

This particular suggestion is around the theme of  KEYS using still images.

Here are a few suggested images of keys - but you can also collect your own and look out for real keys too. Handling interesting keys adds another dimension entirely.

When you look at a collection of keys the variations in design begin to emerge.

• What does a key say about its function and its owner?
• Can we guess which keys belong to which type of doors?
• Take one of the keys and make up a short story about who it belongs(ed) to, where it fits, what is behind the door…. etc.
• Which of these keys make you feel the safest? Why is that?
• Our house key has strong links to our feelings about ‘home’. What is the difference between a house and a home?
• Keys have strong links with security and feeling secure. How do people feel when they lose their keys?
• What would happen if all the keys in the world disappeared overnight?
• What else makes you feel safe or unsafe?  (might need to be sensitive here)
• Who would you trust your house key with? How many people would you trust?
• Could any of these keys be used to lock someone away? Who might that be and why would/should they have to be locked up?
• If you had to be locked up (for your own safety for example, like Anne Frank) where would you choose?
• We talk about ‘holding the key’ to something – which key looks most like the key to your mind?
• If you were a key what type of key would you be?

Possible literacy extensions

• Short stories about imprisonment and/or escape
• Character profiles – matching keys to people – alive or dead (‘Who would live in a place like this?)
• Write a letter to a prisoner of war – could be linked to family research and finding real family members who served in the wars of this century.
• Read about someone like Nelson Mandela – think about how he was able to survive prison life for so long.

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