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ABSTRACT
Master Dissertation
Post Graduation Program in Education
Federal University of Santa Maria
THE HIGH SCHOOL PHILOSOFHY TEACHER’S KNOWLEDGES
AUTHOR: PAULO RICARDO TAVARES DA SILVEIRA
ADVISER: ELISETE MEDIANEIRA TOMAZETTI
Data e local da defesa: Santa Maria, 07 de julho de 2005.
The struggle for the mandatory philosophy class in High School since the
eighties, has drawn many discussions. However, these discussions did not take into
account the specifics of teaching philosophy in the classroom and the possible
alternatives to really insert philosophy into High School. This research aimed to identify
the knowledges which were built within the educational action by the philosophy
teacher in his/her practice in the High School classroom. The participants were teachers
with a degree in philosophy who taught at High School within the public schools at the
8
th
CRE in Santa Maria – RS. The participants were submitted to a semi-structured
interview, which was tape recorded and later analized using the following categories: 1
st
– Action/practice of the philosophy teacher. 2
nd
– Philosophy conception. 3
rd
– Dualism
of the faculty practice. 4
th
– Knowledges of teaching philosophy. It was identified by
this analysis that some dualims go beyond the action of the teacher in the classroom.
These dualisms are: Space/time in the teaching and learning philosophy relationship;
teacher´s organization of the group and individual work contents; initial academic and
teaching performance; traditional and alternative ways to work; philosophy history and
themes; bureaucracy and faculty practice; philosophy as forming (a way to form) and
ulititarims/imediatism. The understanding and the administration of the conflicts created
by these dualisms made possible to identify the teacher´s knowledges which are
inherited to the philosophy teacher´s practice. The possibility to approach these
dualisms points to a teacher who is worried to become close to his/her students, which
is the first step to teach philosophy. It means a philosophy that awakens the student to
the dogmatisms of the common sense in order to be significant to himself/herself. This
same teacher perceives that it is impossible to do philosophy without dialogue.
However, his/her practice becomes compromised due to the experiences that marked
his/her initial academic formation. The teacher looks to him/herself as someone who
talks too much, and that centralizes the discussion. This centralizing attitute is related to
the concept of philosophy that he/she uses to organize his/her pedagogical work. The
teacher reports that his/her initial academic formation had a small contribution to
organize his/her current teaching practice. The only important contribuition was the
great theoretical referenciais of the philosophy history. When trying to approach the
philosophy history with the theme of interest to the students, and when encouraging
them the need to think about one´s own daily routine, the teachers believe to be
philosophying, which the initial academic formation did not teach because it is far from
the High School student reality. This study aimed to show that it is possible to teach
philosophy and there is no difference between teaching philosophy and to practice
philosophy once the dualisms inherented to the High School teacher are understood and
managed.