report on a colloquium problematizing philosophical discussion practices in french elementary schools and colleges

Abstract

This colloquium was organized in partnership with the Bureau des Innovations de la Direction de l‟Enseignement Scolaire and the academic coordinators of the Academies of Montpellier, Caen and Creteil. The General Inspectorate of Philosophy was invited to attend and to participate in the event. It represents an important moment in the collective reflection on a recent French innovation: sharing new practices in the area of teaching philosophy in primary and secondary schools. There are at least five challenges for these practices, which makes the teacher's role more complex: 1) The linguistic challenge, given that they are based primarily on oral practices; 2) The psychological challenge, given that the question of the construction of identity and the confidence in one‟s own ability to think must be continually addressed; 3) The political challenge, given that the school in a democracy explicitly assumes the task of preparing the future citizen; 4) The ethical challenge to develop an educational practice in the classroom based on an ethics of discussion which in turn is based on respect for others; 5) The cognitive challenge to a curriculum and pedagogy that aim to teach children to "think for themselves"; Finally, the new practices under discussion raise questions and challenges for philosophy itself, and for the didactics of the discipline. It is the very philosophical dimension of these practices that gives them their specificity. They represent a major innovation in that until now, it has been only in the final year of high school that philosophy enters the curriculum; thus, to speak of it from the kindergarten level on represents a major break with traditional French philosophical education.