The practice of teaching philosophy as a proposal for intervention in the vandalism of public-school heritage

Abstract

The present paper has as objective to suggest a proposal of philosophical activity starting from the reading and reflection upon the text “Pericles´Funeral Oration”, to try to solve a problem that, along the past few years has become more and more intense, which is the case of the depredation of the property and heritage of public school. Problem that has been presented this way: Before the abandon and indifference, mostly shown by the students, how can philosophy contribute to lessen the devaluation of public school patrimony? That is, in what ways can philosophy stimulate a feeling of belonging on Middle and Junior High school students toward the school environment. To answer this question this paper is divided in three sections. In the first section, the focus is the exposition of the depredation itself at which many schools are found. The data has been provided by researches developed by public education teachers supported by Education Development Plan (PDE). In the second section we present philosophy as knowledge of formation, that is, a modality of knowledge that seeks, through its peculiarities, to demonstrate how possible it is, from philosophical reflection and of a human formation process, to try to resolve the problem of vandalism perpetrated by students and also the indifference from some teachers insensitive to the problem. Finally, in the third section, the didactic-philosophical proposal is presented as a suggestion of intervention. Such intervention is also divided in two steps, being the first the reading, interpretation and reflection of the philosophical text in the classroom. The second step being the practice, that stimulates the students to propose projects aiming changes in the environment they are active parts of, so they could leave their legacy. With that done, we truly expect not only to contribute to enrich the activities directed to the philosophy teaching at Middle and Junior High schools, but also to contribute to an ideal of human being that might have the perception of belonging to a particular community and therefore value the cultural legacy received, as is the case of scholar institutions.