Por uma educação infantil dialógica, na direção da educação para o pensar – Lipman e Freire

Abstract

This Master's thesis is being developed in the Research Line/LP1- Teaching, Knowledge and Professional Development, of the Postgraduate Program in Education of the Federal University of Santa Maria/RS and aims to systematize the theoretical framework of "education for thinking", in Matthew Lipman's philosophical style and establish its possible relations with what Paulo Freire calls "right thinking", having pedagogical discuss as a central issue in both authors. In continuity, we intend to understand how education for thinking can be developed with children in early childhood education, because the author states that at this stage of children's development children are more open to learning and developing their capacities, as well as their moral conscience. Freire agrees with Lipman about these aspects, but beyond them, in a different situation from the North American one, he emphasizes that this education to "think right" necessarily leads to critical thinking in the face of the context of social inequalities, and that the formation for the exercise of citizenship is only consolidated in the praxis of transforming the social structures that produce them, according to his proposal of literacy as conscientization. We develop the common points between the authors, such as education for critical thinking through dialogical procedures and the similarities between what Freire called "Circles of Culture" in the literacy process and Lipman called "community of inquiry" in the education of children. Dialogical practice is part of the nature of philosophy, of education for thinking, and equally of learning to "think right," which Freire emphasizes so often in Pedagogy of Autonomy (1999). Lipman (1990, 1995), Freire (1987, 1992, 1994, 1996), and Vygotsky (1989), and, albeit from a distance, under the influences of the Socratic tradition regarding dialogical criticality, reflection, and, in general to the humanism that is supported by the close relationship between philosophy and democracy will be the references of the research. In methodological terms it is almost unnecessary to state that, since this is a theoretical, bibliographical research, it will be qualitative in nature, according to the definition of (TRIVIÑOS, 1987). In this moment of theoretical reconstruction, examples of experiences, of some classroom methodologies may appear, but only as supports for the theoretical understanding of the importance of this proposal of education for thinking with children in early childhood education. This dissertation may be another contribution towards the importance of dialogical procedures for the development of a more philosophical and critical thinking since the early school years.