sobre partos y nacimientos: derivas ético-políticas de la figura del “maestro-partero” en filosofía con/para niñxs.

In this paper, I endeavor to evaluate the ethical-political consequences of the metaphor of "teacher-midwife" awarded to Plato’s Socrates in Theaetetus and its use by different scholars to describe the role of teacher in a Philosophy with/for children (Pf/wC) context. The paper is divided into three sections: first (1) an approach is made to the figure of Socrates in Meno, to the critique of his method as expressed by Jacques Rancière in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, and to the echoing of that critique by Walter Kohan in his evaluation of the pedagogy of Pf/wC. Next, (2) different descriptions of the teacher’s role in Pf/wC are reviewed, emphasizing the elements that emphasize the Socratic figure. For Matthew Lipman, one of the keys to turning classrooms into communities of philosophical inquiry was to substantially modify the teaching role. Because, on Lipman’s account, the teacher should not teach in the traditional sense, different metaphors have been sought to describe her role. In section (3), I argue that a description of the teacher as "guide" can be applied to many features that characterize Socrates. I analyze in depth the metaphor of the "teacher-midwife" establishing the links with those developed in (1) and (2). Emphasis is placed on the ethical-political consequences of equating the teacher with a "teacher-midwife", especially if we take into account Plato's complete description of pedagogical maiusis in Theaetetus, and the centrality of the metaphor in Pf/wC pedagogical practice. Finally, I consider the very different image of the “birth” metaphor that is suggested by Hannah Arendt’s concept of “natality,” and explore its implications for a pedagogical alternative to the Socratic.

atrever-se a uma escrita infantil: a infância como abrigo e refúgio

The present text is a childlike exercise in writing. In responding to an invitation to write an adult, academic text, we the authors found that the presence of a child's standpoint acted to change the expressions that were to be elucidated, and that the project that adult writing represents was suspended by the creative force of childhood. "Philosophy for children" became "children for philosophy"; "moral education" became "the end (of) morality" and "conceptions of childhood" became the "childhood of conceptions." As such our text is divided into different sections, in each of which we explore the implications of allowing ourselves to be transformed in our practice by recognition of the child’s voice; the problematization of conventional educational programmatics for one, and the opening of new pedagogical pathways, which recognize childhood as a moving force of thinking, as opposed to an object of study and manipulation. To this end, we engage several interlocutors from different fields--literature, philosophy, education, "philosophy for children", and from chronological children themselves. We conclude by proposing, based on an encounter with the work of H. Cisoux and J. Derrida, that we think about the relations between deconstruction and childhood in such a way that our affirmation of childhood leads to a transformation of the text itself—not only in its content but in its form. As such, we present the reader with a fundamentally childlike text.

the brownies’ book: du bois e a construção de uma referência literária para identidade negra infanto-juvenil

In the period from January 1920 to December 1921 a cooperation between Jessie Fauset, Augustus Dill and W.E.B. Du Bois resulted in the publication of a periodical called “The Brownies’ Book” (TBB) the first publication for North American black, and not white (colored people) children and young people. The creation of “The Brownies' Book” (TBB) was a pioneering event in African American literature in general and, more specifically, in the field of African American children's literature, as it was the first periodical composed and published by African Americans for black children who, until then, searched in vain for material that included a perspective on their experience and history. This article argues that the TBBs were one of the harbingers of the movement called the Harlem Renaissance, constituting a children's literary materialization of the path towards the emergence of what the philosopher Alain Locke called the New Negro. What was being formulated was both the deconstruction of stereotypes associated with blacks and the active projection/creation of a positive identification with their local and ancestral community. This paper seeks to identify the post-WWI discursive strategies and practices of de-racialization proposed for “the children of the sun”, as W.E.B. Du Bois called them, in order to stop seeing themselves “through the eyes of others” (Du Bois, 1903).

some ethical implications of practicing philosophy with children and adults

This paper acts as an introduction to a dossier centered on the ethical implications of Practicing Philosophy with Children and Adults. It identifies ethical themes in the P4C movement over three generations of theorists and practitioners, and argues that, historically and materially, the transition to a “new” hermeneutics of childhood that has occurred within the P4C movement may be said to have emerged as a response to the ever-increasing pressure of neoliberalism and a weaponized capitalism to construct public policies in education on an over-regulated, prescribed, state-monitored, model. Could a new relationship to childhood provide the ethical and political agenda that our times require for doing philosophy with children with integrity? Could a radical listening and openness to childhood—which has been an intrinsic confessional characteristic of P4C pedagogy from the beginning--sustain the movement through these dark times? Finally, the paper presents a set of articles written in response to these questions: What, if any, should the ethical commitments of the P4C facilitator be? Is political/ideological neutrality required of the P4C facilitator? Is political neutrality possible? What constitutes indoctrination in educational settings? Are children more vulnerable to indoctrination than adults, and if so, what are the implications of that fact for the practice of P4C? What are the uses of P4C in the dramatically polarized ideological landscape we currently inhabit? What, if any, are the ethical responsibilities of a teacher engaging in philosophical practice? Are the philosophical practitioner’s ethical responsibilities similar or different when the subjects are children or adults? Does every methodology have a “hidden curriculum”? If so, what is the hidden curriculum of P4C? What distinguishes dialogical from monological practice? May one have the appearance of the other? Is the “Socratic method” (Elenchus) as we conceive it dialogical? What, if any, are the uses of irony in philosophical practice? Should Socrates (or any other philosopher) be considered a model for P4C practitioners?

fabulate ergo sum: a criação, o currículo e o cuidado com a vida

This essay discusses the possibility of turning what Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari called “fabulating” into a collective research method, insomuch as Deleuze and Guattari identified it as the invention of a collectivity that does not yet exist, a people to come. Given our current situation, in which the vital force of contemporary collectivities is undermined by the capitalist machine, this text inquires into the possibilities of an insurrection that begins with life in schools. If, as Bergson claimed, fabulating has a dark side that is inclined to the regulation of life, a philosophy of difference, on the other hand, conceptualizes the possibilities inherent in lived immanence. To fabulate would be, then, a question of creating possible existences. As such, this text proposes to fabulate, together with students from a suburban school in the municipality of Cariacica-ES, possible conditions of collective life in the school itself. Faced as it is by the market imperatives that govern the school and its curriculum, fabulation offers an approach and a methodology that promises to overcome this negative educational climate by fashioning larger than life images that transform and metamorphose conventional representations and concepts of collectivities, thereby enabling the invention of a people to come, and the creation of a commons and of a collective body capable of creating cognitive and affective domains that expand the limits of life.

authenticity as an inarticulate ideal in the contemporary discourse of good childhoods

This paper consists of an initial investigation about the meaning of a good childhood following the ethical ideal of authenticity. In this introduction to a philosophy of childhood and authenticity, the central theme is to investigate how the authenticity ideal is already presupposed in the contemporary discourse on what constitutes a good childhood. In the emerging field of philosophy of childhood, the capacities of children for agency, autonomy, and committing and the fundamental role of parents in guaranteeing possibilities to exercise them are being increasingly highlighted, together with a discourse that there are some intrinsic goods of childhood. These developments parallel contemporary reconstructions of authenticity as an ethical ideal. Current debates emphasize the importance of a person finding, creating and constructing their originality, and how to realize it. At the same time, this search must recognize demands emanating from something more than human desires: from one’s culture and community. The parallel dynamics between these two discourses - children-parent and individual-society - point to a direction that applying the concept of authenticity to the construction of novel interpretations and practices of a good childhood can bring fruitful results. After examining such parallels, some of these practices that emerge from the analysis of good childhoods as authentic childhood are pointed out, such as the importance of cultivating children’s moments of caring and committing, and the development of personal projects. The paper concludes by exploring some limitations of the applied methodology and how it can be a strength in future research on this topic.

una isla llamada serendipia: definiciones ético pedagógicas en el proyecto filosofar con niñxs.

This text proposes some lines of reflection and action related to a project that links philosophy and childhood, whose pedagogical and investigative activity has been developed in the province of Córdoba, Argentina, for more than twenty-five years. To do this we recover an experience of workshops with children and adults, in a continuous process of reflection on childhood and how children think about themselves. That experience focuses on imagining a particular space and time – living together on an island where adults cannot be found--and from there question the forms of decision making and participation – of political action – that children perform in the territories they inhabit. Here it is proposed that the circumstance of incompleteness regarding issues such as politics and sexuality encompass all age situations and, therefore, it is more appropriate to let ourselves be traversed by restlessness and doubt than to accept a preconceived world in which problems quickly find answers, and what you do not know or cannot be located in a fixed category is unknown, ignored, or remains hidden. We propose to start by not postulating any pre-conceived notions regarding childhoods--thinking of them as hypotheses with unexplored names, bodies and thoughts to get to know. Likewise, it is assumed that reflection on teaching practice relocates philosophy teachers as intellectuals who keep universal explanations in their “professorial pockets,” and reinvent themselves by dealing with specific problems, the small discoveries one makes through exchanges with others--those others that, as in the case of children, there is much to learn about and from. This is the ethical and political task that emerges from a continuous reflection on shared action. Welcome, then, to the island where everything is to be decided and participated in, the island of Serendipity.

do poder disciplinar ao biopoder à necropolítica: a criança negra em busca de uma infância descolonizada

The article discusses how the emergence of the term "minor" in Brazilian society, from the mid-nineteenth century, forged mainly by the practice of legal and medical discourse, outlined a path of institutionalization for poor children; first, in the post-abolition period of enslavement until the thirties of the last century and, later, until the period of democratization of Brazil, considering the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988. The analysis for the proposed periods was based on the concept of disciplinary power and biopower, both coined by Foucault. Furthermore, the emergence of the black child was discussed, based on its status as a citizen child, contained in the Federal Constitution of 1988, and in the Statute of the Child and Adolescent created in the 1990s. From this period up to the present day, the text deals with the new devices created by the Brazilian State, which have ensured unequal conditions for black children and mainly promoted the increase of homicides among them.The analysis of the last period presented was based on the concept of “necropolitics,” developed by Achille Mbembe. Finally, we defend the principle that another childhood for black child will only be possible through a becoming-other, a new opening of the world and, above all, a decolonization of childhood for children belonging to the black ethnic-racial group.