Preliminary communication
The Value and Efficiency of Modern Strategies of Learning and Teaching Philosophy in Italian Schools
Raffaela De Sanctis
Abstract
Is philosophy dead in the postmodern society as certain phenomena in the Italian schooling system perhaps enable one to infer? This paper considers the state of affairs of teaching philosophy in Italian schools.
Teaching philosophy in Italy has abandoned the classical conception based on chronologically sequenced learning of certain (or all) philosophers and texts, and has adopted a pluri-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary methodology of modules. This paper attempts to show that a problem-orientated approach to philosophy and the great existential questions, the following of the course of abstract thought and a direct facing of – one could say “Socratic” (but also hermeneutic) – the teacher and the student are most certainly a more efficient and interesting way of learning in relation to the learning and memorising of historical facts. This way good teachers manage to draw the attention of their students and inspire love towards the content presented and dealt with. Here, however, another problem may arise: a “troublesome” encounter – conflict with the philosophy course book.
Keywords
Philosophy; the teaching of philosophy; strategies of learning
Hrčak ID:
4367
URI
Publication date:
24.8.2006.
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