Abstract: Frédérique Marie Prot This article explores the possibility of educating to student’s otherness in the school setting. While schools are responsible for passing on knowledge, they are also responsible for passing on values. In this respect, teaching is a matter of morality, as a means of shaping the pupil's relational dispositions. This is what we intend to emphasize in the three parts of this paper. The first section looks at the importance of humanistic education in schools, and what we mean by education to otherness. The second part takes a didactic perspective and presents, in its generic form, the cooperative meeting as a didactic institution at the Freinet School (in Vence, Alpes-Maritimes department). The final section analyzes a specific episode of a cooperative meeting, in an attempt to show how this device is similar to what Freinet called a "moral cure", that is, taking care of the fundamental moral question of the conditions of encounter between subjects.
Abstract: Camille Roelens This article stems from political philosophy and the interdisciplinary ethics of education and training. It examines what exactly it is to "elevate" a child when he or she is referred to as a pupil, and what part is played by the idea of moral perfection. First, we demonstrate that Durkheim's work contains valuable insights for understanding a maximalist conception of pupil ethic - which itself is embedded in a perfectionist perspective - at the root of republican schooling in France, and which remains as influential as it is problematic today (1). We then outline a minimalist pupil ethic capable of acting as a counterpoint, and suggest that it is congruent with the axiological framework of advanced liberal democracies (2). Finally, we outline four possible safe-conducts to help us escape the paternalistic legacy of the concept of the pupil.
Abstract: André Pachod If teacher ethics is definitely an important area of research, student ethics remains largely unexplored. It seems absent from the concerns of educational researchers, of teacher training, and of the daily exercise of teaching in the classroom and at school. This notion needs to be clarified, in contrast with two closely related and often mixed-up terms: morality and ethics. In reference to Paul Ricoeur, ethics will be approached as the aim of the good life of the student in the classroom and in the school. For the student's ethics to be built daily, various conditions and postures must be activated by the teacher-pedagogue and educator, and by the student as a subject and actor.
Abstract: Barthélemy Durrive Would philosophy teachers teach any differently, during a lecture on ethics, if they tried to consider students as ethical subjects in the making' Should these students’ ethical beliefs, that is, their individual statements of value, come into account when the lecture is aiming not only to describe ethical values but also to raise awareness and make people mindful' In this paper, students’ activity is considered through an ergonomics and human factors model called the ergological approach (Schwartz, 2000). Considering students’ activity as a continuing norms debate, the model describes how ethical and political statements of value play a decisive role in their learning and social practices. Thus, this paper argues that a philosophy lecture on ethics should definitely address these statements of values in order to discuss them in class as genuine teaching material.
Abstract: Clémentine Vivarelli and José-Luis Wolfs The notion of secularism has two dimensions: political and philosophical-ethical. Classically, the French conception refers mainly to the first (separation of church and state) and the Belgian conception to the second. However, recent developments show heated debates in France - on the philosophical and ethical levels - between "republican" and "liberal" secularism and, in Belgium, initiatives from the secular world at the political level: the wish to create a philosophy and citizenship course common to all, debates around the possible inclusion of the principle of secularism in the Constitution. The article puts into perspective the recent evolutions of secularism in the two countries.
Abstract: Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons Today the issue of ‘educational change’ is widely discussed. Such change, so we can hear, is needed because of increasing linguistic heterogeneity and cultural diversity, because of technological developments and because of the persisting correlation between social background and educational success. In this context ‘educational’ seems to refer to the institutional practice of the school. But what do we mean by school' In our contribution, we offer some elements of what we call an internal pedagogical perspective on school and on scholastic learning which clarifies its emancipatory potential as pedagogic form. This will allow us to address the issue of educational change differently and to substantiate a plea for bringing more ‘school’ into our educational institutions. We (1) distinguish between an internal perspective and various external perspectives on the school. We, than, (2) sketch the basic assumptions, operations and experiences of the school as pedagogic form emphasizing (3) that school is technically, pedagogically and practically composed and (4) indicating very briefly how school has and is been tamed. Finally (5) we suggest some challenges for making or reinventing school today, relating it briefly to the issue of teacher education.
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