| This dissertation explores an area of the connection between philosophy and education. As it argues in favor of teachers' engagement in philosophical activity, it specifically examines three possible routes of encounter between doing philosophy and teacher preparation: philosophy and teachers' reasoning capacities; philosophy and teachers' ways of looking at their fields; philosophy and teachers' positioning towards and within their profession and their worlds. Although the dissertation alludes to teacher education programs in general, it considers these three roads within the specific context of a philosophy of education course.;Philosophy--and doing philosophy--involves clarifying notions, examining underlying assumptions and reasons, considering the criteria employed in decisions and judgments. In its relation to the disciplines, including education, doing philosophy involves questioning and problematizing concepts, beliefs, presumptions so as to render them in an alternative light, one that opens up new possibilities of thinking and rethinking the fields. In doing so, it becomes a source of new ideas and meanings, a source of possible associations between one subject and another, between the subject and teachers' expectations and concerns, their personal lives and histories.;Through analyzing the relationship between philosophy, philosophies of and teacher preparation, the dissertation explores the link between theory and practice while proposing a conception of both philosophy and education in which that dichotomy between theory and practice breaks down.;The dissertation is divided in three main parts. The first offers an overview of the debate regarding the relationship between philosophy, philosophy of education, educational theory and educational practice. The second presents three lines of connection between doing philosophy and teacher preparation in the particular context of a philosophy of education course. The third part provides a proposal for a curriculum where the ideas presented throughout the dissertation begin to take concrete form. |
