Philosophy teachers protest in front of the Ministry of Education for the practical disappearance of the subject in ESO | Education

Ricardo Hurtado is a professor of Philosophy at an institute in Almendralejo (Badajoz), 373 kilometers from the Ministry of Education. This Saturday he woke up at 7:00 in the morning and traveled by car to Madrid to stand at the headquarters of the department directed by Pilar Alegría, where he protested against the reduction of the weight of his subject in Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO). “I believe that the content we teach is more important than ever. We trust that the Lomloe – the new educational law – would give Philosophy the space it deserves, but the opposite is happening ”, he complains, with a loudspeaker in hand. He is one of the 180 protesters – according to the estimate of the police present at the protest – who this Saturday have gathered in front of the ministry to demand that Philosophy not be diluted in the compulsory phase of education.

“Pilar Alegría, more Philosophy,” the protesters chant, with masks on their faces and banners in their hands: “Pedro Sánchez, you’ll see when Descartes finds out that you exist and don’t think”; “I think then I mess”; “I do not fear death, I fear stupidity”; “0% critical matter” … The germ of the protest is in the draft of the secondary school hours. Philosophy does not appear as an elective in the fourth year of ESO (although it may be so in those autonomies that so decide), as it did until now. A new compulsory subject is proposed called Civic and Ethical Values ​​(similar to Education for Citizenship, which eliminated the PP), but the philosophical contents are diluted among other issues. “This does not compensate for the loss of an elective in fourth of ESO. We need the ministry to recognize that it is necessary to include Philosophy in compulsory education ”, claims Esperanza Rodríguez, president of the Spanish Philosophy Network and one of the spokespersons for the Platform in Defense of Philosophy, which groups together critical associations with the approach of the ministry.

Rodríguez asks that Philosophy be an elective plus the last year of ESO: “Just as students will be able to choose to take Music or Physics or Chemistry, they can choose Philosophy. It is interesting for those who consider a more humanistic line. Dismissing it is absurd ”. The platform’s spokeswoman recalls that the objective of the Lomloe, better known as Celáa lawIt is “the development of competences to achieve personal autonomy; what better way to achieve this than by teaching a subject of this type ”. “Philosophy is not like Mathematics or Language, known to students throughout their education. What is stated by Civic and Ethical Values ​​is not enough. They are necessary knowledge for students to learn to argue, not to be fooled, and it is the only opportunity for a good part of the student body ”.

Sara López, one of the spokespersons of the Union Students in Struggle, has an impact on the same idea: “There are students who do not attend Baccalaureate, who leave their studies or choose Vocational Training. In ESO they should already help you to adopt a critical mindset. Learning Philosophy is the fundamental weapon to be able to reflect ”. Once in Baccalaureate, the approach of the ministry does reinforce Philosophy: it will continue to be compulsory in the first year and will also become so in the second, with the name of History of Philosophy.

Hurtado, the Almendralejo teacher, claims that Education maintains the weight of the subject in ESO. “We are pessimistic. If we do not succeed, we will defend it before the autonomous communities, “he says, angered by what he considers an” attack “on philosophical thought,” an essential tool in such a mediated world, with students so aware of social networks; mechanisms are necessary to generate one’s own thought ”, he concludes.

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