THE TEACHING OF PHILOSOPHY AT SCHOOL: THE MAIN TRENDS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the necessity of incorporating aspects of teaching philosophy into school education and outlining the main trends of their implementation in the countries of Europe and North America in order to detect the possibilities of taking their experience into Ukrainian realities. Philosophy at school is primarily understood as the development of skills related to thoughtful thinking, the ability to analyze, synthesize and evaluate information, positions, arguments that in the future will contribute to the realization of a person’s conscious position in all spheres of life – from socio-political to cultural-personal. Understanding the need for teaching philosophy at school is currently inherent in most European countries. Even the countries where this practice was not traditionally developed, in recent years made significant shifts in the implementation of such training. This is mainly due to the challenges of modern society, in which, against the background of information and technology development, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, the ability to systematically solve problems and realize the implications and prospects become the most relevant competencies. In general, if we summarize the main approaches, then the philosophy at school can be reduced to two directions – the history of philosophy and philosophizing. Methodological work of a teacher at the same time requires: the refusal of authoritarianism, becoming a facilitator; the creation and managing the environment for discussion; encouragement of the creative approach based on logical reasoning; stimulating analytical perception of information; observation of the relationship between theory and everyday life. It is philosophy as a methodology that allows us to form an intellectual basis for overcoming the challenges of society, and with the need to teach it at school, it requires development, overcoming existing contradictions in approaches and subsequent widespread implementation. For Ukraine, the current issue is the methodological support, teaching materials and training of the specialists, which is a problem for certain areas of research.