Recovering the third hour of philosophy: a group of teachers finds the right fit to make it possible

Barcelona"Philosophy has two main motives: to be outraged at transforming the world and to marvel at perseverance." The phrase uttered by Begoña Roman, a doctor of philosophy and professor at the University of Barcelona (UB), is a good example of why, on a Monday afternoon, nearly 100 people gathered at the Ateneu Barcelonès with a clear objective: to restore the prestige of philosophy in Catalan education. "It's no longer a professional issue but a national issue. The problem is that we live in a short-termist way. We don't plan for the future, but only for today," criticized philosophy professor Ramon Moix.

A crucial step toward rectifying the situation is being able to dedicate more hours to philosophy. Now, the Philosophy Teachers collective, which brings together more than 400 teachers, has found an option to recover the third hour of philosophy in the first year of high school, which was lost almost two decades ago in the Catalan system. The proposal, which ARA has had access to, although provisional, has been accepted by the entire group of philosophy teachers at Catalan high schools, as well as by professors and doctors.

The new distribution of hours in the first year of high school has been chosen from among four models that had been developed and, broadly speaking, aims to prioritize core subjects over electives, at least in terms of the number of hours they have in the high school curriculum. In fact, the strategy is the same one followed by the Department of Education to find the fit of the controversial merger of science subjects to high school, without, a priori, losing hours of science as such.

In this way, Philosophy Teachers propose that the current high school curriculum, which has three three-hour slots for elective subjects in the first year of high school, be reduced to just two. With the three hours that would be freed up with this change, the group of teachers proposes that one be for the subject of philosophy to recover the historic third hour and the other two be used to reinforce languages. With these changes, the final curriculum they propose would have three hours per week of Catalan language and literature, another three of Spanish, and three of philosophy.

Although the initial contacts between Philosophy Teachers and the Department of Education have been very superficial, the group of teachers now wants to take advantage of the fact that there will be a modification in the Baccalaureate decree to merge the sciences to start the philosophy melon. "If the decree can be modified for the sciences, it can also be modified for philosophy," they argue, explaining that the objective is to submit the proposal to the Government for consideration.

Furthermore, they also point out that if the criterion for the controversial merger of the sciences has been to equalize the curriculum with the rest of the autonomous communities, this could also be applied to philosophy, since Catalonia is the territory in the State where the fewest hours are dedicated to this subject..

Critical thinking doesn't come through Amazon

"Without more hours, we can't cover all the content," summarizes philosophy teacher Laia Cos, one of the people who led the creation of this new platform for teachers. In this sense, fellow philosophy teacher Mercè Garcia insists that "doing two hours [currently taught in the first year of Catalan high school] is like doing nothing, especially considering that our subject is about teaching thinking." "We're not delivering Amazon packages; we're teaching critical thinking," she argues.

For all these reasons, in addition to reintroducing the third hour in the first year of high school, Philosophy Teachers are also calling for an increased focus on civic and ethical values education in secondary school, and for the guaranteed inclusion of the philosophy elective in all fourth-year students. "People will continue to think, but they will think poorly, and that will lead to fascism," warned Ramon Alcoberro, a doctor of philosophy and high school philosophy teacher, to demonstrate the need to increase the importance of the subject that fosters critical thinking among adolescents.