Ethics in Colombian education: Reflections from “Teacher as a transformative intellectual” category

Abstract

This work is defined in a break between a mestizo, modern and individualist ethos and a liberal, technocratic and progressive legislation. It focusses on the education in ethics and the paper that rules it: the curricular guidelines for the teaching of ethics of the Colombian National Education Ministry. Its theoretical reference is the curriculum theories, and its objective is to reflect on the question of the teaching of morality, with the above focus, through the defense of the figure of the teacher as a transformative intellectual, taken from Henry Giroux. The idea is to show that the teacher as a transformative intellectual is the most appropriate figure to carry out the ideal of moral education from Esperanza Guisán. Therefore, teacher can overcome the break between two sets of discordant values, thanks to the appropriation of some ideas that appear in the curricular guidelines for the teaching of ethics. Thus, a transforming practice can be achieved without having to move away from the colombian legal framework.

Keywords

• ethics
• education
• teacher
• transformative intellectual