Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present an ongoing research project that aims to uncover meanings about the figure of the teacher in the community of philosophical inquiry. What is unique about this figure? What constitutes this figure? How is this figure configured and reconfigured in her own practice? and how is she configured and reconfigured in her own practice? The article begins by describing what characterizes, defines or constitutes the figure of the teacher as facilitator outlined in the initial Philosophy for Children program. It also addresses some critical perspectives on the notion of facilitating and seeks to propose an alternative to the figure of the facilitator which, far from attempting to define a taxonomy of teaching philosophy with children or to establish a model of teacher, allows us to think of a figure of schoolmaster who is sensitive to encounters and who, through them, also finds other ways of being and doing. In this sense, a reflection is also proposed on what an educational encounter can mean and what is the place of schoolmasters in these encounters. Finally, some possible conditions of/for the encounter are proposed as starting points that allow us to promote and sustain the encounter, such conditions are: commonality, equality, listening and unpredictability.