HIGH-LEVEL THINKING IN PRIMARY EDUCATION STUDENTS, FRAMED IN THE RURALITY OF BOYACENSE

Abstract

This essay arises from a methodological process of direct observation carried out over more than 16 years of teaching experience, which seeks to share some characteristics observed and recorded in children from rural schools in the department of Boyacá, related to the high-level thinking process initially exposed by Mathew Lipman and conceptualized within the philosophy for children program. In light of this program, high-level thinking is framed in skills that if promoted and strengthened, everyone can achieve, such as critical reasoning, creativity, importance for the other and the other, reflection, processes that, among others, make the student think in a better way, understood as a more autonomous, reflective and critical way, and that is reflected in the transformation of a critical, creative and careful citizen capable of overcoming and helping to build a more just society. However, there are some factors and characteristics of the rural context that in one way or another interfere with the correct development of this set of skills framed in family, educational, cultural and socioeconomic aspects, which is problematically evident both in the teaching work evidenced in children with learning problems, who are quiet, fearful, lack autonomy, leadership, little participation, little motivation for learning, and in themselves as active, critical people concerned about a more just community.