Contributions of the Frankfurt School and Edgar Morinto Promote Dialectical and Complex Thinking in Education

Abstract

The aim of this text is to present an educational proposal that challenges the way adolescentsin school think, and, consequently, how they relate to uncertainty, change, and otherness. To this end, the text starts from the formulation of a "method" –a key term in this work– based on thephilosophies of the Frankfurt School and Edgar Morin, which can address the multidimensionalityand multireferentiality of reality: dialectical and complex thinking. It is believed that only sucha way of thinking, one that turns the individual into a strategist, will produce citizens capable of taking responsibility for their democracies. The connection between education and politicsis clarified, with the first positioned as the foundation and engine of the latter. The educationalproposal for forming complex citizens is then described, which is based on the recovery of aprofound culture capable of deepening adolescents’ thinking and distancing them from simplisticand totalizing discourses. Finally, it is concluded that the only way to avoid new barbarities, such as Auschwitz –both as an extermination camp and, more importantly, as a metaphor for the placeknowledge can lead without an educated thought to guide it– is to promote an education forcomplexity, understanding, and freedom.