Continuing education as an ethic of self-care

Abstract

This work intends to investigate some philosophical assumptions of teachers’ continuous formation processes effectiveness models or forms. We start from the critical appraisal of two great fundamental paradigms that support different conceptions of continuous education, namely the "traditional model of continuous education", based on a metaphysical perspective, and the "contemporary model of continuous education", based on the management of oneself. As a critical and conceptual contribution to dialogue with these two models and, especially, to prospect new philosophical assumptions for continuous education, we investigate Michel Foucault's notion of self-care, from The Hermeneutics of the Subject. On the basis of an interpretative investigation of Foucault's philosophy, we conclude that the continuous modality of teacher training, when it has its assumptions relegated to third parties, does not answer in full to what we think is its main purpose, namely, the ethical transformation of the educator. In short, as a result of the research, this purpose is, largely, achieved, once the educator’s reality and its different problems become object of study, research and reflection, so that the resulting knowledge from this process, when it is incorporated into the educator's practice, leads to the ethical transformation of the self.