Liberdade e livre arbítrio

: o contributo da EMRC para uma reflexão em contexto escolar

Abstract

This work is the result of my Supervised Teaching Practice (PES) carried out at Escola D. Dinis in Leiria and took place in the 2019/20 academic year with class F of 8 grade. It is also the work required to obtain the Master’s degree in Religious Sciences in the Catholic Moral and Religious Education variant (EMRC). It is developed in three chapters and aims to be a report of my experience in this internship teaching the Reference Teaching Unit on Freedom. Its objective, in addition to reporting a little about what PES was, intends to reflect what my research on the topic was in order to acquire better skills for its teaching. In the first chapter I make a small reflection on religious education in public schools and the optional nature of the EMRC subject. I also reflect on the profile of the EMRC teacher due to the peculiar characteristics that he has and which makes these teachers also “a little different” from their colleagues in other subjects. After a small characterization of the school, I also characterize the class where PES takes place. Still in this chapter I describe the preparation, planning and how the classes of the Reference Teaching Unit took place, with a small reflection on them. Since face-to-face classes were interrupted due to the pandemic, I divide the description into face-to-face classes and online classes, due to their totally different characteristics. The second chapter reflects the investigation I carried out regarding the definition and notions of freedom and free will. Freedom is a concept of enormous scope and one of the most studied. I used dictionaries and encyclopedias in search of a definition that was the most consensual as possible. Then, I looked for what they say about freedom in authors that I consider influential in the construction of Western cultural thought. Some who are apologists for the total freedom of Man and others who practically deny it in its entirety. As a result of these notions of freedom, I raised the question of whether or not Man is free. I concluded that, despite the great difficulty in understanding what freedom is, it can be said that not only is Man free, but it is one of his main characteristics. In the third chapter I refer to the practical activity that aims to consolidate what was learned about freedom and free will and the difference that exists between these two concepts, which are very confused, particularly by young people of these ages. It's about working on freedom in adolescence, based on the case of a German teenager escaping to enlist in the Islamic State army.

Date of Award	6 Mar 2025
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Américo Pereira (Supervisor) & Juan Ambrosio (Co-Supervisor)