ABSTRACT
In this chapter Stefano Oliverio explains how Ann Margaret Sharp’s theory interweave philosophy of education and philosophy of teaching and how their connection is central to her interpretation of the community of inquiry. Drawing on Nietzsche, Sharp mistrusts teachers who have not appropriated their own inherited culture for personal growth through self-inquiry, but only collected information and who, in turn, stifle children’s voices. Alternatively, teachers may dialogue with children as ‘philosophical friends,’ allowing children work as liberators of teachers. This also enables children to receive their cultural legacy while being equipped by teachers to speak within it, and thus, teachers become children’s liberators. Sharp never deviated from this focus on children’s intellectual liberation, on treating them as partners in dialogue and as friends in a co-educational relationship that enables all parties to search themselves.
