Abstract This article analyzes the practice and professional status of Colombian homeopaths in the twentieth century, based on applications for licenses in the “Teguas” series in the Archivo General de la Nación. Within the historical context of the practice of medicine in Colombia, it studies homeopathic practice within the framework of the debate between licensed and permitted medicine. In that context, the field of homeopathy was subordinate to university medicine and homeopaths were a group of practitioners who were neither homogeneous nor organized, but characterized by their shared struggle to become “entitled” to practice, and their advocacy of professional status through constant litigation against official reprimands.

Resumen El artículo analiza la práctica y el estatuto profesional de los homeópatas colombianos en el siglo XX, según las solicitudes de licencia de la serie “Teguas” del Archivo General de la Nación. Desde el contexto histórico del ejercicio de la medicina en Colombia, se estudia la práctica homeopática en su inserción en el debate entre medicina diplomada y medicina permitida. Ahí aparece la homeopatía como un campo subordinado a la medicina universitaria y los homeópatas como conjunto de practicantes no homogéneo ni organizado, pero caracterizado por compartir la lucha por el “derecho adquirido” a ejercer y por la defensa de un estatuto profesional mediante la judicialización constante de la reprobación oficial.

This article proposes that teachers should be open to reflecting upon their prior knowledge (know-how, skills) and that of their students. This should be done based on the consideration of the knowledge as an element of the vital daily environment, on the construction of common sense and on the communication of the teaching-learning processes. The starting point is the question: is any attempt for encouraging the scientific attitude conceivable without encouraging a critical attitude? The attitude of science teachers towards knowledge is also transmitted to the students, who take them as models. In order to turn the classrooms into a place where the work of thoughts and the change in attitudes towards research are possible, it is necessary to shape the transformation of the image of science that the teachers themselves have. A simple reflection is proposed, based on the experience with the epistemological history of sciences.

Este artículo propone una apertura de los educadores hacia la reflexión sobre los saberes previos de ellos mismos y de sus educandos, a partir de la consideración de estos saberes como un elemento del entorno vital cotidiano, de la construcción del sentido común y de la comunicación en los procesos de ensenanza-aprendizaje. El punto de partida es la pregunta: