Democrazia in pratica. Costruire cittadinanza attraverso la Philosophy for Children

Civic education must encourage children to exercise an active and democratic citizenship, a habitus to relate to others and act in complexity. Dewey’s ideas are crucial: school is a laboratory of democracy and represents its ultimate meaning. This education to a community life, to an open mentality, to the acceptance of diversities, to freedom of thought must be operationalized. Matthew Lipman, developing the Philosophy for Children, a curriculum to learn to think and make experience of democracy through community dialogue, concretizes Deweyan ideas and, ante litteram, carries out a methodological reflection to shape civic education. Teachers become facilitators, creating an inclusive environment in which everyone can express oneself freely according to shared rules. This essay, moving between Dewey and Lipman, wants to show a possible way to teach civic education beyond a transmissive teaching method in sight of an education to live otherwise not concrete words such as democracy, inclusion, interculture.