I Philosophy for Children: the practice of (dis)orientation in community of inquiry

Abstract

In a post-pandemic world, crossed by uncertainty and major social, political, and economic changes
the common awareness about the importance of orienting new generations towards well-being and
well-becoming is increasing (Biggeri & Santi, 2012). Moreover, the significant role of school in
orienting students is explicitly recognized in many international documents. Within the EU framework
of educational lifelong guidance, it will be fundamental to think about educational orientation not only
as institutional policies and strategies to orient students into the professional and labor market. But
also to identify orientative practices that can educate them in confronting more pervasive kinds of
problems, which emerge as struggles or questions present throughout life. In the Italian setting, this
need has be strengthened by the government within the Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza
(PNRR), with the dedicated missions to empower the educational orientation policy in schools,
starting from primary grades (Governo Italiano, 2021). With the further support and funding from the
EU, orientation should be an interesting opportunity of studies expansion and research explorations
for possible new perspectives and proposals. In this context, Philosophy for Children (P4C) is
considered as a revolutionary stance.
P4C is a well known curriculum designed to promote “complex thinking” (Lipman, 2003; Santi, 2016)
by means of philosophical practice and dialogical inquiry, throughout all school grades. Here P4C is
presented as a school guided-experience of dialogue, that introduces an alternative way to conceive
students’ orientation process as a community commitment. The focus of this paper is explorative and
aims to highlight how promoting a deep and meaningful experience of democracy of thinking
represents an important component of the process that natures orientation, starting in childhood by
wondering at the world and addressing typical philosophical issues. The philosophical dialogue is at
the core of the P4C experience and practice, facilitated through the methodology of “community of
inquiry”, will constitute the “how” and the “where” of the sharing experience of collective orientation.
Philosophizing offers the opportunity to practice orientation as a thinking experience of being “lost in
decision”, wondering in uncertainty and in possibilities, before that as a form of problem-solving
training. From this perspective, educational orientation becomes a community commitment that goes
beyond the individual charge of decision-making, so often accompanied by worry and anxiety,
transformed into a common human process of inquiry life-design. Life in which doubts, alternative
choices and decisions are constitutive elements in play that, far from confusing the way, can foster the
creative, cognitive, and caring weight of dis-orientation, fundamental to draw new maps (Gaivota,
2019).