Reading, Thinking, Dialogue. The education of narratives between don Milani and Philosophy for Children starting from Fulvio Manara's reflections

Abstract

Starting from Fulvio Manara's reflections, the contribution intends to first reconstruct the traits of commonality between the experiences of Don Lorenzo Milani and Matthew Lipman's Philosophy for Children, recognising the fundamental importance given by both to the ‘word’, that becomes the nucleus of their educational project.

The paper then focuses on the meanings that the ‘word’ concretised in writing and thus in narratives takes on in them, and reflects on collective reading, which both don Milani and Lipman use as an incipit, as a stimulus for discussion, dialogue and thus for the education and self-education of their pupils.

The final part of the essay delves into which books and which ways of approaching literature don Milani proposes to his pupils, in the conviction that offering the alphabet of literature is necessary to regenerate the alphabets of life.