Conference Program

In line with the need to promote democratic skills and sound critical thinking (Dewey, 1916; European Commission JRC, 2020), this paper presents an innovative experience carried out as part of the Pathways for Transversal Skills and Orientation (PCTO) in a fourth-year class at a vocational institute for health and social care. As part of an initiative aimed at promoting the recognition of children's thinking skills among secondary school students, the intervention utilised the Philosophy for Children (P4C) methodology (Lipman, 2003) with a twofold objective: to develop adolescents' critical thinking through philosophical inquiry and to equip them with the relational skills necessary to operate in primary school contexts.

In the first phase, the students participated in four P4C sessions, through which they began to build a community of inquiry and experienced first-hand how a P4C session functions. Initially, in agreement with the class teachers, it was assumed that this phase would provide the adolescents with sufficient foundational knowledge to attempt to act as facilitators in the primary school class, supported by the teacher. This initial objective proved to be overly ambitious; consequently, in reshaping the proposal, the focus was recalibrated towards the acquisition of skills for structured observation (Cohen, Manion, Morrison, 2017). Students were subsequently provided with a 'Discussion Checklist' (Heesen, 2002), a tool designed to assess children's behaviour and the quality of dialogue.

The second phase of the project involved two P4C sessions in a fifth-year primary school class, led by an external expert acting as the facilitator, with the direct involvement of a small group of adolescents: each session included two co-facilitators and four observers.

The debriefing phase (the third phase), structured in two parts, was crucial for reflecting upon democratic attitude. The first part, reserved for the operational group, brought out significant reflections on the complexity of active listening and the challenge of 'suspending judgement'. In particular, the adolescents experienced the difficulty of listening to children without feeling the urge to intervene to correct them, provide the 'right answer', or impose an adult perspective on thoughts that sometimes manifest as unpredictable (Kohan, 2006). This constitutes a fundamental democratic discovery: learning to tolerate differing opinions and allowing others to construct their own thoughts. The students recounted their surprise at witnessing the depth of the children's reasoning, effectively dismantling age-related prejudices and recognising the dignity of every voice—a core pillar of democracy.

The second part of the debriefing involved the entire class and took the form of a P4C meta-session. Starting with the sharing of data collected by the observers and the impressions of the co-facilitators, the class philosophically explored the role of the facilitator and the importance of respecting the ideas of all session participants (Kennedy, 2004).

The experience demonstrates how the integration of philosophical practice, observational responsibility, and shared meta-reflection can transform the PCTO into a genuine learning environment that cultivates democracy. Collaboration towards a common goal and the shared analysis of practices have enabled students to develop the skills required to face the challenges of contemporary society with democratic openness.