DYNAMIS. Rivista di filosofia e pratiche educative

La Meraviglia

Mario Di Paolantonio — 2022-12-21

Hannah Arendt has a particular notion of thinking that both is and is not (in her sense of the term) philosophical. While not guided by the search for meta princi- ples, nor concerned with establishing logical systems, her notion of thinking as the examination of “whatever happens to come to pass”, and its significance for saving our world from thoughtlessness, retains and is motivated by the fundamental pa- thos at the heart of philosophy – wonder. In this paper, I consider the limiting and enabling sense in which Arendt invokes “wonder” for the possibility of thinking. I do so, in turn, to explore what the pathos of wonderment might offer education – an institution charged with cultivating “thinking” and, yet, constantly susceptible to the thoughtless trappings of technocratic jargon and the mechani- cal logic of asses- sment, learning processes and social reproduction. Can wonder – the very pathos of philosophy – cultivate a thinking that helps us retain an “unclouded attentiveness” to what is educational in education? Might wonder help us to overcome the thou- ghtlessness that dulls our attention to what we do to each other through education?

L’educazione come mediazione tra i bambini e il mondo

Anders Schinkel — 2022-12-21

Education as a deliberate activity and purposive process necessarily involves me- diation, in the sense that the educator mediates between the child and the world. This can take dif- ferent forms: the educator may function as a guide who initia- tes children into particular practices and domains and their modes of thinking and perceiving; or act as a filter, selecting what of the world the child encounters and how; or meet the child as representative of the adult world. I look at these types of mediation (or aspects of the mediating role of the educator) at the hand of the work of John Dewey, Martin Buber, Hannah Arendt, and Richard Peters. The purpose of this paper is to explore the bearing that the mediating role of the edu- cator—as interpreted by these authors—has on the role wonder may play in the educational process. I suggest that initiation highlights the familiarizing function of won- der, and is most readily associated with inquisitive wonder; representa-tion draws attention to the defamiliarizing role of (in particular contemplative) wonder, as well as to its world-affirming role; and selection (the educator as ‘fil-ter’) foregrounds the distinction between momentary and dispositional wonder.

Quando il mondo era fiaba

Andrea Giambetti — 2022-12-21

L’articolo esplora la dimensione del fiabesco e del mistero nella visione pedagogica di P. Florenskij (1882-1937) ponendo in luce gli aspetti emozionali della vita infantile che costituiscono, per il grande matematico e filosofo russo, i fondamenti della vera conoscenza, anche scientifica, del mondo. Traendo spunto dalle Lettere dal Gulag e dalle Memorie viene ridefinita l’originalità della riflessione pedagogica di Florenskij capace di porsi con autorevolezza ed originalità nel contesto della filosofia dell’educazione contemporanea.

Lo stupore a scuola

MAURIZIO MURAGLIA — 2022-12-21

In una stagione che vede la scuola sempre più attraversata da istanze burocratiche e di rendicontazione, lo spazio per lo stupore e per la meraviglia appare sempre più angusto. Eppure risulterebbe vitale per la motivazione degli studenti la presenza di ambienti di apprendimento capaci di coinvolgere sia sul piano culturale che sul piano emotivo. La didattica euristica, con la sua istanza di ricerca, appare quella più adatta a suscitare stupore e meraviglia nei discenti.

Pausing in wonder

Louise Azzarello — 2022-12-21

We are living in a time in which a sense of “digital stupor” – a sensation of “permanent electrocution” – has infiltrated our bodies and souls. It is from within the bowels of this destructive force, which permeates and overwhelms education and educators today, that I respond to Mario Di Paolantonio and Anders Schinkel’s provocation to consider the ‘educational potential of wonder’. I draw on Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Bracha Ettinger and Mark Fisher’s work to explore the ways in which the digital sphere institutes a crisis of attention and impedes students’ desires and abilities to pause and take time to wonder. How might educators disrupt the sense of stupor produced by the infectious magnetism of ‘the screen’? How might educators slow down time in classrooms to interrupt the frenzied pace of the digital sphere and mediate a sense of wonder that draws attention to the world not away from it? I conclude by invoking Di Paolantonio’s conceptualization of “passing time together” with an object in common as a way in which educators might mediate wonder in education, and interrupt the pull of the screen, if only for a fleeting moment.

Il meraviglioso. Genesi di un concetto e dinamiche educative

Elisa Grimi — 2022-12-21

This essay is intended to be a phenomenological analysis on the topic of the experience of the wonderfulness. I will initially examine the concept of the “wonder” by developing a brief history of the concept. Then, on the basis of the two texts translation by Anders Schinkel and Mario Di Paoloantonio, offered here for the first time in Italian, I will elaborate a reflection around the concept of the wonder without excluding the ultimate component of contemplation. Finally I will investigate about the experience of the wonderfulness in education, the role of the teacher and the attitude of the student. I will show that the discovery of the wonder is essential in the education and for the flourishing of each student.