an alternative experience

Abstract

The article relates to the experience of a P4C workshop in a nonformal educational context as the Children’s Recreation Centre of the 1st Municipality of Naples. Through the description of the Recreation Centre activities with children between 5 and 9 years of age, the educational importance of game, especially for children living in neighborhoods with a strong social unrest, is analyzed. In such contexts, workshop activities, which are often complementary to school, are very important. These activities are defined as gamelike because their purposes are learning and educational development through practical activities. Also P4C is described as a gamelike activity and, on this assumption, the idea of holding a P4C workshop in the Children’s Recreation Centre formed. The application of P4C in a ludic context, required some necessary changes in the traditional curriculum. The teaser text was replaced by gamelike activities, the board paper and the questions were avoided because children identified these instruments with school activities, and one or more topics following by gamelike activities were focused directly to start a discussion. Above changes did not fail the purposes of the curriculum, thus proving that P4C can be applied in educational contexts different from school contexts. Key words: gamelike activity; game