“The fact is that we don’t trust children”. Interview released by Massimo Fagioli on RAI 2 channel, January 13th, 1978

Abstract

In the interview Prof. Massimo Fagioli released on Rai 2 channel, on January 13th, 1978, he speaks of what is essential to education. By using direct and assertive words, Fagioli explains the psychic development of children, highlighting how dominant ideas on the nature of children influence pedagogy and teaching. That which matters in the psychic development of children is their relationship with teachers and other children. This is why teaching pupils is much more complex than teaching high school students or university students. However, the main issue lays in a cultural dimension which suggests how children must be “educated”, meaning moulded. Based on this idea, if they were left by themselves, children would become dangerous for themselves and others. Hence, they must be controlled, in a way, paralyzed by filling their days with hundreds of things to do and depriving them of the freedom to express themselves within human relationships. On the contrary, Fagioli observes how children have an absolutely adequate relationship with external reality, and the more so, with the internal reality of other children and teachers. They can set up extremely valid relationships regardless of what they may use to play or the education they receive from adults.