Introducing participative practices at school: a reflection from adn with lower secondary school teachers

The last two years of the "Ethics and Polemics" Project, the final results of which are published in this book, saw a lower secondary school in Milan take part in the experiment. For certain aspects this paved the way for a parallel approach to the main one, which was taking place in Rome and was specifically addressed to high school students and teachers. The Project followed the same development stages (documentation, Metapian, discussions in class with tutor-teachers, debate) but required a few 'corrections' in order to use it with a younger school age. The documentation supplied by the Cnr, although complying with established criteria, was trimmed and, in some cases, made linguistically more accessible, and enhanced with material on the local aspects of the topic. The debate took place in Milan at the same time as the one in Rome, as the teachers' request, motivated by logistical reasons, and to enable all the youngsters who had taken part in the project to be present at its 'final' stage. Some of the experts who were invited to the debate were chosen locally.