Guest: Rita Pedro 2 > 6 MAY 2016 – E.B. 1 Bairro Operário / E.B. 1 Ameijeira, Lagos
“If there was nothing, how did something came to be?”
“What happens when we die?”
“Why is a tree called tree?”
“Who invented names?”
“Why is there no end to the sky?”
“Why do I exist?”
“Why do painters paint?”
Workshops that intend to provide the children thought experiences and the building of sharing spaces, of interrogation and problematization of ideas.
In infancy, children don’t dissociate thought from life. Each idea of theirs can be accompanied of a movement inherent to human existence itself, each interrogation tends to build itself as a real experience, namely, a movement of forces in which, by its nature, can affect the other, thus inviting him to participate and enter the same thought experience.
In a Philosophy session, both adults and children are invited to enter that experience of not knowing, to take a chance at new ways of thinking and asking.
Particularly, its about giving voice and expression to metaphysical, ontological, existential, ethic and aesthetic questions that dwell in Infancy.
To provide them with the building of that space implies sheltering and cherishing their ideas, listening to their questions without wanting to judge them as right or wrong, as ways of opening up thought to new ways of thinking, thinking that which we have never thought before.
RITA PEDRO (Lisbon, 1975)
She studied Philosophy at Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
Since 1999 she has been running philosophy workshops with children, organising teacher training courses and teaching seminars, particularly at the Maria Ulrich School of Education.
For five years she supervised various projects in the same area, aimed at children and young people aged between 4 and 18, emigrants and children of emigrants from Cape Verde, in the Cova da Moura neighbourhood.
She received a grant from the Inovart programme in Cape Verde, where she worked with children from rural and fishing communities, also in FCC.
She is currently a PhD student under the guidance of philosopher José Gil at Nova de Lisboa and UERJ in Rio de Janeiro. She has published several articles and a chapter in the book “A Filosofia vai à escola” (Philosophy goes to school), published by NEFI (Centre for Philosophical Studies in Childhood) at UERJ (Brazil).
She is co-author of the book “Senão Havia Nada como é que Surgiu Alguma Coisa?” published by the Belém Cultural Centre.