Francesco Tonucci, Spaces for children or spaces of children?

 

The spaces for children are those that adults prepare to entertain and educate their children and pupils; the spaces of children are those corresponding to the needs of children, who themselves look for, if they have sufficient autonomy. We will examine the relationship between educational spaces, especially linked to compulsory education, and educational proposals in order to verify how the school structure, the arrangement of spaces and even the furnishing are consistent with a scholastic model that continues to be transmissive and selective. How on the contrary structure, spaces and furnishing could and should be, if the school decided to choose as its objective what the article 29 of the Convention of 1998 it indicates: “directed to the development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential”. This central part of the article will be preceded by a chapter on the spaces for early childhood and followed by a chapter on the spaces for playing.

 

Keywords: Education, Participation, Autonomy, Convention on the Rights of the Child

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Published on: N. 30 New Series – Year XV 2019 – Spaces and Childhood