Elogio del pensiero trasformativo: pensare e praticare inclusione tra estetica, politica e pedagogia

This paper explores the issue of school inclusion using a series of experiences carried out with the student community of the Guglielmo Marconi University. These experiences are particularly shaped by tools derived from the Italian philosophical tradition, specifically in its philosophico-linguistic and aesthetic branches. The practice of inclusion was addressed in one of the seminars of the second series of Half a Classroom, to which is devoted the first section of the article. The second section focuses on the democratization process of the Italian school system, highlighting the essential role that philosophy has played from the very beginning in shaping Italian educational framework, presenting a particular case, the philosophy of Giambattista Vico. The third section discusses the inclusive pedagogical potential of aesthetics, showing how this discipline - mandatory in the Master’s Degree in Pedagogy - has developed critical tools to challenge classical philosophical thought and, by criticizing strong rationality models, has contributed and continues to contribute to the creation of an inclusive school model. The final section reflects on the key figure enabling inclusion: the support teacher. To counterbalance the frequent accusations that blame the alleged lack of competence of support teachers for the failures of inclusion, this section 15 emphasizes the need to focus on the essential feature that this figure must possess, along with successful yet undervalued experiences of inclusion from the past 48 years of Italy inclusive schooling. Indeed, support teachers often remain in the shadows, precisely in cases where inclusion succeeds by ensuring the involvement of all students in increasingly heterogeneous classrooms through projects in which the aesthetic dimension, particularly in its performative fo