ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the relevance of Danilo Dolci’s “reciprocal maieutics” to the promotion of critical thinking and judgement in children’s education through a comparison with Hannah Arendt’s work, setting the discussion within the theoretical framework of Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy and ecopedagogy. Reciprocal maieutics is a dialectic method of inquiry that aims to stimulate the growth of consciousness by guiding the participants to listen to different points of view and focus on any contradictions that emerge, its key components being: communication, creativity, love and empowerment. This method became the cornerstone of Dolci’s ecopedagogy, built on the need to guide children as they develop into responsible adults, working towards the formation of a planetary citizenship based on dialogue and the relationships that exist between all the creatures that inhabit the Earth.
