C. Delgado: "Pedagogical energy" is first and foremost to believe in what you do. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: To be a pedagogista is not to be, and she uses this word "mestierante", is not to be someone that does a job, that does a job because you have a job. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: ...but it is more about a disposition and that openness to the attentiveness and the attunement to other, to the other and others. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: And this, what I just told you, as a disposition is not anymore enough. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: And this is not enough because we need also a deep education as pedagogisti to respond and to be companions of the child, in the situation, in the context in which the child exists. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: She says that, she gives you an example that, you know, there are things that we might not agree within the context in which we exist. Like, it can be technology, right? That children are so embedded with technology. And she says it's not going to take us too far if we say simply "no, you can't have technology". It is more pedagogical energy is that which propels you to keep researching, to keep educating yourself, to keep wondering how to respond to this context, even when those contexts are difficult for you. In some ways, I think that, you know, when, Silvana speaks about pedagogical energy as what propels you to continue educating, to continue searching, to continue thinking in terms of what energizes also your research is what, in the Centre, we consider what exposures are. Exposures are these spaces for that energizing if you want. And she says, but you do all these first and foremost because you believe in what you do. Every pedagogista thinks about what they're doing and does not considers how to apply a model. That's a big difference for someone that lives pedagogy. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: In Italy, a pedagogista is someone that has a profession that, within the context of Italy, has great importance, great relevance S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: Because in the Italian context, for them, is a profession that has great responsibility, because it's the responsibility of this question of the child, but the child in the context, within the conditions in which exists. The child if, as a pedagogista, you're working with children, because, as you may know, in Italy, pedagogisti work in very, very different areas, with elders with, you know, adolescents... It's formal and informal education, right?! When I speak about a competent child, first of all, you have to know that the word that she's using in Italian, there is no, I can't find a word in English. So I'm using the "competent", I am using the concept competent, but is not...she is using the word "capace" that which is different. And so she says, when I'm speaking about this child, what I'm thinking is about a child that brings stories, that is a child that lives in stories, in particular stories of life. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: She says, this child that brings these stories is not a child that is constantly being rational, telling you what he or she has. She says, she uses a word that the translation will be almost as if she is not necessarily aware in a rational way. "Consapevoli" is the wording in Italian, which the best translation I can put this "full knowing in a rational way" of what he or she is already thinking, as if it was inside the child. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: When we are thinking as pedagogisti, we cannot give an exaggerated value to this idea of the competent child, as we cannot give an exaggerated value to the idea of the educational processes. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: But these are two processes that have to be in conversation and go hand-in-hand. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: So she says, as a pedagogista or as a teacher is not enough for me to create the conditions for the child to just tell me what the child knows, otherwise, why is it that I am there? Why I am there as a teacher? she asks, if it's just about knowing what the child already knows. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: She says, of course we have to be aware of the stories, the knowledges that the child brings, but we can't stay there. We have to also be aware of what are the processes that we are proposing that will bring particular, certain, if you want, orientations, certain possibilities that are not yet there. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: She says that she agrees with you Pauline, that, you know, predetermining, already, paths, is not the way to go. But she says that it's not also to just leave it all at what the child brings, because otherwise everybody just does what the child brings. And she says, we do have as educators, the responsibility to create certain particular processes and trajectories that emerge and come from particular orientations. Otherwise, she says, otherwise, anyone does anything. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: She says Brenda, that she wants to go to go back to your question because, for her, what she just said is what she calls "ethics" S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: Because this is the question of responsibility, what the teacher brings in the encounter with the child. That is the question of responsibility. That is a question of ethics, which is, in some ways, it's a kind of orientation that the teacher brings, or the pedagogista. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: Yes, and she keeps insisting that to answer to your concern, Pauline, of these kind of predefined models, she says that she's insistent on the idea that we cannot have predefined models, because as a pedagogista you can know what are those models, but you are the one that decides what is best for that situation, for that context. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: She insists a lot on this question of not a model for everybody because she's very worried that even in the models, in the approaches that we might find are amazing approaches, she finds that dangerous, when they become the cookie cut for everyone. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: She says, the way she sees it is that we ask ourselves who we are, who do we have in front of us, what is our context and she says, and then you know what?, we innovate and we create our own models of education, our own approaches of education. S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: She says it's easier to go and say, "okay, I'm going to go and apply these approaches that comes, that everybody has told me that are amazing". She says that's much easier than trying to create pedagogies that are responding to the context. The children come to the world competent. She says that, for her at least, is not even a second thought or an issue. S. Calaprice: [In Italian] C. Delgado: And, but the second part, the question if the pedagogy helps the child understand herself is where she says that she doesn't agree. She thinks that the work is not, is not about thinking of helping the child understand what the child already knows or helping the child understand herself, but it's about helping the child be in relation with the context, be in relationship with the world in all its complexity rather than this kind of, if you want self centered conversation of just pulling out what the child already has.This is why I keep insisting that we don't do care as a kind of assist-entialism, of just doing, you know, the health and safety requirements that we have for care, because the relationship with the child, it must be... S. Calaprice: [in Italian] C. Delgado: ...it has to be a relationship that moves away from assisting, and it moves also away from the idea of creating another home for the child or creating a space that is only about familiarity. It is more about living in a context that thinks and is with the complexity of the context and the times in which we live, which we exist.