Apprendere dall’esperienza

This chapter explores how social and cultural animation can be understood not only as an educational practice, but as a method for constructing knowledge based on experience. A four-stage model is proposed: (1) active group participation; (2) co-construction of shared meanings; (3) education in self-care and care for others; (4) analogical and expressive exploration. Animation promotes transformative learning based on relationships, the comparison of experiences and symbolic and artistic language. Knowledge is not just the acquisition of data, but a continuous process of personal and collective re-elaboration, rooted in everyday life and oriented towards a critical understanding of reality. The text also highlights some key conditions for supporting experiential learning: the creation of meaningful contexts, a balance between action and reflection, the enhancement of non-verbal languages and the cultivation of ‘climates of possibility’ in which people can explore, narrate and grow. In today's world, marked by speed, discontinuity and existential fragility, animation takes on a deponent posture, capable of listening and accompanying, even in the gaps and silences. The use of expressive, narrative and artistic languages becomes crucial in helping individuals to rework experiences and construct new personal and collective narratives. Finally, the text emphasises the urgent need to rebuild a shared language, giving words back to those who do not have them, so that they can recount, understand and transform their own experiences. Animation thus emerges as a generative space for knowledge, citizenship and humanity.