Environmental Education, childhood, Philosophy and school: possibilities of intertwinement with philosophical experiences

Introduction⁷

To experience everyday school life in Early Childhood Education (ECE) is not an easy task. Routine, setbacks, schedules, places, looks, smells and affection pervade this space. In the hectic pace, it seems hard to stop to think philosophically. But what does it mean “to stop to think”? What does it mean “to stop to think about something”? To expose our thoughts? To analyze? May we find other ways to experience everyday life in ECE? Is the teacher’s proposal “affecting” the children? Or is it just passing through? How does teachers’ knowledge change to construct ethical spaces of relations in ECE?

It is hard to think about Philosophy - which teaches us to suspect and resist to what is instituted - walking side by side with the school that aims at instructing, prescribing and shaping docile bodies (^{Foucault, 1999}). But it is not impossible! It is an infinite task in which learning envolves opening to what must be analyzed and problematized; it is what feeds this text.

When we talk about school, we usually think about its schedules and spaces, courses and contents, goals, skills and competences which would result in learning. We rarely address the ways of existence of the ones who attend school. This is our invitation to our readers. The main objective of this text, which is part of a comprehensive study which has been carried out by the Study Group in Education, Culture, Environment and Philosophy (GEECAF-FURG) is to exercise our listening skills to what children say about the world and their relations with the planet. We advocate the possibility of using Philosophy in school when we understand and consider the power of suspicion, distrust of what is common to all, questioning statements and denials. From this point, we believe that Philosophy is strengthened by insatisfaction and doubt that emerge when we question established norms and prevailing social practices. Philosophy may make us think about new possibilities in schools - different from the current ones - and question naturality of things so that new options and senses may be searched for.

Since we are far from Education that “prepares us for the future”, we may think about living childhood through experience, as some news, as multiplicity, based on the development of situations that trigger experiences and unusual thought. “If there is something to prepare through Education, it is not to leave childhood, experience” (^{Kohan, 2011}, p. 248). By intertwining school, childhood, Philosophy and Environmental Education (EE), we believe that everybody may think, get restless, transform themselves, become resistant and question conformism. Childhood shows us that there is no predetermined way to follow. It is the possibility of multiple transformations, of unpredictability. It is imbalance, multiplicity, difference, experience!

In the following lines, we aim at emphasizing that, when we practice Philosophy with children in school, we have the opportunity to question the school itself, the forms of subjectivation that it uses and the truths that involve the field of Environental Education in school. When we exercise thinking - beyond the search for answers -, we learn how to question practices that make us think the way we think.

The fact that EE and childhood are constantly tied to pedagogical guidelines on the planet preservation and prescriptive ways of caring for it has disturbed us, has sounded unfamiliar (^{Henning, 2017}). Thus, we started by listening carefully to what children wanted to tell us, rather than listening to a pedagogical proposal which had the specific objective of ‘getting somewhere’. Education may need these more provocative and less objective spaces… Even though it may be difficult, it is not impossible to wish EE to keep away from standardization and conscientization. We believe in other experiences, intertwinement of knowledge and resistance to attempts to curricularization and delimitation of the field of EE.

We wish to comprehend EE from the perspective of new possibilities, with neither prescriptions nor manuals to be followed. We understand that it is a powerful form of resistance, creation, problematization of the way in which we are used to acting and living with/in nature. Thus, practices that changed the ways we understood EE, which were conditioned to accept it as it was shown to us, led to instigating and challenging EE.

We aimed at showing that some breating spaces may be created in schools. We found it in the intertwinement among childhood, Philosophy and EE. We reported our experience with gaps that we created in everyday school life, rather than prescribing a way of disrupting the rationality that has been widely disseminated in the field of EE. Our belief is based on Philosophy with children.

Therefore, this text has four parts. The first part introduces the theme and the objective of the study. In the second part, we discuss school, EE, childhood and Philosophy. Besides, it includes the justification and the methodology of the insvestigation. The third part discusses school and thought exercises that emerged from the intertwinement with philosophical experiences. The last part comprises our final remarks.

School as a space of creation, inventiviness and powerful thought exercises intertwined with philosophical experiences

To distract oneself is the possibility of becoming sensitive towards what we learned to become impermeable to (^{Kohan, Olarieta, & Wozniak, 2012}, p. 176).

Philosophy takes place when friendly looks meet; it enables us to know new perspectives to understand and transform the ways we constitute ourselves. ^{Kohan (2012}) teaches us not to separate life from our bodies and thoughts. According to him “[...] we learn that to think is to touch and let ourselves be touched by others” ^{Kohan (2012}, p. 40). To think brings about events in thinking.

The author also states that to think about thoughts is a philosophical issue (^{Kohan, 2011}). However, thinking has been poorly valued and encouraged socially despite the fact that several pedagogical discourses emphasize its importance. From this perspective, we have noticed that, in school, usually one just asks what may be answered. As if thinking involved the search for solutions. When we find them, that is it! All has been solved!

Here we invite our readers to follow one of Michel ^{Foucault’s lessons (2002}, p. 24): “We must also question those divisions or groupings with which we have become so familiar”.

Teachers have constantly thought about EE connected to the idea that children’s awareness must be raised, that the world’s future is childhood. It is interesting to observe that we usually use the future tense to refer to children - tomorrow’s citizens - as if they were not citizens yet. EE connected to children usually begins with pedagogical practices that guide attitudes and define habits related to care and preservation of our planet (^{Henning, 2017}).

We know that there are several definitions and conceptualizations that pervade the field of EE. However, we must take into consideration that various statement and visibilities subjectivize thinking and acting in this area and explicitly define and produce “green subjects” (^{Guimarães, 2012}) who are aware and concerned about their roles in the constitution of a sustainable world.

This is the way we, researchers that belong to the GEECAF, see the field of EE; it is how we understand this historical construction. It is a type of ‘EE’, among many others. Even though it may be hard, we do not think that it is impossible to wish EE that runs away from standardization and conscientization. We believe in other experiences, intertwinement of knowledge and resistance to attempts to curricularization and delimitation of the field of EE. Thus, practices that changed the ways we saw EE, which were conditioned to accept it as it was shown to us, led to instigating and challenging EE.

We know that we do not have to copy attitudes and behaviors which determine the way that we ‘must’ take care of the environment. But we are so immersed in such discourses that we end up having to “swim with this current”, which, theoretically, leads to the construction of a sustainable society that defines our actions and how we should behave towards environmental issues. Is there space to create other ways of thinking?

Our Study Group carried out philosophical experiences⁸ that enabled situations in which we could listen attentively to a group of 4-5-year-olds in a city school located in Rio Grande, Rio Grande do Sul (RS) state, Brazil. We designed an axis of philosophical experiences (with three meetings) based on the children’s speech and on minimum organization of proposals created by the Study Group that studies the field of EE carefully and responsibly.

Such collective meetings made us exercise thinking about the field of EE intertwined with Philosophy and with the children, a fact that was provoked by the philosophical experiences. Thus, we and the children thought about types of EE which constituted themselves as the result of unusual experiences that emerged in school, in everyday details, in possibilities of creation with the children.

Due to the harsh and sad reality that we had to face in the world because of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools were closed to preserve their students’ and staff’s health and the experiences could not be carried out. Several Brazilian schools developed school tasks and strengthened liaisions between teachers and children online through remote meetings and tasks to be done at home. In this scenario, the philosophical experiences, which took place in October 2021, were conducted remotedly⁹ as an alternative to schoolwork while children were in their homes.

Philosophical experiences were planned to take place in three meetings in a week and were based on elements that triggered children’s thoughts. We aimed at potentializing spaces of experiences and creation based on ‘thought triggers’¹⁰, such as poems written by Manoel de Barros and Mario Quintana, artistic productions, such as photographs taken by GEECAF’s members, artwork by René Magritte and Paul Klee and children’s literature, such as books written by Ruth Rocha, Jader Janer, Rodi Núñez and Alejandro Magallanes. A piece of children’s literature, which is described later, was used for the philosophical experience that is the focus of this text.

Such interventions enabled the children to freely express their thoughts about things. While listening sensitively, we were able to know the new possibilities that they introduced to us. We provoked questions, brought up topics and problematized issues which invited us to talk and break the traditional postures of the ones who teach and the ones who learn, whithou denying who we are. Together with the children, we thought about deviations that enabled new connections and made us problematize some senses advocated by contemporaneous schools.

Theoretical and methodological processes of this study are based on post-critical perspectives in Education. We follow Tomaz Tadeu da ^{Silva (2007}) to understand post-critical studies. This is the term that the author uses to highlight poststructuralism in the educational field. Such studies enable us to analyze contributions given to the field of Education by several authors, such as Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. “[...] post-critical theories, unlike accusations that have been made, move the issue of truth to what is considered true and, a result, make the social field become even more politisized. Science and knowledge, far from being the other of the power, are also fields that fight for the truth” (Silva, 2007, p. 146).

Since these studies show that the conception of politics goes beyond its traditional meaning, they disturb and look suspiciously at certain concepts, such as alienation, liberation and authonomy. Knowledge is an inherent part of power; the latter transforms itself but it does not disappear. On the contrary, it is everywhere, it is multiform. Discussions about culture, ways of life and power relations pervade such theorization and make us exercise suspicion. This is the underlying theory of our investigation and Michel Foucault is one of our mediators. Thus, coherent to our theoretical field, we aim at understanding whether the philosophical experiences that we proposed to the children in ECE may lead to other ways of being and thinking, besides unusual ways of experiencing school.

We should emphasize that the design of the philosophical experiences was based on children’s experiences, in partnership with their teacher-researcher. The study comprised a process that wanted the unexpected; it was planned and re-planned throughout conversations, thought exercises and silent moments. We believed in the meetings, in what the school may do when we are open to listen to children. Our wish involved steps towards the danger of suspicion while shaking off the quiet that we felt in relation to the truths about childhood and environmental lessons that ‘conscientize and solve’ established in school. According to ^{Foucault (2004}, p. 295), we must question certainties and “[...] make harder those acts which are now too easy”.

As a result, ^{Foucault’s concept of problematization (2004}), linked to ^{Veiga-Neto’s concept of hypercriticism (2020}), became our methodological exercise. By intertwining them, we strengthened the possibility of provoking children’s thinking and listening skills. When thoughts are triggered by problematization, they doubt, suspect, question, deconstruct and create other possibilities. It is a critical exercise whose goal is not to solve a problem but involves twisting of established truths and conversion of our thoughts. By strengthening the power of creation, we aimed at finding other types of EE that pervade and problematize our lives. We need new creations and, while listening attentively to what the children wanted to say, courage to think beat strongly, thus, tensioning and disrupting established truths.

^{Veiga-Neto (2020}, p. 26) defines hypercriticism as “[...] Foucaultian criticism when it turns to itself, to the fundamentals in which it finds support to work as criticism”. It is radical, temporary, nomadic and unfinished criticism. It is also seen as a powerful tool to understand the world and ourselves.

Hypercriticism and problematization - as the methodological bases to analyze everyday complexity in school and enviromnetal lessons that guide children’s behavior - enabled us to understand the relations between these themes and to reflect on the possibility of developing other relations with time, knowledge, childhood and new and powerful types of EE.

In our first movement with the children, the thought trigger was the children’s book named The boy who collected places by Jader ^{Janer (2016}). In this story, we knew a boy who loved to travel and collect little pieces of all places he visited. While we explored it, we aimed at offering some thought exercises that would make the children think about their relations with their spaces, families, environment and school.

By reflecting on the sense of belonging, we aimed at understanding which senses the schildren attributed to places where they spent time, mainly the school and its surroundings. Did the children really feel that they belonged to the school? Did they feel that they were part of the world? What are the teachers’ roles in this process? How did the children experience school? How did they like the school? How did they establish their relations with the space where they lived? How did they like it? How did they like the places where they passed through?

Based on ^{Lima’s teachings (2021}, p. 300), we would like to consider ways of “[...] inverting the logics that prescribes children’s place in school or the meanings of school for children”. Therefore, we believe that it is fundamental to see these issues suspiciously, dishevel them from previously established beliefs and question what children made us think.

^{Kohan, Masschelein and Simons (2021}) lead us to reflect on what makes a school be ‘the school’ from an educational perspective. We already know much about the story of school constitution and criticism that schools have got these days. However, the authos make us ponder whether this criticism is not related to a feeling of undervaluation of the importance of school; “[..] as if we wanted to forget school and as if we do not like to be reminded of the fact that what we are now may have somehow depended on school” (^{Kohan et al., 2021}, p. 165).

Thus, we would like to explore the possibilities that emerge from philosophical experiences in school, since we believe in the power of this space, where meetings, voices, listening and thought exercises take place. Based on philosophical experiences, we aimed at enabling children to have a different relation with their school. We started from problematization and introduced issues that interested them and that they could change because other interests came into play.

In this movement, we withdrew the focus from the specific relation to knowledge, the search for answers and results that pervade school, and exercised thinking to problematize aspects related to everyday school life, the approach that has been given to EE in school and discourses and truths that compose it. Thus, we invite our readers to - sensitively and imaginatively - join the group of children, together with the resaerchers, who experienced possibilities resulting from Philosophy when it is understood as thought power.

Philosophical experiences: to exercise thinking and to feel that ideas are “itching”

Here we search for other ways of being and integrating with knowledge and children, considering that the philosophical experiences took place in time and space which were quite different from the ones that are found in school.

Jorge Larossa (2021) writes about experience and helps us reflect on how personal and untransferable it is. As a result, we must emphasize that we cannot wholly report experiences. We aim at describing here - as detailed as possible - what emerged from the children’s philosophical experiences. Thus, we propose a reading and thinking experience that may provoke our readers to question the truths that pervade school, its chronological time and the possibility of the quiet time of Philosophy in this space. It may also lead to other ways of seeing and to new ideas about what is observed, what is ‘common’ to us.

When we experience everyday school life, it seems hard to escape from certain words, such as to organize and to plan. But here we use them in other ways and ask our readers to understand them in other senses. When we talk about planning and organization, we think about thought triggers that instigate children to exercise their thinking; besides, we start from the guiding principle of philosophical experiences: the environment. We may say that our ‘planning’ aimed at the unexpected.

Even though we had planned to develop the tasks in three meetings in a week, we would like to highlight that the schedules in which the philosophical experiences would take place could be altered, depending on the children’s wishes and the development of discussions throughout the meetings. In other words, if thought exercises emerged at some unplanned moment, we would certainly use it to explore them with the children. “This pedagogical language which we have in mind seeks to give voice to experience ‘while’ school learning” (^{Simons & Masschelein, 2021}, p. 43, authors’ emphasis). Even if there was organization of some specific moments, Philosophy was there in the morning meetings since it was part of the children’s routine, it was intertwined with their discussions and thought exercises. We did not intend to teach a specific Philosophy lesson; on the contrary, possibilities of philosophical experiences emerged in interactions and conversations. The teacher was attentive to these moments to conduct, question or just observe.

We aimed at developing thought exercises based on questions that made children speak; however, questions which induced answers or defined behavior to be followed were carefully avoided. We believe that it was one of the teacher’s biggest challenges: learn how to exercise thinking to ask questions that really wanted to know what children were willing to say, rather than guiding questions to make them talk about what the teacher wanted to listen to.

In the first philosophical experience with the children, we addressed our relations with the place and the world we live in. The boy who collected places tells the story of a boy who loves to travel and to know new places. He carries a large can where he keeps a little piece of every place he visits because he is afraid of forgetting them. After some time, his can gets too full and he asks himself what happens to the places after he takes something from them. Then, he goes back to these places and notices that there are empty spaces. He gets enough courage to open his can and give every piece back, even though he keeps afraid of forgetting them. However, it does not happen; he remembers every place he had known. So, he keeps traveling and carrying his can but he does not pick up any piece of the places he visits. At the end of the story, the boy understands that places are kept inside us, in our memory and thought, in our hearts.

Figure 1 shows an artwork done by a child¹¹ to represent the boy who collected places.

When we told this story, we provided thought exercises to the children so that they could think about their relations with the surroundings, the space they live in, their families and the environment. Even the relation with one’s body is connected to the space where one lives, to care for oneself and care for the other.

^{Massey and Keynes (2004}) have shown concern for space in contemporaneity and we would like to invite our readers to exercise thinking about relations established by the children - throughout the philosophical experiences - with the space they belong to, that is, school, neighborhood, street, family, friends. Both authors introduced three aspects that conceptualize space: it is the product of our relations and constituted through interactions; it implies the existence of plurality; and it is always moving, it is never finished.

Thus, regarding this way of imagining things, space is undoubtedly a product of relations (first proposition) and, as a result, it must also be multiplicity (second proposition). However, they are not relations in a coherent, closed system in which, as we say, ‘everthing is (already) related to everything’. Concerning this way of imagining it, the space can never be that complete simultaneity in which all interconnections were established and in which everything is already linked to everything (^{Massey & Keynes, 2004}, p. 9, authors’ emphasis).

When the authors discuss the conceptualization of space, they invite us to imagine it as the product of interrelations and multiplicity which is in constant process of transformation. Space is acknowledged as the product of interactions, rather than being seen from the fragmented perspective that traditionally pervades it.

To belong to certain spaces involves bonds with the environment. If children do not feel that they belong to school, it makes no sense for them to be there. An example is the adaptation period in which children get used to school. For many children, it is quite difficult and sensitive since they do not have any ties with their school, teacher and classmates at the beginning of the process.

Thus, our thoughts about the meaning of spaces are based on experiences that we have in them. It is the experience that brings meaning to the place. As a result, “[...] the space also always contains a degree of the unexpected, the unpredictable” (^{Massey & Keynes, 2004}, p. 17).

In this movement of interaction and unpredictability, we noticed how children established unique relations with the spaces where they passed through: at home, on the way to school, in classroom routines and others. By asking some specific questions about the story, we aimed at instigating the children to exercise thinking about issues which involved the boy, such as places that he kept in his can, and to develop bonds with the environment they live in. While listening attentively to the children, we created an environment that made them feel comfortable and perceive that someone was effectively listening to them. We wanted to let the children express their feelings towards the story and issues related to the environment emerging from it, rather than evaluate their opinions.

It should be highlighted that these conversations took place not only while the story was being told but also at the end of it since we believe that it would be more interesting to enjoy those moments and let questions emerge togethes with children’s thoughts and voices, rather than predict all steps.

In the online meetings, many voices intertwined and new senses were experienced and perceived. There were children’s voices, the teacher’s voice, the unexpected of remote life and silences that also comprise this space. Silence is fundamental in thought exercises because it enables to think about what we are experiencing, to organize ideas and to enrich our repertoire even though we may not feel comfortable to talk yet.

When the teacher asked the children whether they had liked the story, one of them said that he would like the boy to have a name since it was strange to know a story in which someone had no name: “But doesn’t he have a name? How strange!” (Child 1¹²). When the children were asked about what they could do to solve it, another child suggested that they should vote to choose the boy’s name: “He will like the name we can give him. Because, if not, he will keep having no name. How about voting?” (Child 2).

But then, what is voting? Not all children knew what would happen; thus, the ones who thought they knew tried to explain: “Voting is when we choose something” (Child 3); “Right, when it gets good to everybody” (Child 1). After that, we talked about “good to everybody”, where we had heard of voting before and possibilities that could emerge from voting. The issue was brought up at the beginning of the meeting but it was soon forgotten because the children were anxious to choose a name for the boy. They voted and the name that they chose was ‘Amigo’, which means ‘friend’ in Portuguese.

Afterwards, several comments emerged: “The boy’s hat is very beautiful. I would like to collect this hat”, suggested Child 2; “I can’t collect a tree”, said Child 1 when he remembered that the boy kept a tree in his can; “I think I don’t collect anything!”, reported Child 3; “I collect my sister’s dools”, said Child 2 after thinking a little.

Throughout the conversation, the teacher asked the children about places they kept inside themselves. Can we collect places? How? Can we touch them? Why do you think so? If you could collect places, where would you keep them? These were some of the first questions to activate thinking. Others came up: “Friend collected places in his can. Is there any place collector in our group? What else could we collect?” “We can’t collect places, are you crazy?”, said Child 1 surprised at the teacher’s question. When the teacher asked him why places cannot be collected, he said: “He can only collect different things from places that he knew. Not places!”.

Then, the children gave other suggestions about what the boy could collect in his can: “A dragon” (Child 2) ; “He can collect a bucket full of toys” (Child 3); “And do you think that he can keep everything in his can?”, asked Child 1; “I think so”, said Child 3.

On another occasion, the children were invited to close their eyes and think about a place where they would like to be or go back to. This was an experience in which all kept silent and imagined places but they did not say where they were. However, they described them somehow when they answered trigger questions: Are there birds flying? Is there a sea? Is there silence? Which noise can you listen to? Do you see people? Or animals? Or what? Can you touch anything? What would you choose to collect in this place? “There is sun in my place. It is a colorful place, with rain and sun and, in the middle, there was a rainbow” (Child 1); “There is wind on the beach. There are trees and little shells. There are trees that I plant with my mom” (Child 2); “In my place, there is a lake with ducks. There is sun, rain and a rainbow because of the rain and the sun” (Child 3); “There are little fish on my beach, too” (Child 2).

After this experience, the children were invited to express themselves in a drawing, collage or painting of the place they had chosen and the feeling experienced at that moment. Right after that, the ones who wanted to show their production shared it with the group and talked about details and feelings they had while they were producing their artworks. Figures 2 and 3 show some artworks which reproduce some places chosen by the children.

Friend collected places in his can because he was afraid of forgetting them. This issue made a child become thoughtful. When the teacher asked him whether he wanted to tell them what he was thinking about, he asked: “What is ‘to forget’?” (Child 3) and scratched his head to show that he could not understand why Friend kept places in his memory can. The question was asked the other children and a murmur of voices started; everyone wanted to talk at the same time and the teacher had to interfere and enable all of them to talk. They all gave their opinions about the meaning of ‘to forget’: “To forget is to forget a thing” (Child 1); “I don’t know what ‘to forget’ is”(Child 5); “It is when I sleep and pee on my bed!” (Child 2).

In the following meeting, the children created their cans of ideas, named them and thought about what they could keep inside them. Can feelings be kept in the can? How can we do that? Does anybody think that we can’t do it? Why? Can we keep ideas and questions in cans? What else can we keep in them? This experience led to some conversations and most children thought that it was very strange to keep feelings and ideas in the can. They quickly chose other things to keep in their cans. When they showed their cans of ideas, they explained the drawings that decorated them: “The pink color is a basis and this monster here kidnapped a child. This shield protects Friend if he ties and catches the monster. Then, it can’t move” (Child 1). Do you think your can holds a story?”, asked the teacher. “I think this story is too big”, answered the child. Figures 4 and 5 show the box and the can of ideas created by the children.

The conversation went on and on and the children chose what they would like to keep in their cans: “The playground. I like the slide”, said Child 4. “I like the bounce house”, said Child 5. Child 1 chose another place to keep in his can: “The beach. I like sand. I would keep a shark”. Most children got surprised at the answer but Child 3 said immediately: “I’m not afraid of sharks”. Suddenly, Child 1 appeared on the screen with a jar full of little seashells and asked the teacher: “Do you want to hold them to your ear? You can hear the sound of the ocean”.

Thus, the task was outlined while the children conducted it. We noticed that they did not like the initial idea of choosing feelings, ideas and questions to keep in their cans. They preferred to choose their places: the playground and the beach. These places pervaded the children’s everyday lives since they liked to be there, where they had unique experiences; they felt that they belonged there. It is the Cassino Beach, little seashells on the seashore, dunes, the smell of the ocean and the strong wind that compose the landscape, besides the slide in the playground, the swing and the field that enables them to play hide-and-seek.

The guiding principle of the philosophical experiences - the environment - and what the children said about places in their neighborhoods led to more specific environmental questions. For instance: which questions could we ask about our neighborhoods? And about the places where we pass when we go home? What called your attention on your way home? What could you see on the way? What did you like the most? What didn’t you like at all? What could we say about these places? Which place would you like to keep in a can, just like the boy who collected places? What did you feel when you thought about these places on your way home?

Based on trigger questions, such as the previously mentioned ones, we aimed at provoking the children’s thoughts about their ways of looking at the world and the space they belong to so that new looks may result from other relations with the environment.

Shaula de ^{Sampaio (2019}) brings up an interesting issue, i. e., the possibility of some changes in the ways of understanding how EE has been constituted. She questions: “Which language could be activated by EE to enable sensations and productions that are different from the ones we have already got used to?” (^{Sampaio, 2019}, p. 22). Questions like this one resonate in our thoughts and cause a strong impact that troubles some meanings of EE.

While imbricating truths consolidated by scientific knowledge, EE has been understood as a political practice which contains countless discourses and ideas that guide behaviors, define habits and highlight the need to worry about the future of the planet. This daily avalanche of enunciabilities that involve the environment and prescribe sustainable ways of being and acting in nature is quickly disseminated. It resonates in school, other educational spaces, the midia and curricula that guide educational practices.

This study did not aim at delimiting the field of EE, mainly because it has been permeated by several definitions and conceptualizations. However, we must consider the fact that innumerous utterances subjectivize thinking and acting in this area and define and produce “green subjects” (^{Guimarães, 2012}) who are aware of and worried about their roles in preserving the planet.

Resistance to modern lessons is also up to us. I believe that we should tension the classificatory organization of knowledge and its place in educational spaces. This discomfort [...] may lead to the emergence of possibilities of creation of other types of EE which make us tension the hegemonic ways in which we see the ‘large’ EE and the way we constitute it (^{Henning, 2019}, p. 681- 682, author’s emphasis).

We should point out that we do not want to determine which conception of the field of EE is adequate. The question here may be: ‘Which conceptions of EE restrain each other and in which social, political, economicand cultural contexts are they produced?’.

^{Henning and Silva (2018}), in their text published in Educações ambientais possíveis: ecos de Michel Foucault para pensar o presente, invite us to tension some truths that pervade EE; one of them is the idea that EE is the solution to environmental problems. The authors invite us to look at EE while dissenting from general opinions and enabling the creation of gaps in the thought that universalizes this field. “Dissent takes place inside us. Other types of EE may emerge from this divergence, this theoretical and political disagreement” (^{Henning and Silva, 2018}, p. 158).

^{Henning and Silva (2021}) propose resistance to the homogenization of EE and help us to develop new connections and other ways that do not go through normalization, that move away from previsibility found in this field. To tension the type of EE that has been presented to us for years involves provoking its legitimate sayings, inventing unique pathways and trying other uncertain and doubtful possibilities. We need to invent other ways of interacting with the planet, with life, i. e., unusual ways that instigate us to consider other types of EE.

Throughout the philosophical experiences, questions asked by the teacher aimed at provoking the children’s thinking and curiosity, at instigating them to reflect on what they had talked about and relations they had established with the space they belong to. Thus, there were no narratives, but possibilities of experiences that resulted from the meetings. We wanted to start from situations that occurred at a certain moment, in the meeting. “The focus is to talk about true things together, things that touch us inside, rather than the ones that we touch with our hands” (^{Kohan et al., 2012}, p. 199). Therefore, we could talk about friendship and homesickness, for instance, if a child expressed these feelings in our meetings. In Philosophy, questions emerge from meetings, conversations, reflections and ideas that ‘itch’!

In one of the last tasks, the children were surprised at a gift sent by Friend. The group got a box in which there was a blue cap with red details. But what did the boy want the children to do with that cap? Where did the cap come from? What could happen? What could be done with that cap?

The boy who collected places used to wear a cap which he never took off. Why? What was so special about that cap? Was it a magical cap? Did it make the boy’s ideas ‘itch’? Besides keeping places in his can, did he keep some in his cap? So many issues to think about! “It seems that Friend has a magical cap”, said Child 1. “It is a magical cap, sure!”, stated Child 3. “I know it is magical”, spoke Child 4 with real conviction.

Then, a challenge came up: to design games with Friend’s cap. Did he know how to design games with a cap? How could we teach him? A bustle of conversations emerged at once; several ideas were given and, again, the teacher had to help so that all children were listened to and respected. Some games were suggested; the one that the children played longer consisted in hiding Friend’s cap without moving away from the computer. Child 1 suggested this game and he taught the others how to play it: “It’s like a game everybody will like. You must hide your cap and the others can’t see the cap. They have to know where the cap is”. “Can we play it like this, through the computer?”, asked the teacher. “Yes, we just have to wear our caps”, reinforced Child 1. “But we can’t play slow. If so, it takes long and nobody wins”, said Child 5. While the children closed their eyes, the cap could be hidden above, under or beside the computer. Then, every child gave a hunch to discover where it was.

Child 3 also suggested a game with the cap: “The one who jumps the highest wins”. After all children agreed to play, Child 3 said: “But I will be the judge, is it ok?”. The children agreed and the game started. Everybody stood up, Child 3 counted: “Three, two, one, go!”. The children jumped as high as they could.

The teacher used the children’s interest and excitement and suggested another game. Now, one by one, they would put on their caps and express a feeling about the environment where they passed daily: What do you think about your path to school? Is it long or short? How do you feel when you go to school? Are there spaces with nature in this path? How would you like your school-home path to be?

“I would like to cross a playground and arrive at school”, said Child 5. “I see my school from far away, I see trees full of leaves and fruit. There is sand, there is grass, there are many things” (Child 3). “I see a bunch of things, a bunch of friends” (Child 1).

When the teacher asked which feeling they had when they thought about school, they said: “my feeling is happy to go to school” (Child 1); “I get happy” (Child 2); “I get excited” (Child 5).

To end the week, the children picked up their cans and the teacher explained that only questions would enter the can at that moment. Which questions could be asked? What would they be about? While the children asked questions, the teacher wrote them down so that they could be put into the cans. Some of the questions were: “When I grow up and become an adult, will I have more itching in my ideas?” (Child 3); “But, if my ideas itch too much, will I go nuts?” (Child 5). Then, the teacher asked them: “What may happen when we feel that our ideas itch?”. “A good idea!”, said Child 4. “My ideas always itch”, stated Child 3. And Child 1 ended the conversation by saying: “Itching in ideas means that the idea is itching”.

To end this text, we invite our readers to believe in the power of children who think with the curiosity of ‘not knowing’. They invert the logics and create new possibilities; their attitudes are different from adult ones.

I like to insist, in these lines, that children offer us the possibility of a decline which is needed to live in the world of language, without adapting to it so blindly and civilly. They offer us images so that we may still exist or even resist through passion (^{Lima, 2021}, p. 308).

Thus, since we understand that to educate involves producing senses, we provoke ourselves to think about the relation between childhood and experience: Who educates who? How can we change our look to inhabit the world in other ways? Children’s hipotheses and possibilities do not need to be loaded with consolidated truths. They imagine and report experiences based on what they feel in their lives. Finally, if to educate involves producing senses, we understand that schools are spaces where meetings, sensations and thinking experiences take place.

Final remarks

Since we understand that Philosophy enables the experience of thinking, we did not have the pretentiousness to reach certain results. We aimed at breaking the frontiers of thought, distorting and twisting ideas, inventing, displacing, wishing new horizons, taking into consideration that they move all the time. We started from uncertainty, unpredictability, unrepeatable and unique experiences.

It is on this ‘bumpy’ road where we walk; we know that questioning the truth hurts our thoughts, but it is necessary. We wanted to carry out philosophical experiences that could provoke our thoughts and instigate us to dive in an adventure to search for the unknown. We started from the power of listening to the children and created unusual and committed ways of seeing EE.

In our philosophical experiences, we moved away from the order which the disciplinary nature of school asks us to follow. When we carefully organize practices with children guided by philosophical experiences, we see the school as a place for questions, rather than answers.

Schools do not need to be places where we copy; on the contrary, they may be places where powerful inventions and unusual creations take place. Throughout the philosophical experiences, we learned how to reinvent and create other senses for what teaching and learning means and for school experiences with children; this adventure made us be different from what we were so far. We may say that we perceive possibilities that are different from the ones we were used to; conversations that instigate other thoughts, different from the previous ones; application of new pedagogies to disturb teaching and learning.

We enabled philosophical meetings with distinct time and spaces from the usual ones. In school, time is linear and measurable so that contents and skills may be learned and lead to the so-called ‘children’s development’. In school, since both time and space are previously organized, children and teachers need to adapt to them.

On the other hand, the time of Philosophy cannot be measured. Philosophy is made with questions, with conversation. Collective conversation in unusual, uncommon time. Time to talk quietly about what disturbs us, what affects us. A space where children is provoked to say out loud those questions that they ask themselves; questions that make us think and learn how to discuss and argue, rather than any question. Questions that emerge to provoke complex doubts, rather than finding answers.

While the teacher listened sensitively, the children could broaden their thoughts and their experiences. Philosophy led to attitudes that were different from the ones expected in schools, mainly in ECE. We learned that we do not need to follow task ‘planning’ to the letter; the power of thinking was in the fact that the children’s wishes started the theme under study. The children brought up powerful talks of senses and unusual meanings with all their simplicity.

To tension values of truth found in discourses on EE and to analyze them critically made us search for escape routes and possibilities of resistance and creation of other ways of seeing and understanding environmental problems that pervade us.

We believe that it is a great privilege to be touched and transformed by Philosophy and childhood. It is a trip that has neither safe ports nor finish lines. It is a trip that never finishes, a trip that moves from thoughts to experiences. However, every memorable trip has hazards and challenges.

To think about school and environmental lessons philosophically was a challenge which also made us think about the power of creation, based on that poor Education that took place in class. Thus, we believed in Philosophy as the power of thinking to question truths that pervade the field of EE in everyday school life and invite our readers to think together with us about the power of creation of other types of EE in ECE.