The development of creative skills (UNESCO, 2006) appears to be one of the most urgent challenges in today's complex (Morin, 2017) and 'fluid' (Bauman, 2007) society, characterized by uncertainty and instability.   

The concept of creativity has multiple definitions: it is a performative skill, a transformative process (Edwards, Grandini & Forman, 2017; Munari, 2017; Rodari, 2010), an improvisational attitude (Zorzi, 2020), a generative capacity (Tiozzo Brasiola, 2020), a political condition and a dimension of complex thinking (Lipman, 2005). Moreover, creativity is a higher psychic function present in all human beings since childhood (Vygotsky, 2010) and a process historically and culturally mediated. Creativity is a necessary educational condition to imagine otherness, to think in terms of differences, and to welcome the thought of the other (Santi, 2006a) to nurture open and democratic societies. Hence, schools are in charge of cultivating it, so that it becomes a different opportunity to relate with others and with the world.

There are many documents and researches that emphasize the importance of creative education at school and in educational contexts (e.g., NACCCE, 1999; WHO, 1997; European Parliament, 2006, 2018). These documents consider creativity as one of the ten life skills, underlying all the key citizenship competencies. Moreover, it is to be understood as a democratic capacity that can be realized in all fields of human activity and all people.

Hence, the importance of the role of teachers and the learning environment in fostering and supporting each child's creative potential is critical (RIF, 2015). In the Italian context, the documents in which we misrepresent these principles are the Elementary School Programmes (1985), the National Curriculum guidelines (2012, 2018), and, more recently, Legislative Decree No. 60/2017.

From these principles, multiple pedagogical perspectives have emerged. Among them, this research aims to embrace an artistic and philosophical horizon.

One of these is the philosophical research community. It is considered by Lipman (1988, 2005) to be the cradle of the development of creative thinking, understood as one of the three components of complex thinking. According to the author, creativity is the transformation of what is given into something radically different, thus emphasizing the generative value of creativity itself. The development of complex thinking in children finds expression in Philosophy for Children (P4C), an educational practice characterized by the dialogic-argumentative method and the didactic model of the research community (Santi, 2005). In the literature, there are many researches aimed at investigating creative thinking through P4C (De Puig, 2003; Sátiro, 2006, 2019; Santi, 2007), but no studies highlighting the possible link between generativity and creative thinking in the perspective of complex thinking. Therefore, mobilizing generativity as an interpretative model to read an empirical investigation of creativity promoted through P4C can open a new pedagogical and didactic view of what has already been explored. The research aspires to give a generative reading of creativity, as an object of teaching, by investigating the horizon of generative didactics of creativity through PhilosophArt.

PhilosophArt is an educational-didactic practice that aims to generate creativity through art and dialogue in the community, taking into account the complexity of thought. It combines the dialogical-discursive method and the research community of P4C with the realization of community works of art through graphic signs (Kandinsky, 1968, 2005). P4C develops creative, critical, and free minds in community members so that they can live in a complex and democratic society open to difference. At the same time, artistic semiotics (Peirce, 1980) refers to the trivalence of the sign and to the possibility that the same sign can contain different meanings.

The research questions are: 1. How can the complex thinking approach be re-read through the generative approach in order to reconceptualize the concept of creativity at school? 2. Can PhilosophyArt be an educational-didactic practice to promote generative creative thinking? The research involved the entire school community of a primary school in the Veneto Region, Italy. More specifically, 120 students and 13 teachers. This school was chosen because it is a small public school, located on the outskirts of the city and with a school timetable suitable for hosting a medium-term research project. Furthermore, the teachers decided to join the research by highlighting the urgency of promoting creativity education in their school. In line with the participants and the topic of the research, the methodological choices fell on Community-based participatory research and Art-based research. The first one (AHRQ; 2004; Blumenthal, 2011, Hacher, 2013) is a collaborative approach oriented towards social change and improvement that takes place in the community, which is always involved in all stages of the investigation process. On the other hand, Art-based research (Barone & Eisner, 2012; Knowles & Cole, 2008; McNiff, 2009) uses artistic processes at every stage of the research as fundamental to understanding and examining experience. The research design involves three phases. The first phase (October 2022) was an exploration of the structural, organizational, and methodological-didactic aspects of the school context. This has been done through a focus group with all teachers in the school. The macro-topics of the focus group refer to an INDIRE questionnaire on creative practices and they concern 1) the concept of creativity, 2) didactics and creativity, and 3) creativity space. The second step (October 2022-February 2023) of the research was an experimental phase: PhilosofArt sessions were proposed in each classroom of the school. In the concluding phase (March 2023), the initial focus group will be re-proposed to the teachers. The aim of the focus group will be to identify a hypothetical change concerning the macro-topics and to search together for a data analysis and interpretation model. This model should emerge from the relationship between the literature and the empirical data. The data interpretation and analysis model will be created artistically starting from a Kandinsky piece of art. The same procedure has been used to conduct focus groups and PhilosofArt sessions. Finally, we will return the results of the research through a community art event.

This research is part of a national and international overview that strongly believes in creativity as the key to 21st-century education (UNESCO, 2006). There are many meanings that psychology and pedagogy have been attributing to creativity for years, but few of them are their educational nuances. On this gap in the literature, the research intends to fit. The educational and pedagogical value of research on creative and generative thinking in the historical, social, and cultural context of today's schools values each and everyone differently. Indeed everyone has creative capacities as a natural effect of being human (Robinson, 2015). Pedagogical interest in didactics that differentially promotes the development of creative thinking could find a possible horizon in PhilosophyArt. In this educational practice, the conceptual diversity of creativity is reflected in all its meanings, but also in its different ways of thinking about the metaphors of life. In PhilosophyArt, the cultural diversity of creativity emerges as artistic-philosophical dialogue promotes inter-subjective exchange, growth of knowledge, and openness to different perspectives also through different communication languages. Finally, this educational practice fosters the contextual diversity of creativity, as artistic and dialogical signs do not have value in themselves but in relation to others and the world. The complexity that invests humanity requires an educational paradigm that is welcoming and loving towards an uncertain future that rests on the ephemeral present. The meaning of education can be found in the possibility of everyone acting in relation to their own aspirations for the common good, which is their own and the one of the next generations. A school that creates the conditions for creativity to reproduce itself becomes a school that generates different opportunities for all in relation to others, the world, and culture.

AHRQ, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Community-based Participatory Research: Assessing the Evidence, 2004. From://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK37280/ Barone, T., Eisner, E. (2012). Arte Based Research. SAGE Bauman, Z. (2007). Liquid times: Living in an age of uncertainty. Polity Press. Blumenthal, D.S. (2011). Is Community-Based Participatory Research Possible?, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 40(3), pp. 386-389. De Puig, I. (2003). Pensar. Percebre, sentir i pensar. Universitat de Girona Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Forman G. (2017). I cento linguaggi dei bambini. L’approccio di Reggio Emilia all’educazione dell’infanzia. Edizioni junior Kandinsky, V. (1968). Punto linea superficie. Contributo all'analisi degli elementi pittorici. Milano: Adelphi Kandinsky, V. (2005). Lo spirituale nell'arte. SE Knowles J. G., Cole A. L. (2008). Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, ans Issues. SAGE Hacher, K. (2013). Community based participatory research. London: Sage Lipman, M. (1988). Philosophy goes to school. Temple Univ Pe Lipman, M. (2005). Educare al pensiero. Vita e Pensiero McNiff, S. (2009). Art-Based Research. Jessica Kingsley Morin, E. (2017). La sfida della complessità. Le Lettere. Munari, B. (2017). Fantasia. Editori Laterza. National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (1999). All our futures: Creativity, culture & education. Sudbury, Suffolk: Department for Education and Employment. Peirce, C. (1980). Semiotica. Einaudi Robinson, K. (2015). Fuori di testa. Perché la scuola uccide la creatività. Erickson Rodari, G. (2010). La grammatica della fantasia. Einaudi Ragazzi Santi, M. (cur.). (2005). Philosophy for Children: un curricolo per insegnare a pensare. Liguori Editore Santi, M. (2006a). Costruire comunità di integrazione in classe. Pensa MultiMedia Santi, M. (2007). How students understand art: a change in children through Philosophy. Childhood & Philosophy, 3, n.5, 19-33 Sátiro, A. (2006). Pensar creativamente. III Seminario Iberoamericano Sátiro, A. (2019). Personas creativas ciudadanos creativos. Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios – UNIMINUTO Tiozzo Brasiola, O. (2020). Didattica generativa della solidarietà: generare creatività e creare generatività. Formazione & Insegnamento, XVIII, 1, 737-746 UNESCO (2006). World conference on arts education, building creative capacities for the 21st century. Lisbon, Portugal, 6–9 March 2006. Working document. Lisbon: UNESCO Vygotskij, L. (2010). Immaginazione e creatività nell’età infantile. Editori Riuniti university press Zorzi, E., Antoniello, S.M. (2020). Promuovere creatività nelle intelligenze multiple: filoso-fare a scuola negli atelier. Encyclopaideia, XXIV, 58, 59-73