“The first maieutic should be exercised with ourselves on our way of expressing,
occasion of discovery,
on our word.”
Danilo Dolci
Active participation. Communication. Active listening. Comparison.
The art of the relationships, as it has been called the reciprocal maieutic approach, is a dialectical methodology of popular self-analysis tested by Danilo Dolci from the ‘50s. “A process of collective exploration which takes, as starting point, the experience and the intuition of the individuals” (D. D. 1996). The reciprocal maieutic approach has been developed starting from the idea of socratic maieutic, from ancient Greek “μαιευτικός”, litterally the art of the midwife : every educational act consists on giving birth all the inner potentialities to whom wants to learn, as a mother wants that her own creature was born from her womb.
In Dolci’s opinion, the knowledge comes out from the experience and from the experience sharing, so knowledge the reciprocity of communication. The reciprocal maieutic approach is a “reciprocal” process between at least two people and it’s usually developed within a group.
It could be described as a group communicative strategy o that allows everyone to express their own ideas and opinions, contributing, through a reciprocal research and dialogue, to identify and define a shared action-idea aimed to make a change into the social, political, economic and educational sphere of eachparticipant.
The main features of the reciprocal maieutic approach are: the inner knowledge that every person has about him/herself, that comes from his/her own experience; the dialogue as tool for the reciprocal research and active participation; the constant and dynamic evolution of the knowledge that is built within a group.
The origin of Dolci’s reciprocal maieutic approach, is based on questions and not on the transmission of a pre-established truth. It’s a horizontal process, where the real needs and requirements are discussed, in order to find a path which brings to a common problem solving. A new way to educate, e-ducere to pull out, based on the valorization of the individual and group creativity.