The PECA project was designed during the school year 1995-96 by the school Pau Vila, an institution that works within the Project "Filosofia 6-18" (this is how it is known the project "Philosophy for Children" in Catalonia). "Filosofia 6-18 is coordinated by the Institut per la Recerca i l'Ensenyament de la Filosofia (IREF), which is associated to the International Forum SOPHIA  that promotes the work of philosophy, esthetics and citizenship, among schools and other institutions, not as studies in themselves but as a development of a large set of strategies of thinking through dialogue and the questioning about aspects of daily life.
 
 

In the PECA project there are four schools participating:
 

Pau Vila school, Esparreguera -Spain-, wich acts as the coordinator of the project,

Langbank School from Langbank, Scotland,

L'Ècole Autonome Fondamentale de la
Communauté Française from Mons, Belgium, and

Scuola Giovanni Pascoli from Rovigo, Italy.

All together we are piloting a new approach to philosophy and art with children of the primary level, using philosophic dialogue and esthetics to stimulate the artistic sense and the creativity processes and also using contemporary art as a stimulus for philosophic reflection.

Within PECA we pretend to join and work in deep some lines that are already open in the schools: philosophy, esthetics and valoration of the construction and diversity of Europe. Some of the main aims of the project are the reflection and the search of the sense of contemporary artworks, and the share of the newest art from the newest eyes to learn to participate together, to increase the own creativity and to facilitate the exchange of productions with their partners from the other European schools.

Each country develops its own methods to achive the principal objectives of PECA without forgetting the common work proposals and the different aspects that we have proposed to study carefully together. The four member schools share the results of the experience with the goal of elaborating some of the common conclusions both in methodology and in standards of work and materials, in order to develop the esthetic sense and improve some thinking strategies through the formulation of philosophic judgements.
 

"Match Cover". Claes Oldenburg, Barcelona, 1992