Célestin Freinet’s pedagogy faces important challenges today. On one side, cognitive psychology suggests that it is useful to move from the students’ free expressions only if this process permits the acquisition of concepts and competences, on the other hand institutional pedagogy, tracing back to psychoanalysis, teaches how important is to build mediation institutions within the group. In many experiences of institutional pedagogy the relationship, through the “places of word”, becomes the main purpose of education. But in this way knowledge, which (...) contributes to the formation of personality, would be denied. Institutional pedagogy anyway induces Freinet’s pedagogy to consider the importance of the institutional processes within the group and of the educational techniques as mediation structures in interpersonal relationships. (shrink)