This Saturday, January 4, Francis received in audience the Italian Association of Catholic Teachers (AIMC), the Italian Catholic Union of Teachers, Directors, Educators, Trainers (UCIID), the Association of Parents of Catholic Schools (AGeSC): “It pains me to see children who are not educated and who go to work, often exploited, or who go looking for food or things to sell in trash cans.”
Salvatore Cernuzio – Vatican City
“Never harassment, you understand?” To the approximately two thousand boys and girls, but also teachers and educators received this Saturday, January 4 in the morning in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, the Pope asked to repeat this sentence no less than six times in order to engrave in their minds the «non» to one of the worst abuses in schools: harassment. What “destroys life”, “prepare for war”said the Pope, emphasizing that school serves to lay the foundations of peace, of a world “more just and more fraternal”. The Holy Father addresses this serious subject in his speech to the members of the AIMC, UCIID and AGeSC, respectively the Italian Association of Catholic Teachers, the Italian Catholic Union of Teachers, School Heads and educators, and the Association of Parents of Catholic Schools, received on the occasion of the anniversary of their institution.
Exploited and uneducated children
To this vast Italian network, the Sovereign Pontiff recalled the vocation and mission of the school, particularly in a time like ours, characterized by challenges “environmental, social and economic”speak “great challenge for peace”, but also because, in his video message of prayer intentions for January, he describes “educational disaster” the millions of minors who do not have access to education.
“It pains me to see children who are not educated and who go to work, often exploited, or who go looking for food or things to sell in trash cans. It’s hard. And there are children like that!”
A new culture of responsibility
“Elaborate” et “transmit a new culture”, therefore encourages Francis: “A new culture, based on the meeting between generations, on inclusion, on the discernment of the true, the good and the beautiful; a culture of responsibility, personal and collective, to confront global challenges such as environmental, social and economic crises, and the great challenge of peace.
Imagine peace
At school, we can “imagine peace”insists the Pope, we can “lay the foundations of a fairer and more fraternal world, with the contribution of all disciplines and the creativity of children and young people”. “But if at school, he adds, we wage war among ourselves, if at school we harass girls and boys who have a problem, we are preparing for war and not peace”. “Please, no harassment, do you understand?” asks Francis, making the assembly repeat: “never harassment».
Recognize the dignity of each person
Jorge Mario Bergoglio emphasizes “a pedagogy that values the essential and places humility, gratuity and acceptance at the center”. A distant pedagogy and “distant” of people is not of much use, it does not help. Pedagogy, as the Pope understands it, “is an invitation to recognize the dignity of each person, starting with those who are rejected and marginalized” et “to appreciate the value of each stage of life, including childhood”.
The central role of the family
A role “central and irreplaceable» is played in this regard by the family: “family is the center, don’t forget it», Underlines the Bishop of Rome, departing from his written text. He again tells the anecdote of a person who, one Sunday lunchtime in a restaurant, saw at the next table a family – the father, the mother, the son and the daughter – all with their cell phones, without communicating with each other. them. “This person heard something and approached them saying: “But you’re a family, why don’t you talk to each other?, it’s weird…”. They listened to him, told him to go to hell and continued with their phones. Please, as a family, talk! The family is a dialogue, a dialogue that makes us grow.
A good teacher, man or woman of hope
The Pope’s gaze then turns to the Jubilee, an event which “has a lot to say to the world of education and also to the world of school”. THE “pilgrims of hope” -theme of the Holy Year- are in fact “all those who seek meaning in their lives and also those who help the little ones to walk this path”. A good teacher is actually “a man or woman of hope, because he or she dedicates himself with confidence and patience to a project of human growth”. A hope not «naïve»more “rooted in reality, supported by the conviction that all educational efforts have value” and that “each person has a dignity and a vocation that deserve to be cultivated”.
No to a “box” school
From this perspective, school is therefore a fundamental mission. No, not one “box”but a place where everyone who lives and works there – students, teachers, parents, managers, staff – walks together. This is also the initial intuition of the associations received this Saturday by the Pope: “associate” pour “improve the school” which, by nature, is “a community that needs everyone’s contribution”. “Your founders lived at a time when it was necessary to bear witness to and strengthen the values of the person and democratic citizenship, for the good of all, as well as the value of educational freedom,” recalls the Pope. “Never forget where you came from, but don’t walk around looking back, longing for the good old days. Think instead of the present of the school, which is the future of society, grappling with an epochal transformation.
An associative pact
Likewise, urges Pope Francis, “think of the young teachers who are taking their first steps in school and of the families who feel alone in their educational task”. It takes a “pact between associations”pour “better witness to the face of the Church in the school and for the school”.
Hence a new invitation to hope which “never disappoints” et “is never still” and encouragement to progress “with confidence”.
