The risk of education.Discovering Our Ultimate Destiny

Valentina Mazzoni

Department of Philosophy,

Education and Psychology.

6th International Conference on Catholic Educational Leadership

Paradox and Possibilities

13 August 2013, Sydney

Fr. Luigi Giussani

• Priest, born October 15 1922; died February 22 2005 - Milan (Italy);

• He is known throughout the world as the founder of Communion and Liberation, one of new Catholic movements of the last century.

"I never intended to 'found' anything. I believe that the genius of the movement that I have seen come into being is that of having grasped the urgency of proclaiming the need to return to the elementary aspects of Christianity, meaning passion for Christianity as such, in its original elements, and that's all."

Giussani’s letter to Pope John Paul II

Since the academic year 1964–1965 he taught Introduction to Theology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, a chair he held until 1990, when he left the teaching on grounds of age.

Teaching at University

” Il senso religioso [The religious sense]

was published worldwide, and was translated into

18 languages.

does faith have a chance to pertain to the children needs, desires and real-life

impetus?

Since the 1954 school year, he taught religion at the Berchet Classical high school in Milan, where he remained until 1967.

Fr. Giussani’’’’s provocation:

Teaching at High School

1. there was no profound motivation for belief;

2. faith was irrelevant to social behaviour in general and to behaviour in the schools in particular;

The Italian context around 1950:

3. there was a general climate that favoured scepticism and left the field open for some teachers to attack religion.

(or) Christian religion had lost all strength of persuasion and was no longer a guiding force in the life of young students;

(or) Christianity was not suitably presented or offered to students.

“Only a faith arising from life experienceand confirmed by it (and, therefore, relevant to life’s needs) could be sufficiently strong to survive in a world where everything points in the opposite direction.”

Fr. Giussani perceived an AUT-AUT:

1. The primary concern of society is to educate the young

Ethics is nothing more than the continuation of the attitude in which God originally created humanity in its relation to all things

Some premises of fr. Giussani’s perspective:

2. The first concern of a genuine and appropriate educational method is the education of the human heart, just as God made it

It is through the younger generations that society successively rebuilds itself

Since the contents of faith had to be accepted by reason, faith had to be presented as potentially capable of improving, enlightening, and enhancing authentic human values.

3. The reasonableness of faith in relation to the human heart

Reason

AffectionIn order faith become a certainty for life, the contents of faith had to be tested in action.

“My aim is not to persuade you with my ideas. I want you to have the tools you need, in order to judge what I’m saying”.

Fr. Giussani provocation to his students:

Fr. Giussani’s idea of reason

Reason is like an open window on the world, seeking to understand its meaning, rather than a tools to measure reality.

While reason looks for meaning, rationality aims to measure reality.

Educational event

According to the Jesuit theologian Josef Jungmann, Giussani defines education as:

introduction to total reality

(a) to develop all the structures of an individual until they are complete (flourishing)

(b) To affirm all the possible active links those structures have to reality

The method to introduce young people into reality

a) Tradition: the importance of a explanatory hypothesis

b) Tradition as a lived present: what is authority

c) Education to critic: responsibility and testing

Introduction to reality cannot come about without an idea of meaning that presents itself to the individual in formation with

solidity, intensity, and sureness.

Tradition

Where do every man find a possible meaning for the world?

Tradition

Tradition is the whole structure of valuesand meanings into which a child is born;and it represents for him/her the main source for an hypothetical meaning to discover the world.

Loyalty to the tradition

Tradition is taken as a hypothesis of meaning

Educational concerns

• instinctive reaction to phenomena everything that is outside of one's self is merely an occasion for purely autonomous reactions;

• submission to an outside force.

With the lack of any criteria, the child will be overtaken by phenomena:

Tradition

Authority: an existential proposal

We should present the past to young only from within the context of a life experience that highlights a correspondence with the heart's deepest needs.

Authority

Education to critic

The young must take the tradition - the working hypothesis - look at it critically, compare it with the contents of his heart, and say, "This is true," or "This is not true," or "I'm not sure."

"to criticize” means to take hold of things, rather than to doubt of things.

Education to critic

Urging the young to take on personal responsibility

While the educator may offer an idea and his support, only if the student becomes consciously involved will the value of that idea, he tests its validity in his daily life.

Education to critic

• Intellectualismthere is the desire to understand before making a commitment, while understanding spring out from personal commitment.

Educators should encourage the young to test tradition, confronting it with everything (all the reality).

Education to critic

Educational concerns

• TraditionalismChildren are reinforced in formality: devotedly repeated actions and tactful obedience

we always run a risk when we insist on the rationality of the project of faith, because we cannot pretend to offer mathematical evidence or deductive logical arguments.

we are at the mercy of the quicksands of freedom

That means

The risk of Education

St. Augustine

You have made us for

yourself, and our heart is

restless until

it rests in you.

Fr. Giussani’s writings are available at:

http://www.scritti.luigigiussani.org/main/index.aspx