The problems facing young people today are painfully clear to everyone: they are often lost, without points of reference, and fall into the traps of depression or alcohol, victims of the expectations that society places on them.
Don Lorenzo Milani: a revolutionary educator
In this context, it is therefore valuable to rediscover the thought and work of Don Lorenzo Milani, a Florentine priest and educator, born on May 27, 1923, who dreamed of and created a school for everyone, a free school.
First condemned by the Church and then by the State, Don Lorenzo is now considered a true prophet, a man with brilliant insights into how to live within the school system. “His” school, the school of Barbiana, is now proving to be a model useful for solving the many problems that arise in classrooms or within our youth centers.
In Barbiana: a school for everyone
At a time not so different from our own, when schools were always overcrowded with students tired of hearing the same lessons repeated and teachers harried by bureaucratic formalities; when parishes were bogged down by a system of transmitting the faith that focused on teaching formulas to be memorized rather than on experiential catechesis, Don Lorenzo saw further ahead, charted another path, and became a prophet.
First of all, he denounces the contradictions of a failed educational system and then promotes the creation of another school, another kind of education.
At his school, founded in Barbiana, Don Milani welcomed outcasts, young people and children with no alternatives who had been rejected by mainstream schools, because he was convinced that the worst poverty is being deprived of education. The poor must be given back the power of speech, which enables the “sick” (as the Prior of Barbiana called them) to regain the dignity they had lost. The most important aspect of the Prior’s pedagogy and teaching was represented by instruction in Italian, as well as in other foreign languages as a means of communication. But that was not enough: his was a full-time school, where every moment was an opportunity to learn and understand the world through its current events and the Gospel.
Don Milani also experiments with a new teaching technique: collective writing, which allows the students to work together in a cooperative spirit. Cooperation becomes the driving force at the school of Barbiana; there are no distinctions of roles, but a spirit of sharing prevails. This method of collective writing makes it possible to write letters asserting, as in Letter to Military Chaplains, the absurdity of an unjust war; to consider the dynamics of true justice, as in Letter to the Judges; to denounce the social marginalization of the weakest class and show how a true educational experience can be achieved, as happens in Letter to a Teacher.
His method: between the Gospel and the Constitution
The method tested by Don Lorenzo consists of giving attention to everyone who comes to his school. In addition to dedicating themselves to their studies, the students become protagonists, teaching the younger ones and encouraging them to ask questions to satisfy their thirst for knowledge and overcome their shyness.
Don Lorenzo aims to provide the cultural means for emancipation from socioeconomic subordination; therefore, he considers the Gospel a valuable tool for believers and the Constitution mandatory for everyone, in order to support the weak and those who suffered injustice. In his view, compulsory schooling must make up for and overcome the disadvantages of those who live in a family lacking cultural and material resources, as the Constitution also provides.
That is why the school of Barbiana promotes active and responsible citizenship, a fundamental practice for supporting solidarity and the common good.
Don Lorenzo offers an inspiring testament to the benefits of cooperation, placing at the center the person committed to growing in harmony with the community, because through cooperation, no one should feel useless: “We will not see saints blossom until we have raised young people who vibrate with pain and faith when thinking about social injustice”, this is what he said, this is what he believed in, and his thinking is more alive than ever today!
Don Antonino Maluccio
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