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An intuition becomes history
Very Irish, good.
We should always remember that
knowledge happens because
something happens.
Then, also a written text
can truly make something happen,
but the decisive point, I think,
is if inside that form of communication
there is a content.
And the real content is the human being,
that means, is the person.
The problem is
to let the boy understand
the esteem and the value
that he has for us and for himself,
let's say, which does not coincide
with a scholastic type of evaluation,
which we anyway have to give.
I get the testimony of those
who have learnt something precious
at school and so the work at home
is not only to do the homework
because I'm being asked to do them.
I teach religion
and in my 12 years of experience
I have realized that I can convey
contents much better through
the observation of artworks
and then maybe complete it
by reading the Gospel.
But what is left to a kid
even four years later,
who has seen, let's say,
the Angelus of Beato Angelico is impressing.
You try at least to show to the kids
that those things you talk about
are related to life and to reality,
and so you open the mind
of the kid to the reality.
...and how do you paint it?
with the watercolour paint?
Oh, you are copying an image.
The beauty
is something we are called
to discover, first of all we adults,
as persons busy with life.
If we don't recognize this first,
on the one hand that
we are made for beautiful things,
that means, we are ontologically made
to recognize the beauty and
when we recognize it
we feel our heart shaking.
We have to catch it,
and often beauty
is conquerable with effort,
or getting closer.
First of all we need
to relate with these kids.
Him, like me, has this vocation for beauty,
I would also say towards truth,
towards justice,
we are made like this,
and with this awareness
we have to go along with them
to catch the beauty inside
the proposal we make.
Like Michela, I liked a lot
the experience of Primadengo,
especially the theatre where
I could feel who I am,
and
I also liked a lot fishing,
which we did for sciences.
The Elementary School
was a little bit easier
than the secondary school.
Is it worth to make this effort?
Yes. Why?
Because after you have something,
I mean, you learn.
Hi!
In the experience of secondary school,
(now I'm talking as a teacher)
the experience that music is beautiful,
it's enough to listen to it,
and you can find inside of it
human characteristics,
about his feelings, about his passions.
But actually the beauty of music
is also something that the person,
and so also the student,
can build personally.
He can do it through the singing
for example, he can understand that beauty
is something that he can create.
I think that beauty
can arise in all lessons.
Because also mathematics contains,
I am discovering it thru staying at school,
contains the beauty of harmony
and of order.
The point is that
it's harder to catched
because the effort of the work prevails,
the effort to have to earn some concepts
the effort to make jumps
like the abstraction.
But if an adult,
in his specific lecture, is aware
of this beauty which hides inside
the work at school,
it is much easier that
the students become impressed as well.
In the sixth grade
we have to study
and so there I learned to study more.
The problem is to keep alive
the desire to reach it,
that means the desire to reach
the possibility to enjoy the beauty,
to enjoy what is right.
As we call it in economic terms,
it's an investment which gives good interest.
Kids move through facts,
through people who testify
in a very concrete way
one of their passions.
I think that all the time
that I'm here the kids
are actually watching us,
even those that appear to be distant,
very busy with their things.
And what do they want to see?
They want to see if it worth
to live the life in the way that
they have in front.
So if they see an adult
truly keen about the truth,
and about them,
and this,
also in the most difficult situations,
then this spark lights up.
Maybe you feel more interested
when you have in front of you
a person which not only
explains only to explain,
but also to let you know something more.
Is it in shade or light? -Shade.
It is in shade, we're in the winter solstice of...?
Winter
at the North Pole, and what about the South Pole?
In the summer. -Of course.
It's exactly the opposite thing.
But to make it easy we only see us, right?
because otherwise thinks get too difficult.
We start to understand
where we are and why we are like this.
Basically, the period of adolescence,
and that's the thing that we have allowed
to our children to spend in this school,
is a very particular time.
For us, parents, having being able
to live it with this kind of involvement
has allowed us to increase
the value of this period
and to live it intensely.
It would have been a shame to miss it.
It's a work,
a continuous work on me
and with them.
I was surprised how
teachers followed us
and it wasn't us that we follow them.
Many of them have helped us.
I had problems in two or three subjects,
but I have been able to get over
these problems not alone but
together with them.
Hi.
Kids, when you enter the classroom in the morning,
can always surprise you,
both with beautiful questions,
as well as with questions which are
really hard to answer,
and you always have to be
ready for everything,
and know to say something that
sometimes you would not like to say.
But that is the most beautiful moment
because they're really spontaneous,
especially in the first and second grade
because they are still so young,
and they think that the teacher
knows everything,
even if later they realize
that it is not like that.
Action!
I think that in the phrase of Saint Thomas
which says that the life of a person,
so the life of everybody, guys,
and adults, consists fundamentally
of the love that sustains it.
I don't want to be sentimental,
but an adult has to be loved the way he is,
in order to be able to go to youngs
and bring this value.
This value can not be invented.
The teachers are called on this
to a great creativity,
which means that we have to
understand if there is a method which
involves the children more than others.
there is a fact to bring in the classroom,
or a person to bring in the classroom
as sometimes happened,
who can generate this spark which
then allows to go
over the difficulties,
which is the condition of every path.
We have, not only the feeling,
but the certainty that
the teachers, but not only the teachers,
also all the people involved in the school,
with a lot of voluntary work,
love our children the way we love them.
The most beautiful and exciting thing is,
The discovery of myself
in teaching.
This relationship with the kids
allows me to discover myself,
and I think that the kids
are fascinated by this,
when they are willing and attentive,
because they see that I am there
with all of myself.
So I am marveled by something,
like they are.
Eleven what? -Semi-planes.
And why has she done the semi-planes?
Let's see, Claudia?
To fit more things inside... -To fit more things inside the...
I've always been helped by the fact
that you are not alone,
as a class teacher you can count
on your colleagues,
you can count on the management.
The School is a challenge for adults,
because the school, if it's deeply lived,
first of all changes the adults
if they want to resist,
otherwise they run the risk to succumb,
because the young people,
I don't know if today more than before,
don't want uncertain terms,
they don't want things... compromises,
they want this, this bright humanity,
passionate, in the schoolwork,
about what we bring in the lesson,
and about their humanity.
They have another approach,
they have a more personal approach
with the kid.
They watch the kid as it is and his needs,
that means that every kid is different,
one is different than the other,
everyone needs other things than the others.
And they give,
they take their time and take the hassle
to discover, to see, to help the kid.
In classes where I have met
most difficulties,
have also been those where I have learned the most.
What you do, doesn't end
inside the walls of the school,
inside the classroom.
How cool!
My experience necessarily starts
from the experience of being a son,
because as a son I have been
the object of an educational relationship
which led me to feel the absolute importance
of the fact of being watched
with a desire by my parents.
Without this I think that
it would have been anyway more abstract
to imagine first of all to make a family,
that means to find a person
with whom to share life and
with whom make the way together,
and also the hypothesis to become a parent,
to transmit life to someone
and to bring forth this positivity to children.
It was born like this,
from the experience as a son,
the desire to have a family.
And the experience of teaching
has come somehow a by chance,
I mean I didn't have this in mind for my life.
But I came here, by now,
12, 13 years ago,
and I have seen in action
an educational desire embodied
in the schoolwork,
so in the care for details,
those that look like details
but liike "I teach you how to study",
or "I help you to do your homework"
like we do for example in the after-school.
This convinced me.
To see the adults here,
also of a certain age,
some are still here,
live this desire has convinced me
of the possibility to do a job like this.
The attention towards the student,
towards the kid, and the involvement
of the families,
has been for us the main
positive aspect of this experience.
I also have three children,
and I work 10 hours so every year
I wonder if I keep on working,
and I just was thinking about it
and if I keep working
I would have to be very intelligent
in living my family,
but is just because this job is so fascinating
so I can accept a sacrifice.
And my children, because I asked them
"should I do less hours?"
and them "No, no mom! do it!
just get some help for the housekeeping"
Because they see me happy.
"Serve yourself again,
there is enough and more"
But Bilbo was not really
ignorant till this point...
When I am in front of the students
or in front of my children,
the behaviour is really...
the worry, the...
I heard a reaction
"but how?" no, obviously I don't want
to take the place of your parents,
I already have enough from my six children.
So... and we walk together
for a part of life,
two years,
and so it is obvious that there is a kind
of responsibility which is structurally different,
but the behaviour is actually the same.
The school belongs to all those
who want to take part
in the educative-scholastic experience
of their children.
I don't remember to have been
so happy to go to school at their age.
Come on.
This is not a dragon. More!
That was Gandalf.
Somebody had an educative desire
when thinking mainly about his children,
and this has brought to the birth
of a scholastic experience.
Well, I would say this with the awareness
that the school has a huge educative potential,
if only for the time
that the students spend at school.
The Traccia has been opened
thanks to the desire to do,
from the enthusiasm and also
from the capacity to risk.
The joy, which we could also call happiness,
has followed all this experience,
because joy
is somehow
that feeling of trepidation
which is ready to collect everything
that happens in an adventure.
And all this what for?
For our education, for...
but do you believe it
or is just to say?
Yes, I believe it...
even if I'm not the best.
Too cool!
The desire was not
that of creating a protected environment,
an Indian oasis,
but rather
a place of comparison,
but of educational growth
which had to be continuous
and coherent related to
the experience we were doing in the family.
Regarding the spirit
I would say that nothing has changed.
What an embarrassement?
Do you feel embarrassed?
No!
So shouldn't I be embarrassed?
But the challenge of these 20 years
I think, at least that's the way I have experienced it,
has been that of discovering
that that private desire
is actually a public desire.
So, what does it mean?
It means that this desire
which was aimed at the well-being
of the children inside a scholastic path
actually has affected a lot of people
which had nothing to do
with the historical origin
of the school.
The Traccia is not an elite school
or the class of a protected private school
let's say, where the kid finds a leveled road,
But the fact of being able
to do this followed by the parents
has been a plus for us.
It's a school that has helped me to grow.
I have grown together with my daughter.
Practically we grow together with them,
it's a growth
day by day,
and it is also something
in the education,
in the values,
in everything that a parent
want from the relationship
between school and home.
Ladies and gentlemen
today we will take you to the discovery
of the places of the monastery with me, Oscar,
Milo, who's going to show you
the places of the monastery...
We are not afraid to do,
let's say, some experiments
and to invite to the school
those who don't think like us
so that they may tap into
what they will consider most appropriate,
it is a complete opening to the reality
starting from the power that we know,
the basis where we move.
But the religious aspect in the Traccia
is not invasive, is not forced,
it is an offer, it is an important offer,
it is a chance,
it is like opening a window
which would be a shame to close.
And it is important for the kids
that this happens.
It looks like there is more respect
in this school for their religion
because religion also means to respect.
In all religions I think
that the first thing is respect
towards the other person.
Religion in this school is certainly
the leading thread which connects
connects the teachers among them
and also connects many parents,
and for us it's an important aspect.
Like that? -Thank you
Too much?
We need to have a clear and defined vision
of the person and of its fulfillment.
In a Catholic school
this is obvious,
I mean the person has an absolute value
and is called to fulfill itself
in the path of life by achieving his happiness,
by achieving what it was made for.
If it finds adults who make a proposal,
I mean who propose something,
a tradition, through which they can start
a dialogue with life
by giving value to things,
this path takes place.
A place where a kid
is looked on like this, as a person,
and is helped to walk on his path,
is a place which interests me.
Well, let's say that it's a school
like any others,
I mean it's not easier or harder,
because I already met
people that had this idea.
But it is a school where,
you are looked a little bit
more as a person and not as a number.
We have seen children
for whom maybe it was enough
that they felt that
someone cares for them
and this has determined this desire
of a higher commitment, this happens.
Inside the school the child has a face.
Let us understand with an example
what it means to be followed.
For example, if you don't understand something,
you ask them,
and they will explain it even three times.
When our daughter was
in the public school
first they didn't realize her problem
even when we had asked them,
and then our daughter has automatically been
left aside and she was treated like a girl
I mean, slow, distracted,
not interested.
And since we knew our daughter
we knew she is not like that.
Later, following the advice
of the director of this school,
we went to a specialist who,
after the tests, came to the conclusion
that she had dyslexia.
And now our daughter
is followed,
but in a discreetly way,
she does not even realize it,
she has blossomed,
she has acquired confidence in herself.
She really likes to go to school
and she does not see any difference
between her and the others.
It's not a problem anymore,
we don't have the problem anymore.
It is a choice of my parents,
to send me to that school,
and at the beginning
I did not agree, not at all,
but I am happy of having spent
four years with my class,
because it's a beautiful class,
I had a lot of fun
and I learnt a lot.
What in the beginning was
an intuition has now become
a story made of relationships,
friendships,
lived experiences,
even efforts, but also of satisfactions.
I personally think that
the real challenge to work
in a field like this
is the work with the adults.
The real issue is if the children
find adults ready to value them
and challenge them in the scholastic activity,
and in the life that actually arises at school,
with a positive perspective.
This is ,I think, the real job,
to which the whole school is called to do,
not only the private school.
The school has this great need
to generate adults,
otherwise it can not educate.
Maybe it can, in the best case,
transmit some knowledge.
But if knowledges don't have
an horizon where it can fit,
they are useless,
they don't generate anything
positive and new.
It's a unique
and unrepeatable experience
for the children
and for the parents.