The education of each new generation has been a fundamental task for every human group throughout history, to be carried out with care, resources and energy, and has created educational rules, customs, practices and rituals. But in our own time, in the West at least, education has become problematic in a new way. It is a dilemma which seems increasingly difficult to deal with, an area much changed and almost unrecognisable. Relationships between generations have become more uncertain and problematic, in particular regarding the transmission of patterns of behaviour and lifestyle, so that especially from this point of view we tend to talk of break-up or indifference between generations. And, more importantly, there seem to be fewer, less stable possibilities for a genuine education which gives people a good opportunity to find their way in life, to find meaning and reasons for commitment and confidence, to form constructive relationships with others and not to become lost in the face of difficulties and contradictions. In other words, whereas the opportunities and facilities available to us have considerably increased in many respects, it becomes more difficult to retain an awareness of ourselves and of the world in which we live, of making free and responsible decisions, in other words, of those factors which seem essential for a true education.
The Church feels called upon to respond in a situation such as this. From the very beginning, in fact, moved by its concern toward man, it has exercised a particular educational vocation toward individuals, families and entire populations. In John Paul II’s encyclical Redemptor Hominis we read: “Man is the way for the Church”. For this reason it cannot but be interested in the education of the individual. The specific task of the Church is certainly education in the faith, Christian teaching, but not in an abstract way, not ignoring therefore the human aspect of man, but rather concerning itself with the true humanity of all those whom it encounters along its way, including non-Christians, as is shown by its long experience of teaching in many countries.
On many occasions over recent years the Church in Italy has drawn attention to the current “education emergency”. It is apparent in fact that what is at stake is the very meaning that we attribute to man and to our civilisation. It seeks, therefore, within the limits of possibility, to take responsibility for the great task and challenge which this problem places before us. But the Church knows equally well that this is in no way an exclusive task, and that it is necessary to promote an all-round collaboration, since concern about the quality of education is shared by many people.
The report-proposal which we are putting forward does not concentrate in the first place on educational techniques, which are useful and important but not decisive: indeed I would suggest that the more it is understood that they do not constitute the whole of education, the more useful they are. We therefore consider education as a global and primordial human process, in which central importance is given to the essential – we might say the fundamental – aspects of the existence of men and women. Thus the relational nature and especially the need for love, knowledge, with the aptitude to understand and evaluate, liberty, which also needs to be fostered and educated, in a continual rapport with the reliability and authority of those who have the task of educating. “The educational relationship” writes Benedict XVI, “is above all the encounter between two liberties, and successful education is a training in the proper use of liberty”. In practice, the difficulties of these last decades emphasise once again the need for clear rules of conduct and living which are to be found in every great educational tradition. At a deeper level, they restate a decisive anthropological principle: that we need education, not just in order to be good citizens or good Catholics, but simply in order to be people. For this we place particular emphasis on the productive nature of education, on the importance for men and women to be guided, educated, in both their intellectual as well as their emotional lives, in their ability to listen as much as in their ability to understand and use their critical judgement.
This report-proposal is not therefore sectoral: it carefully considers each of the specific contexts, such as the family and the school, in which education takes place or areas where it may nevertheless play a significant role, but it also seeks to examine the deeper reasons for the current difficulties and therefore looks at certain fundamental anthropological questions. Education, having as its purpose the training and development of the human individual, is in fact intrinsically connected with the answers given to the great questions involving man. This book is therefore concerned also with those broad educational factors which constitute society as a whole and its culture. In reality, we all play a part in the education process, even though we each have different levels of responsibility according to our role in society. In order to be read by everyone, this report-proposal has tried to avoid technical language and to minimise the use of specialist terms.
The basic guidelines presented here are suggested as a working model in examining concrete situations in education in Italy, with their positive, problematic or frankly negative aspects. The description and interpretation of each of them is brief but seeks to be accurate. The objective, however, is not just descriptive and interpretative: above all it seeks to contribute toward bringing about a positive change in the situation. As well as being a “report”, this book is therefore also a “proposal” for guidelines and also for changes of direction. It is hoped that they will be of medium to long-term value but they relate above all to those things which have to be done in the coming years and, in particular, the approach which seems necessary in order to increase and strengthen what is, from any point of view, the primary resource in any society, namely the person, the individual human being.