TITLE OF THE PUBLICATION
The Word Makes Equal
SURNAME AND NAME OF AUTHOR(S)
Don Lorenzo Milani
PUBLISHER
Libreria Editrice Fiorentina
PLACE AND DATE OF PUBLICATION
year 2005
LANGUAGE OF THE DOCUMENT
Italian
LANGUAGE OF THE REVIEW
English
THEMATIC AREA
Identification of students’ at risk, Integration of immigrants students, Students with learning difficulties
DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS
Don Milani takes seriously into consideration the problem of Communication. He analyzes and discusses some aspects of human communication which are still current.
Don Lorenzo claims that every day we face people who aren’t able to think, not because they are bad natured but because they are lacking in technical instruments (knowledge, mental structure and dialectic....) which are necessary and essential to set up a real communicative dialogue. In San Donato, where Don Milani lived, people DIDN’T POSSESS THE WORD, but mostly they had no worthy human interests.
The problem of communication was, therefore, his first concern; he could not ignore the wall raised by ignorance. His first commitment was to study the situation thoroughly: he sought and found out the interests of the young men, looking them deeply with the pedagogical love able to enter their world and to understand it. In this way Don Lorenzo was able to really feel their situation and help them getting their whole humanity.
Don Lorenzo challenged " SCHOOL DROPOUT" which occurred in the state school each year because he thought that " THERE'S NOTHING AS UNFAIR AS MAKING EQUAL PARTS AMONG UNEQUAL PEOPLE". It's just the language that makes people equal; “equal” is he who is able to communicate and to understand the others. Don Lorenzo said and taught many things about didactics and teaching: Educating to dialogue, Educating following a project, School as a critical conscience of society, Obedience is no longer a virtue. This was Don Lorenzo’s unconventional school: a school free from trends and obedience. This is the man’s image Don Milani wanted to create: a man fully and responsibly included in society.
COMMENTS ON THIS PUBLICATION
I would like to draw your attention on an particular educator, Don Lorenzo Milani, whose experience, even if it might seem far from the one of modern educators, gives useful hints and advice, with its concrete evidence, to those who daily live among young people.
The revolutionary aspect of Don Lorenzo’s message just lies in its ability to get to the bottom of things, always looking for the truth everywhere.
WHERE TO FIND IT
Www Don Lorenzo Milani,Opere.it
Name of Compiler
Gianna Felli
Name of Institution
Istituto Matteotti Pisa
Role in the institution
Docente
