Abstract
Paulo Freire and Lorenzo Milani are considered as key figures in a number of Southern European countries for providing signposts for a critical approach to education. In this paper I will view their ideas and biographical trajectories comparatively to glean some important insights for a critical pedagogy. The common theme throughout this comparative analysis is that of education for social justice based on critical literacy. The paper also deals with such themes as the relationship between education and politics, the relationship between education and life, the collective dimension of learning and the ability to read as well as write the word and the world.
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Notes
In Britain, the Open University used the Penguin edition of the English version of the Lettera as a text. It featured as a reading text in a course on ‘Schooling and Society’ (E 202) that started in 1974. I am indebted to Professor Roger Dale of the Universities of Bristol and Auckland for this information. Three years following its publication in Italian in 1967, the text was published in English translation by the US publishing house, Random House. Its North American version was therefore produced during the same year that saw the publication in English of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In 1988, the University of Indiana Press published J.T Burtchaell’s A Just War no longer Exists. The Teaching and Trial of Don Lorenzo Milani which includes translated versions of the Lettera ai Giudici (Letter to the Judges), the Lettera ai Cappellani (the Letter to the Military Chaplains) and other material related to the accusations levelled at Milani for his advocacy of conscientious objection to military conscription.
Goulart was a populist who would have been favoured by Freire’s literacy programme since more people would have become literate and therefore eligible to vote for him.
The biographical account is summarised from information provided by Fallaci (1993), Pecorini (1998) and the Centro Formazione e Ricerca Don Milani, e Scuola di Barbiana, http://www.barbiana.it/biografia.html. Accessed 17 March 2007. See also http://www.icareancora.it/ Accessed 24th March 2007.
Neera Fallaci refers to Lorenzo as Lorenzo Milani Comparetti (Fallaci 1993, p. 54). As Domenico Simeone pointed out to me (personal e-mail correspondence, 27 November, 2005), Milani always signed his name Lorenzo Milani.
See Fr Nazzareno Fabbretti’s interview with Alice Milani Weiss in Il Resto del Carlino, 8 July 1970, reproduced on the website of the Centro Ricerca Don Milani, http://www.barbiana.it/biografia.html. Accessed 18th March 2007.
See ‘La Biografia di Don Lorenzo Milani’ by the Centro Formazione e Ricerca Don Lorenzo Milani e la Scuola di Barbiana http://www.barbiana.it/biografia.html
A university education would have been taken for granted given that it represented an extension to their life of ‘high culture’.
As Domenico Simeone states in his excellent study on Milani’s work at San Donato, visiting speakers were surprised and often disturbed by the air of liberty that pervaded the learning environment (Simeone 1996, p. 99).
These were generated by the Church and Communist Party, a situation that was brilliantly satirised by Giovanni Guareschi in his popular Don Camillo-Peppone series.
The term Catcom, short for Cattolico (Catholic) and Communista (Communist), is a popular term in Italy.
I am indebted to Professor David W. Livingstone, from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto, for this point.
Marx had specifically developed the notion of a ‘polytechnic education’ in the Geneva Resolution of 1866.
Information obtained from electronic interview carried out with one of the eight former pupils at the School of Barbiana, Edoardo Martinelli. See Borg and Mayo 2007.
See Italian original in Milani 1991, p. 18.
Scuola di Barbiana 1996, p. 92.
Electronic interview with Edoardo Martinelli in Borg and Mayo 2007.
Italian original in Milani 1991, p. 12.
Interview with Edoardo Martinelli carried out electronically in 2006. See Borg and Mayo 2007.
Original in Italian in Milani 1991, p. 4.
Scuola di Barbiana 1996, pp. 63, 64.
Fallaci (1993, p. 488) indicates how Milani, when writing about Pierino, had in mind his nephew, Andrea Milani Comparetti, who obtained 10 out of 10 in a History of Art Exam without studying anything. He claimed in a published interview that he obtained the information on the 1400 and 1500 periods from a friend, the evening before the exam. Andrea’s friend obtained 6 out of 10 in the exam. In the interview, which Milani read, Andrea states that if the exams were a serious matter then he would not have obtained full marks. It was all a matter of being confident when facing the examiner in what was an oral exam (the Italian educational system involves oral exams). It is all a matter of selling oneself, according to Milani’s nephew.
Ibid., p. 19.
The original reads: “Sbagliano domanda, non dovrebbero preoccuparsi di come bisogna fare per fare scuola, ma solo di come bisogna essere per poter far scuola”.
Electronic interview with Edoardo Martinelli in Borg and Mayo 2007.
He secured funds for the Barbiana boys to cover their travel expenses. They had to cater for the rest by working abroad.
Electronic interview with Edoardo Martinelli in Borg and Mayo 2007.
It has been argued that one enhances one’s learning by communicating what is learnt to others. At the Barbiana school, those who did not keep track were helped to learn by their peers who, in turn, enhanced their own understanding of what was learnt through the effort involved in conveying it to others. “Communicating your ideas to others enables you to clarify and elaborate them” (Bonanno 2002, p. 97).
Scuola di Barbiana 1996, p. 12.
Milani was to write with regard to the school schedule: “City people are bewildered by its schedule: twelve hours a day, 365 days a year. Before I arrived, the children kept to the same schedule (and a great deal of fatigue besides) to provide city people with wool and cheese. There was little to be cheerful about”. (Milani 1988b, p. 54)
Original reads: “Devo tutto quello che so ai giovani operai e contadini cui ho fatto scuola. Quello che loro credevano di stare imparando da me, son io che l’ho imparato da loro. Io ho insegnato loro soltanto a esprimersi mentre loro mi hanno insegnato a vivere. Son loro che mi hanno avviato a pensarle cose che sono scritte in questo libro. Sui libri della scuola io non le avevo trovate. Le ho imparate mentre le scrivevo e le ho scritte perchè loro me le avevano messe nel cuore”. (Milani 1996, p. 76)
The same applied to other collective endeavours attesting to their sense of critical literacy This includes the Letter to the Judges in which Milani constantly refers to discussions with his students concerning the many points made throughout the letter, including the several points based on a critical reading of history, one which went against the grain—quite a contrast to the history learnt in the public schools (Scuola di Barbiana 1996, p. 123).
Ibid., p. 12.
Ibid., p. 82.
The authors warned against streaming practices as suggested by a member of the Christian-Democratic party, who, in a speech in parliament, unabashedly argued that: “Why indeed, should we punish the most gifted children, confining them in a school where they have to clip their wings, adjusting their flight to that of the slower children” (School of Barbiana 1969, p. 40). Alas, many share this view in this day and age, all in keeping with a concept of citizenship characterized by ‘survival of the fittest’ in a jungle of competitive individualism. Being true to the message of the Gospels, an important source of reading at the Barbiana School, Milani and his students opted for a process of education in which, once again one learns not to have but to be and be for others. Learning was to be shared with others.
Scuola di Barbiana 1996, p. 125.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the feedback on an earlier draft provided by Dott. Mario Cardona from the Foundation for Educational Services, Malta.
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Mayo, P. Critical Approaches to Education in the Work of Lorenzo Milani and Paulo Freire. Stud Philos Educ 26, 525–544 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-007-9064-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-007-9064-0