Inspiring readings from Letters to a teacher

Some passages from Milani’s publication Letters to a Teacher that focus on the idea of inclusion are presented, followed by questions for reflection.

Lorenzo Milani as a pioneer of inclusion in Italy

Lorenzo Carlo Domenico Milani Comparetti (27 May 1923 – 26 June 1967) was an Italian Catholic priest. He was an educator of poor children and an advocate of conscientious objection to military service.

Milani and his students spent a year coordinating the production of the letter to a teacher (Lettera a una professoressa), which denounces the inequalities of a class-based education system that favours the children of the rich over the children of the poor.

Although more than fifty years have passed since his death, the pedagogical ideas of Don Lorenzo Milani and the experiences of the Barbiana School are as relevant and educationally valuable today as they were then. Don Milani believed in the project of an open and inclusive school which, “by linking knowledge to the life project of each individual”, promotes the development of all intelligences, including those of the culturally and socially disadvantaged.

“If you lose the most difficult children, the school is no longer a school. It’s a hospital that heals the healthy and sorts out the sick.”

That’s what Don Lorenzo Milani said. He was an uncomfortable priest, a man who used sharp but precise language and for this very reason met with much approval or fierce rejection.

For Don Milani, the school was a means of giving all people, especially the poor, the cultural tools to make them freer and more equal. In the school of Barbiana he gathered everyone, without distinction, and through these children the educating priest learnt about the many problems of the real world of his time.

He, who came from a wealthy family, was committed to ensuring that young people took their future into their own hands by encouraging them to think critically and teaching them to think for themselves.

The Barbiana School sends out a message that is more valid today than ever and is by no means rhetorical: culture makes people equal in their knowledge potential, it gives them dignity. Cultural equality is a necessary means of overcoming a repetitive life without vigour and enthusiasm. The joy of knowledge liberates.

Don Milani’s school was an open, lively, stimulating school, certainly not an easy one. People learnt. People got involved, because learning is a sacrifice. People experimented.

This is how autonomy and critical thinking developed in Barbiana, knowledge and skills were acquired, and today we can say that the didactics of competence has been realised: Knowledge and skills.

“I care”, I look after you, I care about you, I am interested in you as a person, I am interested in your emotions, I build a relationship with you, because that is what learning is all about – active and stimulating learning.

That’s what inclusion is all about today; schools are just talking about it. If you browse the websites of various educational institutions from north to south, you will read treatises on school inclusion, far-reaching projects, often self-referential and in a language that is not always comprehensible.

If inclusion means respecting the needs of all by designing and organising the school environment and learning in such a way that everyone can actively participate in class life and every pupil has the opportunity to develop according to their potential, then inclusion is promoted. Is this the case in our schools?

Don Milani said: ‘Nothing is more unjust than to make unequal parts equal’. If we remember his pedagogical message today, it undoubtedly means that we fully realise inclusion every day in the little things of everyday school life. Today, the socially and culturally disadvantaged fall into the Bes category (special educational needs), but I believe that every pupil has special educational needs because he or she needs attention, stimulation and sometimes support.

The teacher’s approach must change: He should not only be concerned with the definition of the pupil with special educational needs, but should also be clear about the aim of special education and accordingly assess each pupil in terms of his starting level and the goals achieved and give the right answer in relation to the difficulties and conditions.

This is certainly a difficult path that demands commitment and competence from teachers, but this is precisely the beauty and uniqueness of the teaching profession, which is changing from a provider of knowledge to a creator of culture and is recognised as such by society.

Of course, this requires solid specific preparation, continuous further training and a high degree of planning autonomy, which is not always given in today’s schools.

A careful reading of the book ‘Letter to a Teacher’, written by the priest of Barbiana, would certainly be helpful.

On the following pages, we offer excerpts from the “Letter to a Teacher”, preceded by questions designed to encourage teachers and educational professionals in general to reflect on questions of inclusion based on this timeless work.

Extracts from: Letters to a teacher

Source

The school of Barbiana (2023). Letter to a teacher. Translation by Alexander Langer. With texts by Lorenzo Milani. Edited by S. Langer. Alpha&Beta: Merano.

Impulse questions

1. Inclusion-orientated lesson design

The Barbiana school anticipated practices that are now firmly anchored in the education system: Variation and flexibility in the arrangement of desks in the classroom, peer tutoring, book sharing. In your opinion, how important are these measures for the realisation of a truly inclusive school?

the tables

When I arrived, Barbiana didn’t seem to me to be a school at all – no classroom, no blackboard, no desks. Just big tables around which school was held and meals were eaten.

There was only one copy of each book: The boys crowded round it. You hardly noticed that his was a little taller and was teaching.

The oldest of each teacher was sixteen years old. The youngest was twelve, and I was full of admiration for him. From the very first day, I decided that I would also teach one day.

brought forward

Life was hard up there too. Discipline and scenes that could make you want to come back.

But those who lacked the basics and were slow or lazy were favoured. He was accepted like you accept the first person in class.  It was as if the school was there for him. As long as he didn’t understand, the others didn’t go any further.

the recovery breaks

There was no break. Not even Sundays were off school. None of us were very worried because working was worse. […]

p. 42

1. Language and power

Don Milani sees language as a key factor in realising inclusion, but it can also play a discriminatory and exclusionary role if it is used as an instrument of power by the rich against the poor. In your opinion, when does discrimination or exclusion through language occur in today’s world?

without distinction of language

Incidentally, we would first have to agree on what is meant by correct language. Languages are created by the poor, who then continue to develop and modernise them. The rich, on the other hand, define them so that they can mock those who don’t speak like them. Or to make them fail.

You say that Pierino, the doctor’s son, writes well. Sure, he speaks like you. He’s part of the company, so to speak. But the language Gianni speaks and writes is that of his father. When Gianni was little, he called the radio “lalla”. And his father said, seriously: “You don’t say ‘lalla’, you say ‘aradio’.

Now it may well be that Gianni is also learning to say radio. Your language could be useful to him.  But in the meantime. Can’t you expel him from school? 

“All citizens are equal, without distinction of language.”   This is what the constitution stipulated, with him in mind”.

obedient jumping jack

But you value grammar more than the constitution. And so Gianni never returned to us.

We can’t come to terms with it. We watch him from afar. We learnt that he no longer goes to church or to any political party. He goes to the workshop and cleans up there. In his free time, he follows fashion like a docile puppet. Saturday to the dance, Sunday to the sports stadium. 

You don’t even know about him. That he exists.

1. Removing the obstacles

The sentence “But if you lose them [the difficult children], the school is no longer a school. Then it is a hospital that cares for the healthy and rejects the sick” was a great success in the Don Milani reception. It is a reminder to take care of the truly needy and to fight for the removal of obstacles. This principle is enshrined in Article 3 of the Italian Constitution. In which articles of your country’s constitution are similar principles affirmed?

The hospital

That was our first encounter with you. Through the boys you don’t want. We have also noticed that school is more difficult with them.  Sometimes you’re tempted to get rid of them. But if you lose them, the school is no longer a school. Then it is a hospital that cares for the healthy and rejects the sick. It becomes a tool that creates ever more unhealthy differences. 

And you feel called to play this role in the world? Then why don’t you call them back, don’t give in, start all over again, many times over, even if people think you’re crazy.

Better to be thought crazy than to be a tool of racial discrimination.(. p. 49-50)

Different by birth?  (S. 93)

Morons and laziness

You say you have failed the morons and slackers.

So you claim that God lets the weak-minded and lazy be born in the homes of the poor. But God does not play such tricks on the poor. Rather, you play them on them.

Racial protection

In the Constituent Assembly, it was a fascist who defended the view of differences from birth: “The deputy Mastroianni remarks with regard to the word ‘compulsory school’ that there are pupils who show an organic inability to attend schools.”

A secondary school headmaster also wrote: “Unfortunately, the constitution cannot guarantee all children the same level of understanding and aptitude for learning. 

But he would never say that about his son. Will he not let him finish secondary school? Will he send him to work in the fields? I have been told that such things happen in Mao’s China. But is that true?

Even rich people have their difficult children. But they bring them forward.

The children of the others

Only other people’s children sometimes seem to be morons. Not your own. If you’re close to them, you realise that they’re not. And not even slackers. Or at least we realise that it’s probably just a moment, that it will pass, that there must be a remedy. But then it’s more honest to say that all children are born equal, and if they’re not equal later on, it’s our fault and we have to do something about it.

Remove obstacles

This is exactly what the Constitution says when it speaks of Gianni: “All citizens are equal before the law, without distinction of race, language, personal and social condition. It is the duty of the Republic to remove the obstacles of an economic and social nature which in fact limit the freedom and equality of citizens and thereby hinder the full development of the human personality and the effective participation of all workers in the political, economic and social organisation of the country.” (Article 3).

The rulers (p. 104)

Does it exist?

We have often spoken of the rulers or the ruler who has you in the palm of his hand. Someone who has customised the school to your measure.

Does it exist? Is it a small group of people around a table where all the threads come together? Banks, industrial companies, political parties, the press, fashion?

We don’t know. We realise that our writing almost sounds like a novel when you say something like that. But not to say it would be simple-minded. It would be like saying that many cogs came together purely by chance. That it has become a tank that wages war all by itself without anyone steering it.

1. The importance of cooperation 

Don Milani and his school place great emphasis on collaboration between students, a collaboration in which everyone plays an active role and which is implemented with well thought-out technology. To what extent do you utilise a detailed and inclusive collaboration between the students/members of your institution? 

a modest technique

So this is how we do it:

Above all, each of us keeps a notepad in our pocket. Every time he has an idea, he writes it down. Each idea on a separate piece of paper, written on one side only. 

One day, you put all the pieces of paper together on a large table. You go through them one by one to throw away the duplicates. You go through them one by one to throw away the duplicates. Then the related pieces of paper are combined into large piles, these are the chapters. Each chapter is divided into small piles, which are the sections.

Now try to give each section a name. If you don’t succeed, it means that it contains nothing or that it contains too much. Some sections disappear, some turn into two. 

The logical arrangement is discussed with the names of the sections until a general categorisation is created. The sections are reorganised on the basis of this general classification. 

You take the first heap, spread out your piece of paper at the table and find out the order. Now write down the text as it appears.

It is hectographed so that everyone has the same thing in front of them.  Then it’s time for scissors, glue and coloured pencils.  Everything is thrown under and over. New pieces of paper. Are added. It is hectographed again.

Then the hunt begins to see who can find words that can be omitted, superfluous proper nouns, repetitions, false statements, difficult words, sentences that are too long, two terms in a single sentence.

You call one outsider after the other. We make sure they have understood what we want to say. We accept their advice if it only serves to clarify things. Exhortations to caution are rejected.

Despite all this effort, in which we follow rules that apply to everyone, we still find the idiot intellectual who says: “This letter has a highly personalised style”.

Laziness

You’d better admit that you don’t know what art is. Art is the opposite of laziness.

Don’t complain that you don’t have enough lessons either, you only need one written assignment in the whole year, but you work on it together with everyone.

Speaking of laziness. I suggest an entertaining exercise for your students. Spend a year translating the Saitta into Italian.