At noon today, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience the members of the Italian Catholic Union of Teachers, Directors, Educators and Media Formators (UCIIM).
Dear colleagues,
Permit me to address you in this manner, for I was a teacher like you and I still have good memories of the days I spent in classes with students. I greet you cordially and I thank your President for the courteous words which were offered.
Teaching is beautiful work. It's too bad that teachers are so badly paid, because it's not only a matter of the time you spend teaching in school, you also have to prepare and you have to think about every one of your students: how to help them continue their development. True, right? It's an injustice. I think of my country, the one I know: poor people, in order to have a salary that is more or less useful, they have to have two jobs ... but for a teacher, how would it be possible to have two jobs? Teaching is a badly-paid profession, but it is beautiful because you can see growth day after day in the people entrusted to your care. It's a bit like being grandparents, at least spiritual ones. It's also a great responsibility!
Teaching requires a serious commitment, something that only a mature and balanced person can undertake. Such a commitment can be intimidating but remember that no teacher is every alone: they can always share their work with other colleagues and with the entire educating community to which they belong.
Your Association has existed for 70 years: that's a beautiful age! It is right that you should celebrate, but you can also begin to take account of its life achievements.
When you were born in 1944, Italy was still at war. Since then you have made some progress! Even schools have made some progress. Italian schools have also progressed thanks to the contribution of your Association, which was founded by Professor Gesualdo Nosengo, a teacher of religion who felt the need to gather the secondary teachers at that time who recognized their Catholic faith as the source of their inspiration for working in schools.
Throughout the years that have come and gone, you have helped this country to grow, you have contributed to the reform of schools, you have contributed above all to the education of generations of young people.
In the past 70 years, Italy has changed, school has changed, but there are still teachers willing to engage in their profession with the enthusiasm and the willingness that faith in the Lord provides.
Like Jesus taught us, all the Laws and the Prophets can be summed up in two commandments: love the Lord your God and love your neighbour (cf Matthew 22:34-40). We can ask ourselves: who is a teacher's neighbour? Your neighbours are your students! Those with whom you spend your days. It is they who await your guidance, your direction, your response - and before that, some good questions!
We cannot forget, among the tasks undertaken by the UCIIM, that of enlightening and motivating a fair idea of what school is all about, even though it is overshadowed at times by discussions and reductive positions. Schools certainly provide valid and qualified instruction, but they also provide human relationships which on our part are relationships of welcome and benevolence to be shared with everyone. Indeed, the duty of every good teacher - all the more applicable to Christian teachers - is the obligation to love your most difficult students, the weaker students, the more disadvantaged students with greater attention. Jesus would say: if you loved only those who study, who are well educated, what good is that? If there are a few who make you loose your patience, these should be loved even more! Any teacher can find him or herself with such students. I ask you to love your difficult students even more, the ones don't want to study, those who find themselves in difficult conditions, the disabled and foreigners who today are a great challenge for schools.
If today, a professional Association of Christian teachers wants to witness to the source of their inspiration, they are called to be committed to the peripheries of the school, to those who cannot be abandoned or marginalized, left to ignorance or to a life of crime. In a society that is tired of finding points of reference, it is necessary that young people find positive references in schools. It may be so, or it may become the case if within the system, there are teachers who are able to give this kind of sense to schools, to study and to culture, without reducing everything to the mere transmission of technical knowledge but aiming at building an educative relationship with each student, so that they may feel welcomed and loved for who they are, with all their limits and their potential. In this task, your commitment is more necessary than ever. And you need to teach not only the content of a subject but the values and habits of life. There are three things that you need to pass on. To learn contents, all we need is a computer, but to understand how to love, to understand the values and habits that create harmony in society, we need good teachers.
The Christian community has many examples of great teachers who dedicated themselves to addressing the shortcomings of education or to forming schools of their own. Among the many great examples, let us think about Saint John Bosco, the bicentennial of whose birth is being celebrated this year. He used to advise his priests: teach with love. The primary attitude of an educator must be love. You too can look to these figures, Christian teachers, to build a school from within, a school that regardless of whether it is state run or not, needs credible educators and witnesses of a mature and complete humanity. Witness. This cannot be bought; it is not sold anywhere: it is offered.
As an Association, you are by your very nature open to the future, for there are always new generations of young people to whom we must transmit the patrimony of knowledge and values. On the professional level it is important that you keep your teaching skills updated, in the light of new technologies, but teaching is not only a labour: teaching is a relationship in which every teacher must be entirely personally involved in order to give deeper meaning to the task of educating your students. Your presence here today is proof that you have within you this motivation that schools need so much.
I encourage you to renew your passion for humanity - you cannot teach without passion! - in the process of formation and to be witnesses to life and hope. Never, never close a door, give it all you've got, because your students are counting on you.
I also want to ask you, please, to pray for me, and I invite you all to pray to Our Lady, asking for her blessing ...
Hail Mary ...
Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for the meeting with members of UCIIM
Dear colleagues,
Permit me to address you in this manner, for I was a teacher like you and I still have good memories of the days I spent in classes with students. I greet you cordially and I thank your President for the courteous words which were offered.
Teaching is beautiful work. It's too bad that teachers are so badly paid, because it's not only a matter of the time you spend teaching in school, you also have to prepare and you have to think about every one of your students: how to help them continue their development. True, right? It's an injustice. I think of my country, the one I know: poor people, in order to have a salary that is more or less useful, they have to have two jobs ... but for a teacher, how would it be possible to have two jobs? Teaching is a badly-paid profession, but it is beautiful because you can see growth day after day in the people entrusted to your care. It's a bit like being grandparents, at least spiritual ones. It's also a great responsibility!
Teaching requires a serious commitment, something that only a mature and balanced person can undertake. Such a commitment can be intimidating but remember that no teacher is every alone: they can always share their work with other colleagues and with the entire educating community to which they belong.
Your Association has existed for 70 years: that's a beautiful age! It is right that you should celebrate, but you can also begin to take account of its life achievements.
When you were born in 1944, Italy was still at war. Since then you have made some progress! Even schools have made some progress. Italian schools have also progressed thanks to the contribution of your Association, which was founded by Professor Gesualdo Nosengo, a teacher of religion who felt the need to gather the secondary teachers at that time who recognized their Catholic faith as the source of their inspiration for working in schools.
Throughout the years that have come and gone, you have helped this country to grow, you have contributed to the reform of schools, you have contributed above all to the education of generations of young people.
In the past 70 years, Italy has changed, school has changed, but there are still teachers willing to engage in their profession with the enthusiasm and the willingness that faith in the Lord provides.
Like Jesus taught us, all the Laws and the Prophets can be summed up in two commandments: love the Lord your God and love your neighbour (cf Matthew 22:34-40). We can ask ourselves: who is a teacher's neighbour? Your neighbours are your students! Those with whom you spend your days. It is they who await your guidance, your direction, your response - and before that, some good questions!
We cannot forget, among the tasks undertaken by the UCIIM, that of enlightening and motivating a fair idea of what school is all about, even though it is overshadowed at times by discussions and reductive positions. Schools certainly provide valid and qualified instruction, but they also provide human relationships which on our part are relationships of welcome and benevolence to be shared with everyone. Indeed, the duty of every good teacher - all the more applicable to Christian teachers - is the obligation to love your most difficult students, the weaker students, the more disadvantaged students with greater attention. Jesus would say: if you loved only those who study, who are well educated, what good is that? If there are a few who make you loose your patience, these should be loved even more! Any teacher can find him or herself with such students. I ask you to love your difficult students even more, the ones don't want to study, those who find themselves in difficult conditions, the disabled and foreigners who today are a great challenge for schools.
If today, a professional Association of Christian teachers wants to witness to the source of their inspiration, they are called to be committed to the peripheries of the school, to those who cannot be abandoned or marginalized, left to ignorance or to a life of crime. In a society that is tired of finding points of reference, it is necessary that young people find positive references in schools. It may be so, or it may become the case if within the system, there are teachers who are able to give this kind of sense to schools, to study and to culture, without reducing everything to the mere transmission of technical knowledge but aiming at building an educative relationship with each student, so that they may feel welcomed and loved for who they are, with all their limits and their potential. In this task, your commitment is more necessary than ever. And you need to teach not only the content of a subject but the values and habits of life. There are three things that you need to pass on. To learn contents, all we need is a computer, but to understand how to love, to understand the values and habits that create harmony in society, we need good teachers.
The Christian community has many examples of great teachers who dedicated themselves to addressing the shortcomings of education or to forming schools of their own. Among the many great examples, let us think about Saint John Bosco, the bicentennial of whose birth is being celebrated this year. He used to advise his priests: teach with love. The primary attitude of an educator must be love. You too can look to these figures, Christian teachers, to build a school from within, a school that regardless of whether it is state run or not, needs credible educators and witnesses of a mature and complete humanity. Witness. This cannot be bought; it is not sold anywhere: it is offered.
As an Association, you are by your very nature open to the future, for there are always new generations of young people to whom we must transmit the patrimony of knowledge and values. On the professional level it is important that you keep your teaching skills updated, in the light of new technologies, but teaching is not only a labour: teaching is a relationship in which every teacher must be entirely personally involved in order to give deeper meaning to the task of educating your students. Your presence here today is proof that you have within you this motivation that schools need so much.
I encourage you to renew your passion for humanity - you cannot teach without passion! - in the process of formation and to be witnesses to life and hope. Never, never close a door, give it all you've got, because your students are counting on you.
I also want to ask you, please, to pray for me, and I invite you all to pray to Our Lady, asking for her blessing ...
Hail Mary ...
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