In a recent video conference with the Scholas Occurentes Foundation, Pope Francis had words that provide a lens on how educational institutions, and all people involved in education should see and wade through the current crisis. He mentioned the specific character of the foundation as a community that educates and that it follows an intuition that grows and opens doors to a “University of Meaning.”
In a continuous search for meaning as we try to deal with the current challenges education faces due to the global crisis of the coronavirus pandemic, the Pope offers enlightened thoughts, timely suggestions that are a sure guide to all those involved in the education of children and youth.
He said that in this time of crisis “to educate is to seek meaning in everything. It is to teach others to seek the meaning of things.” This re-echoes the thought of Jacqueline Grennon Brooks in her article “To See Beyond the Lesson” posted in the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development publication Educational Leadership: “Searching for meaning is the purpose of learning, so teaching for meaning is the purpose of teaching. If teachers do not have meaning-making at the core of their pedagogy and practice, then let’s not call the activity teaching. Doing so demeans the word, and the noble art and science it represents.”
True enough, education, by its very purpose and aim, should be able to accompany the person to seek and discover the very purpose of everything, and more essentially, of life. The meaning of life cannot be defined by the laurels that a person obtains through university degrees. Nor is the purpose of education limited to just providing excellent skills to help one’s life progress. There is a beyond, in education!
True education lies in its power to intertwine the various expressions of life. Linking the person’s existence to that of another creates a web of relationships capable of impacting the community and the whole of humanity. As Pope Francis underlined so clearly, if this exchange is missing and does not take place in education, “there can be no humanity.” Because, according to him, “there would be no roots, no history, no promise, no growth, and no prophecy.” As students and teachers from different countries who are learning, playing, and dancing together at Scholas Occurentes have shown us, our experience of education can also be “an olive tree” creating “a culture of encounter between East and West.”
