THE VALUE OF THE PERSON
Trainer’s Manual
The value of the person
THE VALUE OF THE PERSON Training module for teachers, parents, social workers, health workers, rehabilitation officers, local leaders and other educators By Clara Broggi, Lucia Castelli, Danson S. Kahyana, Alfred B. Agaba and Mauro Giacomazzi
Cover art piece: The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 - 1564)
Copyright: AVSI Design and production by: The Permanent Centre for Education Published by: AVSI Ggaba Rd, 1119
P.O. Box 6785 Kampala - Uganda
This publication has been made possible with funding from the Dutch Government under the project “Humanitarian Assistance and Early Recovery during the Return Process in Northern Uganda” Activity Number 17812, Contract Number DMV0107782.” The views expressed here are of AVSI and do not necessarily reflect those of the Dutch Government.
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Preface
Preface AVSI, an International NGO founded in Italy in 1972, has been present in Uganda since 1984, implementing programmes in education, health and humanitarian relief. AVSI’s presence in Northern Uganda has been so remarkable that even at the height of insurgency caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) guerrilla activities, it remained in the service of the local population, accompanying them on their journey of life amidst massacres, abductions, rape, and pillage. One of the stand points of AVSI’s approach is working with people and not for people, encountering and sharing our life with them in their communities and environment. This approach has been fundamental for the implementation of the psychosocial programme since 1997 in Northern Uganda. Concerned about the welfare of the people, AVSI started implementing the programme by staying with them, with the aim of helping them to discover that despite the hardiships and tragedies they were going through, their value as human beings was inimitable and irreducible - an important starting point for any intervention without which educational support (constructing classroooms, paying school fees, providing scholastic material, etc.) and relief aid (food, clothing, medication, etc.) become ineffective. AVSI put emphasis on building individual and community resilience in facing the realities of everyday life. Between 1997 and 2000, the main focus was on the reintegration of the children abducted by the LRA who had returned from the bush either voluntarily or upon rescue by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces. However, the escalation of violence in the 2000s prompted AVSI to increase the emergency response in order to meet the increasing needs of the vulnerable members of the whole community. This led to the expansion of the psychosocial programme achieved through the creation of a network of Community Volunteer Counsellors (CVCs) who worked hand in hand with primary and secondary school teachers. CVCs and teachers were trained to identify children in difficulties (for instance those traumatized) and to have basic listening and counselling skills to give a first emergency answer. Two training manuals were developed, one for CVCs, another for teachers. These manuals became available to psychosocial practitioners all over the world when they were published on the University of Oxford Refugee Studies Centre website (www.rsc.ox.ac.k) and included in the INEE’s technical kit, a digital library for teachers in emergency contexts (www. ineesite.org). Today the situation in Northern Uganda has changed. The transition from an emergency setting to a post-conflict recovery phase started in 2006. The majority of the 2 million people who were displaced for more than two decades have returned to their villages of origin. But the trauma and its effects linger on: a number of youths are still worried about their families, jobs, future, and experience sleeping problems, psychosomatic complaints, flashbacks, concentration problems, and nightmares, hence necessitating ongoing psychosocial support.
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Introduction to the module
Simultaneously there is HIV/AIDS that is affecting a large number of the population either directly (through contracting the virus and eventually developing AIDS) or indirectly (through being orphaned). This problem poses a number of challenges, many of them necessitating psychosocial intervention. This module has been developed to equip people working in the psychosocial field (for instance teachers, social workers, medical personnel, parents, and civil society) with a proposal that will help them in dealing with people who are going through challenging times.
Introduction to the module This module, entitled The Value of the Person, is an introduction to The Psychosocial Training Manual. In preparing it, AVSI and the Permanent Centre for Education (PCE) were guided by the conviction that since the centre and subject of any psychosocial support is the person, it is important to reflect on who this person is – what constitutes him/her (the desires of the heart, the demand for totality, and the open use of reason), his/her value, and how this value is discovered and re-discovered and thereafter nurtured/sustained within an authoritative and educative relationship. This proposal is not just for people who are poor or war-affected or HIV-infected: it is for every person. This is because psychosocial support is a proposal to the person on how to stand in front of the reality as it is (war, disease, poverty, etc.) in a reasonable way that pays tribute to the greatness of the human being. Many times, people are overwhelmed by what happens to them to the extent of doubting their worth, as if their value depends on circumstances of scarcity or abundance, prosperity or vulnerability, disease or good health. This module vividly explains the fact that the value of the person is given and that it depends on nothing else but the original relationship with the Infinite, meaning that it cannot be reduced by circumstances (of disease, poverty, war or any other form of vulnerability). This module will also serve as a foundation to all other trainings that will be organized by AVSI and the PCE, four examples being The Risk of Education, Education at Work , Educative Rehabilitation and The Value of Life.
Methodological approach We propose a participatory, interactive approach in order to encourage trainees to share their experiences about all the topics covered, provoking them to always verify the truth and relevance of the proposal. This verification is a necessary condition for discovering that the work is not an idea or wish or theory but a communication of a lived experience. This
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Structure of the module
approach helps to make every training workshop a new experience since different trainees come with different professional and personal experiences that enrich the discussions. The approach is informed by our conviction that every person’s experiences, when reflected upon, are an opportunity to learn something about the novelty of life and the greatness of the person, even amidst adversity. Most importantly, it testifies to the value we attach to freedom, understood not just as free expression but as the person’s search for what fulfils the desires of his/her heart. For this reason, we ask all people who use this manual to take it as a guide, a proposal of what should be conveyed in a workshop and how it should be done. Being a guide, the manual should provoke every trainer/facilitator into further reflection on the value and dignity of the human person in order to enrich both the subject matter and methodology suggested here. This means that every trainer/facilitator should use this tool innovatively and creatively while ensuring that the key points explained therein remain clear and strong.
Choice of instruments Selected works of great writers, musicians, philosophers, film makers, visual artists and educators have been suggested to provoke trainees to reflect deeply on the proposal made. These instruments are a proposal in themselves in the sense that we are sure there may be several other works that illuminate what has been said here perhaps in a better way than the ones we have suggested. This means that no instrument should be taken as an absolute tool, but rather, as a suggestion open to improvement.
Structure of the module The module is divided into three chapters. Each chapter needs to be presented fully, following the continuity given in the module. Each chapter is comprehensive of: • Title • Objective • Key points • Explanation of key points • Suggested instruments
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Contents
Table of content: ................................................................. Preface ii Introduction to the module iii Methodological approach iii Choice of instruments iv Structure of the module iv
a. The constitutional factors of the human being: b. Man is made for totality: happiness, beauty, justice, freedom, truth, love c. The dynamic of the heart and reason implies freedom
Contents
1.The Characteristics of the Human Being 1 Objectives 1 Key points 1 Explanation of key points 1 1 2 3
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2. Where the Value of the Human Being Lies Objectives Key points Explanation of key points
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a. The human being is relationship with the Infinite
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b. The value of a human being is given, so it cannot be reduced
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Suggested Instruments
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3. How the Human Being Can Discover His Value Objectives Key points Explanation of key points a. The Encounter
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b. The Belonging
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c. Education
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The characteristics of the human being
Training Module for Educators
1.THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HUMAN BEING
Objectives • • •
To help participants understand the constitutional factors of the human being. To help participants understand that each human being has the same fundamental desires To help participants recognize the infinite desires of the heart.
Key points The constitutional factors of the human being: the heart and reason Man is made for totality: happiness, beauty, justice, freedom, truth, love The dynamic of the heart and reason implies freedom
Explanation of key points a. The constitutional factors of the human being: The Heart • • •
When facing the reality I realize that I have a lot of desires (from Latin de sidus = about the stars) yearning to be fulfilled – the desire for beauty, love, truth, justice and happiness. Looking at the human experience I recognize that every human being has the same fundamental desires. These desires are traditionally called ‘the heart’. In most cultures the heart is considered as the centre of humanity, not just from the point of view of biology but also from the point of view of experience.
Reason • • • •
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Reason is the capacity to be aware of reality (all that exists) according to the totality of its factors. It helps me to discover what deeply corresponds to my ‘heart’ by comparing my desires with what stands in front of me. It enables me to engage the reality in a meaningful way. Reasonableness expresses a way of judging, evaluating reality that encompasses the original heart’s desires and the open use of reason. It links reality with the heart and the reason. It is the attitude of the heart to use the reason in the correct way.
THE VALUE OF THE PERSON
The characteristics of the human being
However there is the risk of using the heart and the reason in a reduced way: • The heart can be reduced to mere sentiment (feeling, emotion, mood, reaction…) or to possession • Reason, rather than being open to the totality of the possibilities, can be reduced to analysis and measure. b. Man is made for totality: happiness, beauty, justice, freedom, truth, love •
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In our experience, every time one of our desires is fulfilled we immediately discover that this is not enough: we continue to yearn more and more for beauty, love, happiness, justice and truth. This endless yearning does not inhibit us; instead it energizes us to search continuously for what will totally fulfill us. The fundamental questions that characterize the human being (like: “What is the ultimate sense of life? Why is it really worthwhile to exist, for reality itself to exist? Who am I? What am I made for? What is my destiny?”) come out continuously: they have no end. If we are sincere, we have to recognize that human intelligence and power are insufficient, are not able to give satisfactory answers, unless they recognize the Mystery, the Infinite that makes every human being great. This is why nobody, not even the best scientist, intellectual or politician, can say, “We have reached the point of knowing everything, of having power over everything that interests the human being.”
Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
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The characteristics of the human being
c. The dynamic of the heart and reason implies freedom • • • •
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The movement of the heart and reason towards the satisfaction of the fundamental desires is related to freedom, the essence of the human being. Satisfaction finds its fulfillment in the Infinite; this implies that freedom is incomplete until it reaches this point. Life therefore is the journey of freedom that is perfecting itself, realizing itself on its way to the Infinite, a journey that requires loyalty and responsibility. In this journey we need a companionship that sustains us, somebody with whom to compare and share life.
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SUGGESTED INSTRUMENTS Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) – from Night Song of a Nomadic Shepherd in Asia. (Leopardi poses questions to the moon which seems to dominate the infinity of earth and heaven – questions whose horizons are as infinite) And when I gaze upon you, Who mutely stand above the desert plains Which heaven with its far circle but confines, Or often, when I see you Following step by step my flock and me, Or watch the stars that shine there in the sky, Musing, I say within me: “Wherefore those many lights, That boundless atmosphere, And infinite calm sky? And what the meaning Of this vast solitude? And what am I? Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) – from Night Song of a Nomadic Shepherd in Asia. (Leopardi expresses the infinite nature of human desires) If I, maybe, had wings, To fly above the clouds, To number one by one the very stars, Or wander with the storm from peak to peak, Should I be happier then, my gentle flock? Should I be happier, O you pale Moon? Luigi Giussani (1922-2005) – from The Religious Sense (The writer reflects on human desires as the spark igniting the human motor) All the experiences of my humanity and of my personality are filtered through the sieve of a primordial “original experience” that constitutes my identity in the way I face everything. Each man has a right and a duty to learn that it is possible to compare every proposal with this “elementary experience”. It must also become his habit. What constitutes this original, elementary experience? It can be described as a complex of needs and “evidences” which accompany us as we come face to face with all that exists. Nature thrusts man into a universal comparison with himself, with others, with things, and furnishes him with a complex of original needs and “evidences” which are the tools for that encounter. So original are these needs or these “evidences” that everything man does or says depends on them. These needs can be given many names. They can be summarized with different expressions (for example, the need for happiness, the need for truth, for justice, etc.). They are like a spark igniting the human motor. Prior to them, there is no movement or human dynamism. Any personal affirmation, from the most banal and ordinary to the most reflected upon and rich Training module for teachers, parents, social workers and other educators
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in consequences can be based solely on this nucleus of original needs. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) – from Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2 (Hamlet wants to revenge against his uncle who has murdered his father and married his mother. Although anguished by human frailty, he cannot deny the greatness of the human being) What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals… Hughes Langston (1902-1967) – Dreams (The poet underlines the importance of dreams/desires. The poem was written at a time when black Americans were considered as nobodies) Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow. Dennis Brutus (1924-2009) - Somehow we survive (The poem was written in apartheid South Africa characterized by violence against black and colored people. Despite the brutality of the regime, tenderness – love – survives) Somehow we survive and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither. Investigating searchlights rake our naked unprotected contours. . . . Patrols uncoil along the asphalt dark hissing their menace to our lives, most cruel, all our land is scarred with terror, rendered unlovely and unlovable; sundered are we and all our passionate surrender but somehow tenderness survives.
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Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) - Beneath the dense blue sky – from the collection, Cuttlefish Bones (Our hearts keep yearning for something more) Beneath the dense blue sky, seabirds flash by, never pausing, driven by images below: “Farther, farther!” Dante Alighieri ( 1265-1321) – from La Divina Commedia, Inferno canto XXVI, 100-120 (In this canto, Ulysses urges his companions to go beyond what they consider possible in order to follow the yearning of their hearts) Out, then, across the open depths, I put to sea, a single prow, and with me all my friends – the little crew that had not yet abandoned me. I saw both shorelines (one ran on to Spain, the other to Morocco), Sardinia and all those islands that our ocean bathes. I and my company were old and slow. And yet, arriving at that narrow sound where Hercules had once set up his mark – to warn that man should never pass beyond – I left Seville behind me on the right. To port already I had left Ceuta. “Brothers”, I said, a hundred thousand perils you have passed and reached the Occident. For us, so little time remains to keep the vigil of our living sense. Do not deny your will to win experience, behind the sun, of worlds where no man dwells. Hold clear in thought your seed and origin. You were not made to live as mindless brutes, But go in search of virtue and true knowledge.” Luigi Giussani (1922-2005) – from The Religious Sense (Here, the writer interprets the myth of Ulysses) Ulysses is the intelligent man who would measure all things with his own acumen. He is relentlessly curious, the master of the Mare Nostrum (the Mediterranean). Imagine this man, with all his sailors on his boat – wandering from Ithaca to Libya, from Libya to Sicily. From Sicily to Sardinia, from Sardinia to Balearics – measuring and governing the entire Mare Nostrum, sailing over every inch, its length and its width. Man is the measure of all things. But, once he arrives at the Pillars of Hercules, he confronts a common belief that all wisdom, that is the Training module for teachers, parents, social workers and other educators
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certain measure of all that is real, is no longer possible. Beyond the Pillars of Hercules, nothing is reliable any longer – all is emptiness and madness. And just as he who ventures beyond this point is a dreamer who will never again have any certainty, so beyond the confines of experience – positivistically understood – there is only fantasy or at least the impossibility of certainty. But he, Ulysses, precisely because of that same “stature” that had driven him all over the Mare Nostrum, felt not only that the Pillars of Hercules were not the end, but they were, in fact, the moment of the unleashing of his true nature. And so he smashed to smithereens this wisdom and went on. He did not make a mistake in doing so: to venture forward was in his nature as man, in making this decision, he truly felt like a man.
The myth of Icarus and Daedalus (The human being is so attracted by the infinite that he desires to reach it at any cost) Daedalus, a great Athenian architect and inventor, built, for King Minos of Crete, a Labyrinth of winding ways so cunningly tangled up and twisted around that, once inside, you could never find your way out again without a magic clue. But the King’s favor veered with the wind, and one day he had his master architect imprisoned in a tower. Daedalus managed to escape from his cell; but it seemed impossible to leave the island, since every ship was well guarded by order of the King. Watching the sea gulls in the air he thought of a plan for himself and his young son Icarus, who was captive with him. He gathered a store of feathers great and small, fastened these together with thread, molded them in with wax, and so fashioned two great wings like those of a bird. Daedalus fitted them to his own shoulders, and after one or two efforts, he learned to fly. He made a pair of wings for Icarus too and taught him how to use them. “Remember,” said the father, “never fly very low or very high, for the fogs about the earth will weigh you down, and the blaze of the sun will surely melt your feathers apart if you go too near.” The day and the fair wind that was to set them free came. The father-bird put on his wings and helped Icarus in doing the same. Up they rose, the boy after his father. At first there was a terror in the joy. But when a great wind filled their wings, and Icarus felt himself sustained, like a child uplifted by his mother, he forgot everything in the world but joy. He longed for one draft of flight to quench the thirst of his captivity: he stretched out his arms to the sky and made toward the highest heavens. Warmer and warmer grew the air. Those arms, that had seemed to uphold him, relaxed. His wings wavered, dropped. He fluttered his young hands vainly-he was falling-and in that terror he remembered. The heat of the sun had melted the wax from his wings; the feathers were falling, one by one, like snowflakes; and there was none to help. When Daedalus looked high and low for the boy, he saw nothing but the birdlike feathers afloat on the water, and he knew that Icarus was drowned.
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Luigi Giussani (1922-2005) – from The Religious Sense (The summit of reason is the recognition of something that goes beyond reason itself: it is the idea of mystery) …Reason is the need to understand existence, that is, the need for an adequate, total explanation of existence. This explanation cannot be found within the horizon of life’s experience. No matter how much this horizon widens, this longing for an answer will remain… If reason is to be rescued, that is to say, if we want to be coherent with this energy that defines us, if we do not want to deny it, then its very dynamism forces us to affirm the exhaustive answer beyond the horizon of our life. The answer exists. It cries out through the entreaties that make up our being. But it cannot be defined by experience. It is there, but we do not know what it is… The summit of reason’s conquest is the perception of an unknown unreachable presence, to which all human movement is destined, because it depends upon it. It is the idea of mystery… Mystery is not a limit to reason. Rather, it is reason’s greatest discovery, the existence of something incommensurate in relation to itself. St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) – from Confessions You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Richard Lovelace (1618-1658) – To Althea from prison (Freedom is the essence of the human being) If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone that soar above, Enjoy such liberty. The Fulani Creation Story (The Fulani, a pastoral ethnic group in West Africa, see the Infinite in every reality and recognize eternity as the highest fulfilment). At the beginning there was a huge drop of milk. Then Doondari came and he created the stone. Then the stone created iron; And iron created fire; And fire created water; And water created air. Then Doondari descended the second time. And he took the five elements And he shaped them into man. But man was proud. Then Doondari created blindness and blindness defeated man. But when blindness became too proud, Training module for teachers, parents, social workers and other educators
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Doondari created sleep, and sleep defeated blindness; But when sleep became too proud, Doondari created worry, and worry defeated sleep; But when worry became too proud, Doondari created death, and death defeated worry. But when death became too proud, Doondari descended for the third time, And he came as Gueno, the eternal one, And Gueno defeated death. The Bucket List – a film by Rob Reiner, 2007 Multi-millionaire Edward Cole who owns a number of hospitals falls sick and shares a hospital room with a black mechanic, Carter Chambers who writes a list of wishes called ‘the bucket list’. He throws the list into the rubbish bin since he is bed-ridden with cancer and it is impossible to achieve any of the ‘dreams’ written down. Cole disagrees with him: he expands the list and offers money towards making the dreams a reality. The two patients bust out of the hospital on a journey that helps each of them to discover how beautiful it is to live and to have a link with another (a friend, a relative, the Infinite). October Sky – a film by Joe Johnson, 1999 The movie is based on the autobiography of Homer Hickman, who later became a NASA engineer and participated in the American Programmes for the conquest of space. Homer lives in Coalwood, Virginia, in 1957. In this mining town generations of generations have worked underground and the possibility to change this destiny is not taken into consideration. But Homer, who is seventeen years old, and his three friends have a dream: rather than work underground, they choose the celestial world and decide to make and launch a missile into space. Cooper, Homer’s father, strongly opposes what he thinks is the boy’s utopia while an old hand at the mine and a teacher, support and value the tenacious courage of Homer. In fact, he never gives up even in front of many defeats, up to when the father too is proud of him.
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The Value of the Person
2. WHERE THE VALUE OF THE HUMAN BEING LIES
Objectives •
To help participants recognize that every human being has a value
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To help participants understand that this value is irreducible
Key points The human being has a value that is given; he is relationship with the Infinite The value of a human being is given, so it cannot be reduced
Explanation of key points a. The human being is relationship with the Infinite • • • • •
The human being does not make himself: if I look at my own experience I cannot deny that the greatest and most profound evidence is that I do not make myself, I do not give myself life, I do not make the reality which I am. I am “made”, I am “given”. Since I am “made” there is a source, an origin of my being, a spring from which I gush. I discover that I am dependent on somebody greater than me. This is an intuition of a mysterious presence which is inherent in every human experience. This presence is what many cultures call the Infinite, the Mystery, the Other. This Other is an attraction, beneficial and providential, making me now in every instant. This means that I am in a constant relationship with the Infinite. The fact that the Infinite is making me every instant means that I am precious to Him, He wants me; therefore I have a value.
b. The value of a human being is given, so it cannot be reduced • • • •
The value of the person is given, and does not depend on anything else but the original relationship with the Infinite. The relationship with the Infinite makes me unique: nothing in the entire universe can be compared with the value of the person from the first instant of his conception to the last step of his life. This unique relationship with the Mystery makes me irreducible: I am not defined by my personal abilities or limitations, opinions of other people and circumstances (social, political, economic, etc.). This is the starting hypothesis in the life of a person: there is a Good to whom the
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Where the value of the human being lies
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person belongs and by whom the person is wanted. Even other people have got the same irreducible value since they are a relationship with the Infinite
Arturo Martini (1889-1947)
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SUGGESTED INSTRUMENTS Luigi Giussani (1922-2005) – from The Religious Sense (The human being is linked to an Other who made him and continues to make him) I cannot deny that the greatest and most profound evidence is that I do not make myself, I am not making myself. I do not give myself being, or the reality which I am. I am “given”. This is the moment of maturity when I discover myself to be dependent upon something else… Here we are speaking of the intuition, which, in every period of history, the more intelligent human spirits have had. It is an intuition of this mysterious presence, which endows the instant, the “I” with substance (solidity, density, foundation). I am you-who-make-me… To be conscious of oneself right to the core is to perceive, at the depths of the self, an Other. Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) – from The Devils (Without the Infinite, the human being would find himself in a state of utter sadness and despair) The mere presence of the everlasting idea of the existence of something infinitely more just and happy than I, already fills me with abiding tenderness and – glory – oh, whoever I may be and whatever I may have done! To know every moment, and to believe that somewhere there exists perfect peace and happiness for everyone and for everything, is much more important to a man than his own happiness. The whole law of human existence consists merely of making it possible for every man to bow down before what is infinitely great. If man were to be deprived of the infinitely great, he would refuse to go on living, and die of despair. James Baldwin (1924-1987) – from Blues for Mister Charlie (The Infinite is part and parcel of the human being irrespective of whether he acknowledges it or not) Richard: Did you? When you were young? Did you think you knew more than your mother and father? But I bet you really did, you a pretty shrewd old lady, quiet as it’s kept. Mother : No. I didn’t think that. But I thought I could find out more, because they were born in slavery, but I was born free. Richard: Did you find out more? Mother: I found out what I had to find out – to take care of my husband and raise my children in the fear of God. Richard: You know I don’t believe in God, Grandmama. Mother: You don’t know what you are talking about. Ain’t no way possible for you not to believe in God. It ain’t up to you. Richard: Who’s it up to then? Mother: It’s up to the life in you – the life in you. That knows where it comes from, that believes in God.
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A news article aired on SKYNEWS, Friday 22nd January 2010, Miracle baby Found alive in Haiti rubble (The Mystery is present in every reality: what we need is to recognize it) More mass graves were being dug near capital city Port-au-Prince to bury up to 10,000 quake victims a day. But, in the midst of all the suffering, people in the devastated seaside town of Jacmel insisted a miracle has happened. Tiny Elizabeth Josaint was rescued after being trapped alone for eight days in the remains of her home. Her mother Michelin had put her to bed and gone next door just minutes before the 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit on January 12. Mrs Josaint’s husband, in the downstairs of their home at the time, was killed as the building collapsed. And for eight agonising days, her baby was lost. How Elizabeth survived, nobody can adequately explain. But in the deeply religious Jacmel community, no explanation is needed. For her grandfather Michellet Josaint, it is a sign. He told Sky News: “When I come here... I don’t find the baby. The people tell me, ‘Relax’. And I come here and I find my children with the baby... fantastic.” Human Life the First Wonder – Documentary (A look at the human journey starting at conception reveals the uniqueness and the value of the person) ... but the first wonder to learn about and admire is “human life“. Human life has no equal in the world. Let’s think about it together...
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The Value of the Person
3. HOW THE HUMAN BEING CAN DISCOVER HIS VALUE
Objectives • •
To help participants understand that the discovery of the value of the person begins with an encounter To help participants understand that education and belonging are tools that make people stand in front of reality in a responsible way
Key points The encounter The need to belong Life is a journey, supported by education, where the person can put his freedom at play
Explanation of key points a. The Encounter • The discovery of my value happens always through an encounter unforeseen, surprising, and gratuitous (I cannot determine when and how it happens). • Usually it is an encounter with a person that looks at me in such an extraordinary way that moves me. • There is a condition for the encounter to take place: a yearning and simple heart. • This encounter gives me strength and certainty to look at myself in a positive way, however reduced or limited my horizon may be. • It is totally correspondent to the truest desires of my heart and it puts in play all the characteristics of my humanity: my heart, my reason and my freedom. b. The Belonging • •
The discovery of my value, made possible by an encounter, does not happen just once: it is a continuous process of more discovery and rediscovery that is sustained through a belonging. To keep alive the discovery of my value I need to remain in relationship with the people who enabled me and continue to enable me to recognize my value.
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How the human being can discover his value
Emil Nolde (1867-1956) c. Education • • •
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The discovery of my value is not a final step but something that should become part and parcel of every step I make as I walk the path of life. Education is the condition to sustain the awareness of my value. Education is the process of introducing the person to reality taking into account all the factors. The educator, therefore, accompanies the person to discover and perceive the infinite dimension of oneself and everything.
THE VALUE OF THE PERSON
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SUGGESTED INSTRUMENTS Luigi Giussani (1922-2005) – from The Religious Sense (When you know that you are loved and wanted by somebody, you feel at peace) “I do not consciously say “I am”, in a sense that captures my entire stature as a human being if I do not mean “I am made”. The ultimate equilibrium of life depends upon this. The human being’s natural truth is his nature as creation – he exists because he is continually possessed. And, when he recognizes this, then he breathes fully, feels at peace, glad.” Carlo Betocchi (1899-1986) – What we need is a man (The human being needs a companion, not just material things) What we need is a man In spirit and truth We don’t need a township, we don’t need things What we need is a man A sure step, a strong and stable Hand he offers So that everyone may grab it And walk freely And be saved Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) (A human being thrives in a belonging) The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration E. Cummings (1894-1962) – I carry your heart with me (It is important to have a person who looks at me in a special way) I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart) I am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling) I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you Training module for teachers, parents, social workers and other educators
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here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart) Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)– From Letter to Theo Van Gogh - 17th September 1888 (In everything we do, there is always the presence of another) You are kind to painters, and I tell you, the more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. You will say that then it would be a good thing to do without art and artists. That is true in the first instance, but then the Greeks and the French and the old Dutchmen accepted art, and we see how art always comes to life again after inevitable periods of decadence, and I do not think that anyone is the better for abhorring artists and their art. At present I do not think my pictures worthy of the advantages I have received from you. But once they are worthy, I swear that you will have created them as much as I, and that we are making them together. Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) (A gaze rejuvenates and makes everything new) You know it well: there is something you don’t manage, you are tired and broken, then suddenly you meet in the crowd the gaze of someone, and it is as if you had approached a hidden divine. Everything becomes simpler all of a sudden. Marija Judina (1899-1070) (Through a companionship the person discovers his value) During an outing for students, just in my very group, there was a nuisance, a boy 8 – 9 years old. He had no family and was living with relatives whom he did not like and who did not love him. He was called Akinfa. He was irritating, teasing everyone, the Jewish children in a particular way, squabbling with everyone. All of us, especially me who was responsible for the child, urged him with words and by example. But once Akinfa passed all the limits: he beat up one of his companions, insulted the adults and committed a little theft. So his expulsion was decreed. When the time came to execute the sentence, the time of separation, I don’t know how, I burst into tears. And here was the second birth of Akinfa: he too burst into tears, he asked for forgiveness from all, gave back what he had stolen and, since then, followed me all over the field. And he explained to everyone that in his life he had never seen a teacher who was crying for his pupil, who was crying, to quote his own words, about the soul and the life of a brat. Precisely this was the sense of his wonder and of his desire to get back on the track.
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THE VALUE OF THE PERSON
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Emilia Guarnieri (1947 b.) – from Either protagonists or nobodies, Meeting per l’amicizia tra i popoli, Rimini, 2008 (To become a protagonist of his life, the person must discover his uniqueness and value first) What is stronger than success, less ephemeral than success? Fr. Luigi Giussani told us: “Being protagonists does not mean having the brilliance or the spirituality of some, but having a face of one’s own, unique and unrepeatable in all of history and eternity.” The true protagonist is the man filled with wonder who makes the moving discovery, which always springs from a precise encounter with reality, that he has a face which is unique and unrepeatable. A free man: free because, almost by a sort of paradox, he is aware he is tied to the origin of life itself, to that mysterious design from which he intuits that every thing depends. A religious man: capable of comparing himself with the whole of reality and while admitting the category of possibility, being open to a possible revelation. An irreducible man: one who cannot content himself with any ideological, biological or historicist reduction. A man who knows why he loves: embracing the people and circumstances of life, both happy and sorrowful, he seeks to judge everything in a continuous quest for the ultimate meaning for which reality was created. The Nature of this Change – John S. Mbiti (John S. Mbiti reflects on ‘detribalization’ – a situation where people are torn between modern and traditional ways.) This sudden detachment from the land to which Africans are mystically bound, and the thrust into situations where corporate existence has no meaning, have produced dehumanized individuals in the mines, industries and cities. They are simply uprooted but not necessarily transplanted. They float in life like a cloud. It is a total change and one which affects all spheres of life. On the level of the whole society, this change has been described as “detribalization”. This means that traditional life is deeply undermined, so that tribal identity is fading away since other identities are making claims on the individual and the community. In traditional life the family is the nucleus of individual and corporate existence, the area where a person really experiences personal consciousness of himself and of other members of society. Now the family is the most severely affected part of African life. Within one family or household may be found two totally different worlds coexisting: the children may be attending university studies, while the parents are illiterate and concerned mainly with cultivating their fields with wooden sticks. In such a family, there are two sets of expectations, economic standards, cultural concerns and worldview. Some families are obviously more affected than others. The new change shows itself outwardly in many ways such as education, clothing, houses, food and moral behaviour. (...) For the individual the change has come too suddenly, plunging him into a darkness for which he has not been traditionally prepared. It alienates him both from the traditions of his society and from its roots. Paradoxically, the individual is involved in the change and yet alienated Training module for teachers, parents, social workers and other educators
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from it. So he becomes an alien body both to traditional life and to the new life brought about by modern change. He is posed between two positions: the traditional solidarity which supplied for him land, customs, ethics, rites of passage, customary law, religious participation and historical depth; and a modern way of life which for him has not yet acquired any solidarity. The change at best offers him a hope for the future, an aspiration and an expectation. The traditional life is fast being brushed into the past (Zamani), and the further back it recedes the more golden it looks. So the individual is the object of a dual process: one recedes into the Zamani, the other hangs in the future; and the tension between these two is neither harmonious nor creative for the majority of Africans. From Address by Hon. Janet K. Museveni - First Lady of Uganda and Member of Parliament for Ruhama on the Occasion of the Inauguration of the Permanent Centre for Education, Kampala, 29th January 2010 The role of education in a nation, especially such a young nation as ours, should be to underguard and shape the development or progress of the nation towards a better future for her people. Through education, people are supposed to be made aware of their value, the value of the other person, and the value of the environment in which they live. This appreciation of the value or worth of human life is what leads a person to respect themselves and others, and it is what bestows dignity to human beings in a civilized society. Education unveils the value of the person and helps that person to discover their potential. For this reason, education takes place not just in school but also in the family and in places of worship, to mention but a few; it is a continuous process which should never stop. Even as we relate to one another in daily life, we are being educated, and we are educating those we are relating with. The challenge is, then: how educative are we in our relationships, in our daily life? How are we enhancing our own growth and the growth of those close to us? Will you dance? – a film by Antonio Banderas, 2006 The film is inspired by the true story of Pierre Dulaine, a dancer and a teacher of hall-dance. He decides to propose this kind of dancing to the head mistress of a school where the entry is checked by a metal detector. He is given the worst students of the school, the ones who have problems with the police, who are undisciplined and difficult to manage. He looks at them with respect and trust, sure that many good things are hidden under the mask they show. In this way everything in their lives changes. Greater, Defeating AIDS – a documentary by Emmanuel Exitu, 2008 (A real life battle against AIDS based on an encounter, a belonging, an education) Vicky Aryenyo: “She talked to me… I developed a hard heart; I only had an open heart to die. I knew nobody, even Rose, would ever love me; if the man I had come into union with had rejected me, nobody would ever love me. She told me: “Vicky don’t you know that the value in you is greater than the value of sickness?” That kept me moving” (an extract)
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THE VALUE OF THE PERSON