Even though I live in the countryside, I am not becoming a misanthrope. Four days a week, I drive to the nearby city. Serendipitously, a job was carved out for me there: the high school students who are “suspended” from their classes due to misbehaving are each to spend time with me, instead of staying at home for two days.
It is then that the entire world crashes on me. The amount of pain is excruciating. One girl lives with two mentally ill parents; another girl has many siblings, and nobody notices whether she gets home or not at night. One boy cannot sit in class for more than 10 minutes, and another talks incessantly about his dead parents. And so on and so forth.
The school sweeps its residues toward my corner, and I welcome them. I feel one of them, in many ways. Unfit for this world of violence and hate and success and fake happy profiles, but in contact with the pain of the world.
The school does not have any hope that my program will produce any good results. The education ministry has simply imposed that the suspended students will not stay at home but be in school, and I was the only teacher available to work with them. Box checked, the school is compliant.
Several of my colleagues, as well as the principal, are strongly convinced that the suspension program should be understood as a punishment. Therefore, when they see that the program starts with me offering a cappuccino to the “bad” student, they scoff away, and at times, they even confront me. “What kind of a punishment is this?” they say.
I like the confrontation, however, because it is an occasion for me to explain that the binary punishment-reward is not even good for training dogs. Very few have heard the idea of “therapeutic alliance” or the need to create an atmosphere of trust.
All that many of us teachers hope fervently and hopelessly is that students will stop breaking the rules. But I don’t see much reflection on why students break the rules or — God forbid! — on the rules themselves.
The re-education aspect, which I am supposed to enforce, consists of the students writing down the school regulations in their own handwriting, plus being scolded by the occasional teacher passing by our desk, and writing apology letters to the teachers. I feel plunged into the 19th century all at once, a feeling compounded by the fact that the building is from that era.
Not all is so bad. I am making alliances with some colleagues who are able to feel the pain of the young and don’t treat it lightly, while at the same time not allowing it to become an excuse for them to stop trying to live. It is a thin line to walk on. Also, there are colleagues who come to me to share their troubles in class. Recently, I said to one of them, “And, have you tried to tell your students how you feel in such and such a situation?” I saw her mind literally having an epiphany.
In fact, I think that feeling (in Jungian terms) and the via negativa (in Foxian terms) are the only key to the situation. Unless people — students and teachers — are helped to feel their feelings and go through their pain, there is no hope for any creativity to emerge. Every day, I juggle between performing my duties as the institution requires and shepherding souls through the valleys of their discontents, their cynicism, their complaints, their rage, and their loneliness.
Adultism is rampant at my school. Cynicism and hypocrisy rule the day. And good people are trying to do something good, often without knowing how.
When I feel low, I remember that “God is forever young” in the sense taught by Meister Eckhart and Matthew Fox. Every moment is born in the now; every instant is fresh and new. Even though it bears the traces of the past, it can offer a new insight, a new connection, a new hope.
I don’t have any long-term hopes, however, for my program. It flourished like a leaf of grass, and in the same way, it will be gone. But how could we live otherwise today, plunged as we are in a war economy by the most cruel rulers the earth has seen in a long while?
“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord remains forever” (Isaiah 40:8) is a verse that means a lot to me these days. Wisdom shines eternal, much beyond our attempts to embody her in this world.
Banner Image: Finding the light in our youth. Photo by Yustinus Tjiuwanda on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Do you have a present relationship with an institution, such as a school? In what role? Do you encounter adultism? Do you listen to the young?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Warrior for Our Time
Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
12 thoughts on “Diary from the Italian Countryside, part 2”
This reflection really landed for me. As a teacher and as an art therapist working with youth these feelings have stayed with me well into ‘retirement’. It does spark me to go back to my copy of the AWE project and open my eyes how I might offer something – anything- at this point. Thanks for the video clips🙏
Hi Gianluigi! I really like your writings. I wonder if you are available for spiritual direction? I have been studying Matthew’s work for a while. I feel that we could possibly have a good connection. I have been struggling with chronic pain and tension for most of my life. So it can be isolating.
My email address is amos.edward@gmail.com. Thanks, Ed Amos
How wonderful that they have your presence in their lives!! Their “violations” have brought them to you, one who sees them and that is what we all long for – to be seen, heard, and accepted. They will be changed. Maybe not today, not tomorrow but you are imprinting their lives with love forever. Thank you.
No, GG, but keep up your great work with your unique students and teachers, knowing that the Spirit of Love & Wisdom Is always Present with-in and among Us…
My husband did the exact same job after his retirement from the school system as a learning disabilities specialist. He understood the needs of the students in detention and was a savior to some of them. You will surely do the same. Take heart, and bless you for being there for them in a more positive way.
The work Gianluigi Gugliermetto is doing with students who are sent to his program is truly inspiring. The students need grace, understanding and love to move beyond their troubles in a traditional school environment. Negative energy like writing school rules doesn’t build the childrens’ hearts and feelings of worth.
Hello Gianluigi,
It’s good to see you back writing in these reflections. I feel your pain as you work with these beautiful human children. I taught for many years and I remember feeling sick at heart when holidays came and I knew some of my students would be afflicted with physical, mental abuse. Their refuge was the classroom.
You are right -punishment is not the path. Nor is letting them away with breaking rules. There is a fine line between the two. I think your cup of cappucino ia a beautiful way to address their dignity as humans. Relax and talk about what is happening in their lives – how can they adjust to school rules (some of which are ridiculous!).
Holding you and your students in my heart and thoughts. All the best – may you succeed!
Gianluigi, I spend 15 years working at a school for emotionally challenged boys and 11 years working as a crisis intervention specialist for children. I have seen how people and institutions fail children who are troubled. I have seen how sparingly funds are allocated for the care of troubled youth. And I have seen our society’s refusal to address the root of so much of the emotional turmoil of our youth. That root is parents ill equipped to nurture their children. Our children have been sacrificed on the altar of technology then we wonder why so many children are emotionally troubled.
I had a short teaching career, then went into textbook writing; but when I was teaching, I was also handed the “troubled” kids. I was lucky to teach when I did, when there was less oversight and I could tailor my teaching to the needs of the kids. In California, at age 21, I had a class of 32 boys and 5 girls, some only 5 years younger than me and several in gangs. I used rock music in our poetry unit, thematic games to prepare for the understanding themes of stories, and on Fridays tossed out the curriculum altogether. One time, when a big kid threw a desk at another, all the boys jumped up and stopped the fight then asked me what I wanted them to do with the two boys. I’d respected them. They respected me. I had one boy in my class 5 out of 6 periods a day because the other teachers hated him. I monitored him as he did science, math, and so on as I taught the other kids English. In England, I also used progressive techniques with my class “of bad kids.” One day, I had the school’s “worst kid,” take a note to the office. The shocked kids tried to convince me that that was a bad idea. He took the note and came back. It changed everything. Since the “bad kid” respected me, the rest followed. What these kids need is love, understanding, and respect. I hope the powers that be learn to understand that they are lucky to have you.
Oh, Gianluigi, my heart goes out to you. What a beautiful letter. Apparently you are just where you are meant to be, a beacon of love to these lost children. You have exactly the lens you need to support these children. I’ll light a candle for you and keep you in my prayers.
Warmest hugs,
Jeanette
Gigi,
How awesome that those students have you. Sounds like Creators work to me 🦋
Meg
Just some notes —
(I was a psych major and my ex-husband went into the field, so, for what it’s worth) —
You have kids with multiple problems. Some would be treated through special education, such as the kid who can’t sit still, which sounds like ADHD. Some may have severe depression. Some may have other cognitive or social needs, and many overlap.
Your sympathy and understanding will help these kids. Learning about various learning disabilities, plus causes and treatments of depression, would also be helpful. And finding other ways of teaching these kids, rather than just enforcing rote memorization, will definitely help.
Blessings, and good luck!