Passing on the common human tradition

Abstract

We are here to share ideas on the “risk” of education as the book by Don L. Giussani is called. As we discuss his work, we are also discussing the nature and meaning of education as well as the process of education based on our own personal experiences in the field and keeping in mind our research into and analysis of that same teaching experience. As Don Giussani points out at various stages throughout the book, he is concerned here with the challenge and risk of educating adolescents in today’s world. In this workshop we will probably discover that many of the points made by the author apply to our situation too. In particular, Giussani is concerned about teenagers because they are at a stage where defiance and conformity without conviction (peer pressure) is combined with the fact that they are also becoming more aware of themselves as persons and of the meaning of the reality that surrounds them. Our university students are in a similar situation and so we are asking ourselves, how we can helpthem, how we ought to educate them in a way that responds to their own basic needs. The author proposes a method of education which contains five points and in this paper we will look at the second step in Giussani’s proposal: the issue of the role of tradition in education.