THE GOSPEL OF EDUCATION

The Pedagogical Testament 

of Pope Francis

for 

the school 

of the future

 

-         by Antonio Fundarò

 

There was a time – ours – when speaking of mercy seemed like a sign of weakness, naivety, almost a surrender in the face of the harshness of the world. At that time, a Pope came “from the end of the world” who, with a gentle but radical voice, overturned the paradigm. Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was not only the 266th successor of Peter, but a true master of humanity, who restored to the word “education” its ancient sacredness: educere, that is, “to bring out,” to generate life.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1936, a Jesuit by vocation, a priest by service, Francis embraced the pedagogy of the Gospel (an educational approach inspired by the message and figure of Jesus Christ) with the wisdom of the heart. In him, the rigor of intelligence and the sweetness of the gaze, the firmness of doctrine and the revolution of tenderness met. His strength was never in condemnation, but in embracing. He proposed to the world, and in particular to schools, a new educational grammar: less based on content and more founded on relationships, less centered on performance and more on care for the person.

His language was clear and direct, suitable for children and teachers, believers and non-believers. His letters to the world of school, his appeals to teachers, the words spoken during meetings with young people outlined a vision of education as a tool for social regeneration. Not to build armies of experts, but to form free, aware consciences, capable of "crying for those who suffer", as he himself loved to say.

In his educational thought, school has never been a neutral institution, but a laboratory of humanity. “Educating – he said – is an act of love, it is giving life”. And again: “You cannot educate without passion”.

His words do not belong only to the ecclesial sphere. They belong to all humanity. For this reason today, in the light of his teaching, it is necessary to collect his legacy in a living form, as a compass for every school community that wants to educate with the heart and the mind, with rigor and with empathy.

Pope Francis has indicated school as the place of possible change. And he has done so not only with his encyclicals and official documents, but also with his silences, his gestures, his choice of a style of sobriety and closeness. Today there is no pedagogy of dignity that cannot draw inspiration from his life. For this reason, his example asks us, with strength and gentleness together, to rethink school as a space in which no one is left behind, no one is humiliated, no one is forgotten.

The key words of his educational lexicon

Pope Francis has built an educational lexicon that, while drawing on the evangelical tradition, speaks forcefully to all schools in the world, including secular, multicultural, and plural schools. He has never proposed an encyclopedia of abstract concepts, but a vocabulary of the soul, based on simple, living, concrete words that can have an impact on daily school life: mercy , care , encounter , fraternity , periphery , listening , tenderness , dignity . Each term, in his homilies as in his gestures, becomes an educational pillar to be reread in a pedagogical key.

The word mercy , the heart of his pontificate, has never been, for Francis, synonymous with easy indulgence. Instead, it has been proposed as the foundation of every educational relationship: looking at the other, even the most difficult student, not through the lenses of prejudice or evaluation, but as the bearer of a mystery, a story, a possibility. Mercy means suspending judgment to open to understanding; it means accompanying without ever replacing, orienting without ever invading.

Care is the other key word, which recalls the very etymology of education as an act that nourishes and protects. Francis invites the school to become a community that takes care not only of skills, but of fragilities, affections, dreams. Educational care translates into personalized attention, empathetic listening, inclusive planning. It is the definitive overcoming of transmissive education, in favor of a generative teaching, which accompanies the integral development of the person.

Fraternity is the basis of a school that does not classify but embraces. In a time dominated by competition, Francis reminds us that we are all brothers. This has profound pedagogical consequences: the classroom is not an arena of judgment but a cooperative laboratory. Evaluation becomes a tool for growth, not for exclusion. Teaching methodologies that are based on cooperation, peer tutoring, and learning by doing find their ethical basis in fraternity.

And then there are the peripheries , which for Francis are not just geographical places, but existential conditions. Every self-respecting school must know how to look at its peripheries: the disadvantaged students, the repeaters, the newcomers, the kids who don't speak, those who disturb, those who are forgotten. Pope Francis teaches us that a just school is one that knows how to shift the center of gravity toward those who are furthest away, because that is where the truth of our educational task is played out.

Tenderness , finally, is the word that has most scandalized the supporters of a cold and hyper-rational school. But Francis had the courage to forcefully propose it again, defining it as “the strength of the strong”. Tenderness is not weakness, it is full awareness of the dignity of the other. Teaching with tenderness means looking at students not only as subjects to be trained, but as people to be loved. It is a pedagogy of the heart, which is not afraid of being human, which knows how to smile, console, wait.

Translating this lexicon into school practice is not only possible, but a duty. A teacher who acts according to this educational vocabulary does not only teach notions, but shows that school is a place where culture becomes flesh, becomes relationships, becomes hope. And this is, perhaps, the greatest legacy that Pope Francis leaves us: the invitation not to fear goodness, not to be afraid of beauty, never to give up humanity. Not even in school.

The “Global Educational Pact”: A Manifesto for 21st Century Education

In 2019, Pope Francis launches a challenge that is at once an invocation, a program and a prophecy: that of a Global Educational Pact . He does so with heartfelt and visionary words, inviting schools, universities, families, institutions and religions to a global educational alliance, capable of addressing the wounds of our time: loneliness, inequality, war, the ecological crisis and that of relationships. “We need,” he states, “the courage to generate a cultural change, to build a civilization of love together.” It is a pedagogical appeal, but also a civil one, because it considers education the only true way to regenerate the world.

The Pact is divided into seven educational commitments , which, translated into the language of school, can become guidelines for every school institution, regardless of religious or cultural orientation. The first is the centrality of the person , a pedagogical principle par excellence: every student is unique, unrepeatable, worthy. It means re-evaluating personalized education, promoting inclusive and flexible learning environments, investing in the emotional well-being of students.

The second is to listen to the voice of young people , the true beating heart of the school. Francis asks that children not only be recipients, but protagonists of education. This requires dialogical practices, participatory methodologies, open class councils, lively assemblies, and teaching that questions the real world.

The third is to promote the full participation of girls and women in education , as a driver of freedom, equality and social justice. This translates into the integration of gender issues in educational planning, non-stereotyped teaching practices and openness to an inclusive school leadership model.

The fourth is to educate to welcome and to meet , overcoming the barriers of indifference. A school that welcomes is a school that knows how to work on the culture of otherness, on intercultural education, on the value of coexistence. In the classrooms you can teach geography, history, law and at the same time grow empathy, hospitality, solidarity.

The fifth commitment is to train people willing to serve the community , promoting civic sense and active citizenship. Educating for the common good means giving space to volunteering, experience, and service learning projects. It means taking the school out of itself , to bring reality into the curriculum.

The sixth is to promote a culture of encounter and dialogue , against the logic of conflict and suspicion. Here the reference to mediation, nonviolence, and conflict management in and outside the classroom is very strong. School can become a place where one learns to discuss without hating, to confront one another without destroying one another.

Finally, the seventh commitment: to protect the common home , the environment as an educational responsibility. It is the invitation to decline Laudato si' in school practices, through integral ecology paths, environmental laboratories, educational gardens, green projects and, above all, through a sustainable lifestyle that is also embodied by the educational community.

The Global Educational Pact is not a spiritual utopia, but a concrete program, suitable for every school that wants to educate not only heads, but hearts. Francis asks to rebuild education as a space of alliance between generations, cultures, worlds, to build a new civilization. He does not propose recipes, but a method: get together, look each other in the eye, take care of the future.

Every class council, every manager, every teacher can find in this Pact a map to orient their mission. Because, as Pope Francis has repeatedly reminded us, educating is always an act of love. It is giving life .

Educating the heart: the pedagogy of tenderness

At a time when school is often invoked as a place of discipline, competence, performance, Pope Francis offers us a disconcerting, ancient and at the same time revolutionary word: tenderness . It is one of his most beloved terms, often accompanied by a gesture, an embrace, a look that descends from the pulpit and stops at the height of children, the sick, the excluded. “Tenderness is the strength of the strong,” he said. And it is precisely from this gentle strength that a true educational revolution can begin.

Educating with tenderness means building a relationship based not on hierarchical authority, but on trust. The teacher is no longer just the one who knows, but the one who accompanies. He is an adult who is not afraid to show himself vulnerable, who knows how to stand by the students in moments of crisis, who does not take refuge behind the rigidity of the grade, but knows how to recognize the value of effort, of growth, of silent transformation. He is the one who knows how to say: "Don't worry, let's try again together".

This pedagogy has its center in the educational relationship , understood as a place of unconditional welcome. There is no learning without a meaningful relationship. Contemporary pedagogy also reminds us of this, from the humanistic psychology of Carl Rogers to the inclusive teaching of UDA: only those who feel recognized, loved, supported, can truly learn. Francis, without using academic codes, gives us this truth with simplicity: "Educating is generating. And to generate, you have to love."

Another key element of this vision is the valorization of error. The school of tenderness does not punish, but accompanies. The error is not a fault, but a passage. An opportunity to get up, to try again, to learn in depth. This is where teaching methodologies that reject notionalism and welcome the process come in: cooperative learning , tinkering , laboratory activities, learning paths for skills, evaluation rubrics as tools for reflection and not condemnation.

The pedagogy of tenderness also promotes inclusion not as a normative obligation, but as a style of the soul. Every student, in this perspective, has the right to be seen, recognized, welcomed for what he or she is. Individualized Educational Plans, Special Educational Needs, and teaching differentiation strategies become instruments of justice, not just of law. For Francis, the right school is not the one that gives more to those who have more, but the one that bends over those in difficulty, like the Good Samaritan on the side of the road.

And then there is time. The school of tenderness is not in a hurry. It knows how to wait. It rejects the logic of deadlines at all costs, of programs to be completed, of rigid goals. It is a school that is more like a journey than a race. And in this journey, the teacher is a companion, not a judge.

In an era marked by performance anxiety, evaluative pressures and an often bellicose educational language (“test”, “compete”, “classify”), Pope Francis proposes a school that knows how to feel , be moved , welcome . It is not a question of renouncing authority or competence, but of rooting them in the relational and affective dimension. Because, as he once said: “An education without heart is not education”.

This vision deeply questions those who live school today. It asks us to be, before teachers, witnesses. Before transmitters of knowledge, builders of meaning. It asks us to believe that every student, even the most difficult, even the angriest, holds a spark within himself. And our task is to protect it from the wind, welcome it in our hands and help it become light.

Pope Francis and the Time of Listening

“Let us learn to listen. True dialogue begins with the silence of the heart.” This simple and profound phrase contains one of the greatest educational revolutions proposed by Pope Francis: the pedagogy of listening. In a world that screams, interrupts, and runs, the Pope reminds us that authentic education begins when we stop, remain silent, and lend an ear to the other. It is a gesture of humility, of respect, of love. And it is also, today more than ever, a pedagogical urgency.

In his reflections, Francis has repeatedly insisted on the value of active listening , not as a passive act, but as a transformative act. Truly listening means welcoming the other for what he or she is, without immediately wanting to correct, modify, or pigeonhole him or her. In school, this principle translates into an educational practice that puts the student, his or her needs, emotions, fears, and dreams at the center. It means recognizing that every word a student says, even when it is wrong, contains a fragment of truth.

The pedagogy of listening proposed by the Pontiff invites teachers and managers to recognize that every educational relationship has two protagonists. The teacher who knows how to listen is the one who has learned not to fill every void , not to fear silence , to leave space for the other's story . He is the one who knows how to pause the program to give voice to a pain, a request, a confidence. He is the educator who knows that before the explanation comes the relationship, before the evaluation comes understanding.

In methodological terms, this vision is embodied in all those practices that favor the students' speech: circle time, teaching by questions, debates, narrative interviews, cognitive autobiographies, peer tutoring, empathic listening in school-family discussions. It is also embodied in a dialogic evaluation, where the vote does not close, but opens a conversation. In a teaching staff capable of questioning together, not just deliberating. In a presidency that knows how to open the door rather than imposing itself with circulars.

Listening, for Pope Francis, is also an instrument of relational justice . Those who are not listened to are excluded. And those who are excluded end up getting lost. In this, the pedagogy of listening is deeply linked to the prevention of school dropout: a boy who feels listened to is a boy who exists, who finds space, who does not feel useless. And therefore he stays. He stays in school, and in life.

But listening also means decentralizing oneself, renouncing omniscience, questioning oneself. It is the highest and most demanding point of education. The Pope did it with his pastoral choices, with his openness to young people, to cultures, to differences. He showed that listening is a spiritual act even before it is a communicative one. It is a way of saying: “You are important. I need you to understand the world”. And this, in a school that often feels alone and unheard, is a powerful message.

A school that knows how to listen is a school that generates freedom. That does not impose identities, but brings them out. That does not preach, but dialogues. That does not judge, but accompanies. It is the school we need to build a more just, more human, more profound society. Because, as Francis teaches us, no one educates alone. No one is saved alone. No one grows without being listened to .

An education in peace and beauty

Pope Francis has always spoken of peace not as an abstract concept or ideal to proclaim, but as a daily path to build. “Peace is made, not preached,” he said. And in this statement resounds all the concreteness of his educational approach. For him, school is one of the privileged places where one can – and must – build a culture of peace, not through great proclamations, but through simple gestures, respectful relationships, care for others.

Educating for peace, in the thought of the Pontiff, means first of all teaching how to inhabit conflict without violence. It means helping children and young people to recognize the other not as a threat but as a resource. It means developing a fundamental skill: coexistence in difference . From here comes an invitation to the school to become a laboratory of dialogue, a gym of empathy, a place to practice kind words. The practices of school mediation, conflict management, relational problem solving, cooperative learning , become concrete tools to give shape to this pacifying education.

But alongside peace, Francis asks us to educate in beauty . And his is not an aesthetic or superficial beauty, but a beauty that saves, that heals, that restores dignity. “Beauty is not an optional,” he says, “it is a right, especially for the poor.” And so the school is called not only to teach art, music, poetry, but to live poetically , to create beautiful spaces, harmonious times, environments that speak of respect and care. An orderly classroom, a shared mural, a poem read at the beginning of the day, a melody that accompanies a moment of reflection: these are all signs of a pedagogy of beauty that makes the school a place where one wants to stay.

Laudato si' , Francis ' powerful and revolutionary encyclical, offers schools an entire framework for building civic, environmental and cultural education paths. Here beauty is intertwined with responsibility. "Care for our common home" becomes an interdisciplinary theme that unites science, geography, art, religion and technology. Educating about the beauty of creation also means educating about sobriety, balance and respect for what surrounds us.

Educating for peace and beauty also means rediscovering the value of silence , contemplation, slowing down. It means teaching that not everything is measured in performance, that not everything is evaluated with a number. Francis reminds us that there is a time to reflect, to observe, to give thanks. And school can also offer this: a space to breathe, where the soul is not suffocated.

This educational vision is also a political act, in the highest sense of the term: to build citizens who are artisans of peace and guardians of beauty. Citizens who know how to be indignant in the face of injustice, but also moved by a sunset, a painting, a word said with love.

Pope Francis spoke to the school with the language of hope, indicating peace and beauty as the two wings on which the education of the future can fly. Not an indifferent and gray school, but a bright and welcoming school. Because, as he writes in Fratelli Tutti , “ education is the seed of peace, and beauty is its sister” .

For a more human school: synthesis and perspectives

If we wanted to enclose the educational thought of Pope Francis in a single image, we could think of an outstretched hand. Not a hand that imposes, nor that punishes, but a hand that lifts, that accompanies, that consoles, that encourages. His vision of school is the vision of a living, human, relational place, where everyone finds space to be themselves and to become better together with others.

Pope Francis has given us not a pedagogical treatise, but an educational testament made of words, gestures, tears, journeys, meetings, encyclicals and silences. A vision of the world and of the school that places the person in his or her entirety at the center, that invites us to educate with the heart and with the intelligence, that asks us to build educational communities founded on solidarity, listening, empathy.

This heritage cannot remain confined to the ecclesial world. It is the heritage of humanity, and as such it also belongs to the public, secular, democratic school. It is a gift for every teacher, for every manager, for every educator who wants to contribute to forming aware and happy citizens. Because educating, in the highest and Franciscan sense, means sowing the future .

In light of the values and intuitions of the Holy Pontiff, we can today propose an educational decalogue that, despite its simplicity, becomes a compass for every school community:

1.     Put the person at the center , before the program and the performance.

2.     Listen with empathy , before speaking, evaluating, correcting.

3.     Embrace fragility as part of the educational process.

4.     Build relationships , because without relationships there is no learning.

5.     It teaches peace , in words, in gestures, in conflict management.

6.     Cultivate beauty , in every detail: environments, language, materials, school rituals.

7.     Take care of our common home by making education green and responsible.

8.     It values slowness , against the haste that burns the soul and the mind.

9.     Favor cooperation , over any form of sterile competition.

10. Show hope , every day, in every classroom, even when it's difficult.

This is not a simple methodological proposal: it is an anthropological choice. Pope Francis asks us to put humanity at the center , to educate with love, with justice, with tenderness. To not fear goodness, kindness, patience. To not forget that every student is a miracle in progress. And that every teacher can be a light on their path.

In an era marked by disintegration, indifference, and a throwaway culture, Pope Francis leaves us a profoundly countercurrent educational vision. A school that becomes a womb and not a judgment, that forms consciences and not just skills, that restores meaning and not just knowledge.

Anyone who enters the classroom, with a register under their arm and a heart ready to meet, can today decide to embrace this style. Because – as he said “ educating is always an act of love. It is giving life. It is lighting a future that surpasses us.

It is sowing what others will reap.

 

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