Cesare Scurati

Elena Taurini, in Spain for the Double Degree in Psychology, learned from Cattolicanews about the death of "her" professor. And the desire to remember Cesare Scurati's passion for educational dialogue with his students was immediately triggered

The image of the university professor is always capable of intimidating the student, who, just out of high school, inevitably feels small and insignificant in front of those who represent the recognized summit of the scientific and professional career. The feeling, for me enrolled in the first year of psychology, was even more intense at the time of the first contact with Professor Scurati: a person whose authority, combined with a severe and taciturn attitude, seemed to be the sign of a necessary and unbridgeable distance. It didn't take me long to realize that I was wrong. The dialogue occasioned by the design of an essay immediately revealed to me the profile of a man who, far from being pleased with his role, really interpreted teaching as an opportunity for students to grow.

I met a person who generously put at my disposal not only his specific expertise, but a universe of culture, understood in its truest and most dynamic sense, of continuous investigation into the fruitful and ever new interrelationship between ideas and knowledge. Those conversations not only allowed me to access a world of reflections that, on my own, I might never have known, but they also made me understand that the professor – as much as he interprets his role with the passion and conviction that animated Professor Scurati's university commitment – is not at all distant from the students, but recognizes in them his necessary interlocutors: Not just pieces of the anonymous audience of the lessons, but individuals who concretely testify, with the steps of their individual growth, the value of those who have been able to train them. Competence and passion are the coordinates of the memory that I will always carry with me.

Elena Taurini

Second-year student of the master's degree course in "Clinical psychology: health, family relationships and community interventions", Milan campus

Taken from: Cattolicanews
News from the Offices, Milan
Posted: May 26, 2011

At the end of November 2010 I had the privilege and pleasure of receiving with Cesare Scurati the Raffaele Laporta prize that the specially constituted Scientific Commission wanted to award us for the studies we had carried out in some sectors of pedagogical research – in the field of didactics himself, in that of the history of education I – and, for the occasion, we went to Pescara, venue of the award, spending two beautiful days together with other friends and colleagues. During the several hours of train travel we had the opportunity to retrace the past years, like two old school friends who meet and tell each other their experiences, even if in our case they were very close experiences and, for long stretches, even the same.

At that moment Cesare was coming from a bad prostration into which he had fallen after the illness and death of his dear wife Rita; but he seemed to be recovering. This impression was to receive new confirmation in the following months. Cesare, after a long period of absence from any public commitment, had returned to the University, just as he had resumed participating in the sessions of the Editorial Committee of the publishing house La Scuola, once again becoming a promoter of ideas and proposals. Colleagues and friends thought that the prospect of a slow but progressive recovery was now opening up for him. Don Norberto Galli, director of the magazine "Pedagogia e vita" as well as our mutual friend and old colleague, had recently asked him for an article for the new series of the periodical and Cesare had not been asked: he had written it in one go, as he happened to write the things that were close to his heart, to the great satisfaction of Don Galli who phoned me that he had greatly appreciated that contribution, where Cesare took care to focus on the idea, dear to him, of a humanistic school, at the service of the growth of the new generations. When I happened to meet Cesare, I told him so, and he, who always wished to have a word of confirmation, was very pleased with this certificate of esteem.

But on the morning of Thursday, May 19, we suddenly learned that, during the night, he had ceased to live. The news came to us as a hard blow, not only because we knew nothing about the heart attack from which he had been struck a couple of days earlier, but also because we had become accustomed to the idea that Cesare was sooner or later destined to resume his normal activity. The energy he had resorted to to overcome the test he had had to face for long months had no longer held up, it had been extinguished. As soon as the news began to spread, a wave of consternation and discouragement arose among Cesare's friends and colleagues, and in particular among Scholé's colleagues, the community of Christian-inspired pedagogues that Cesare had helped to consolidate and of which he was one of the main animators. The cause of so much consternation was due not only to the surprise of a sudden and unexpected death, but also, and above all, to the awareness that a fine scholar of the problems of school and pedagogy had passed away and that the void he had left was unbridgeable. We immediately realized this when death forced us to retrace its itinerary.

Having obtained the master's qualification, Cesare had immediately participated in the competition to enter the roles of the elementary school, which he won with great ease, becoming one of the youngest teachers in service. It was in the midst of this experience that he began to love basic school, in which he continued to recognize himself even when he reached the heights of his academic career. The talent scout of young educators that was Vittorino Chizzolini, as soon as he had the opportunity to meet Cesare, immediately understood his human and scientific qualities and wanted to involve him in the training initiatives of La Scuola Editrice, inviting him to the Montevelo meetings, which brought together the best students of the teacher training schools and recent graduates, and urging him to take part in the Pietralba meetings, open to teachers engaged in pedagogical-didactic experimentation. Cesare was thus able to come into contact with some scholars and men of school such as Marco Agosti - a scholar of the problems of teaching, whom Cesare appreciated very much - Angelo Colombo, Gaetano Santomauro, Mauro Laeng, Lino Monchieri, and to forge relationships with many young colleagues of his age, such as Primo Poli, Elio Damiano, Felice Rizzi. Together with this select handful of scholars and schoolmen, who in the midst of the resumption of the democratic life of the country were working on a project for the renovation of the school and especially of the elementary school, Cesare was able to develop his professional vocation.

In the meantime, he had enrolled at Università Cattolica to obtain what was then called the diploma in supervision. In possession of the new title and won the competition for school management, he then moved from the activity of teacher to that of educational director, a profession by which he was immediately fascinated, realizing how important the role of the head of the school community implanted in the area was. The competence that he gained in this field allowed him to follow with particular attention the processes that, in the following years, would mark the figure of the school director under the pressure of the innovations introduced by the systems of organization. Cesare realized that this figure too would have to somehow open up to the profile of the manager, but not at the expense of the ethical-professional and pedagogical ideal that had long distinguished it and represented, in his view, its constituent element. In the meantime he continued his university studies and graduated in pedagogy. His interests turned towards the problems of Anglo-American pedagogical thought, for which he would continue to have great attention. The structure and fundamental inspirations of his scientific work would, however, remain fundamentally anchored to the philosophical and pedagogical vision of personalist orientation, strong in the long classical-modern tradition that it had behind it and, at the same time, enriched by the important integrations that it was acquiring in a close comparison with the new human sciences, from sociology to psychology.

It was in those years that I met Cesare, when we both decided to start an academic career. In 1961 Aldo Agazzi arrived at Cattolica as Professor of Pedagogy and from then on Cesare and I, as volunteer assistants, began to participate in the activities of the Department of Pedagogy and in particular in the "Wednesday seminar" which, in Agazzi's intentions, was to serve to find, train and increase the vocations of scholars in pedagogy. At first, our relations did not go much beyond the simple connection, not only because, having begun to study the figure of the French philosopher and pedagogist Lucien Laberthonnìère, I was often in Paris, but also because, at that time, our itineraries of study seemed to me to proceed along separate tracks: that of Caesar engaged in the study of school pedagogy, of educational problems and technologies, of innovation in training processes; mine, now increasingly characterized in the deepening of the history of pedagogical thought and of the scholastic and educational institutions of the United Italy. But it was a false impression, which over time I would have to correct, first of all because Cesare, always attentive to the historical and theoretical dimension of pedagogy, also studied the pedagogical proposals of some great thinkers, such as Locke, Pestalozzi, Mounier, just as he did not neglect to confront the cultural provocations that appeared in the pedagogical debate, such as the suggestions of structuralism; and then because, his reflections on the educational commitment of the school would have been of great use to me in addressing some pedagogical and institutional issues such as the question of religious teaching in school or that of the values that a state public school could and should have contributed to nurturing. How many times would I have paused to reread and meditate on what he wrote on the subject of school.

Our studies were rewarded and between the late 70s and early 80s we both reached the university chair. In 1981, after spending time at the universities of Genoa and Parma, Cesare arrived at Cattolica, where I, luckier, had managed to land a few years earlier. From then on, our relations became more intense and the reservations that I had wrongly harbored for some of his attitudes, which initially seemed to me almost to indulge in forms of a certain ideological disengagement, had to give way to a lively and profound appreciation for what I discovered to be, in reality, his basic virtues: meekness, attention to the ideas of others, the concern to face problems rationally and to provide them with plausible solutions. Academically, mildness of character has not always been to his advantage. I remember some wrongs that even within the same publishing house La Scuola, where he was always appreciated and loved, he had to suffer, such as when, in the choice of the direction of some didactic-professional magazines, he was preferred by colleagues who had never dealt with the teaching of the school. But the then managing director of La Scuola ing. Adolfo Lombardi wanted to be assigned, almost as compensation, other significant positions such as the direction of other magazines such as "Scuola materna" or "Dirigenti scuola". Just as his submissive temperament certainly did not help him to cope with the academic difficulties created by some colleagues of the same disciplinary group. It was in these circumstances that I felt more and more tightened to him by feelings of esteem and friendship.

However, Cesare also enjoyed many gratifications. Among the various positions he has held at Università Cattolica, it is worth mentioning the direction of the Department of Pedagogy and the direction of the Research Centre for Lifelong and Distance Education. But we cannot forget the credit he enjoyed in the world of teachers' associations, in particular the Italian Association of Catholic Teachers (AIMC), which he always considered a second family and to which he made the contribution of his valuable reflections. I remember in particular the affection that bound him to Carlo Buzzi, for many years president of the Association, and to Don Giulio Cirignano, who was and continues to be the ecclesiastical assistant of the Association. It is no coincidence that, upon hearing the news of his death, the current heads of AIMC wanted to testify, with a statement, to the contribution of ideas and proposals received from Cesare: "His presence at our conferences – they wrote – was a guarantee of quality". To confirm the prestige that was recognized in the world of school and university associations, it is also worth remembering his appointment as president of the Italian Pedagogical Society. For his recognized pedagogical and didactic skills, Cesare has been called upon several times to collaborate with the Ministry of Education. In the years 1981-1985 he was a member of the Ministerial Commission for the revision of elementary school curricula and, having also participated in the same Commission, I can testify to the high reputation in which he was held by all those who worked there, whatever orientation they belonged to: Cesare's speeches were always listened to with great attention and, most of the time, his proposals were widely shared and signed. Between 1988 and 1991 he also coordinated the work of the Ministerial Commission for Guidelines for Nursery School.

But, in conclusion of this memory, I would like to recall two other traits that seem to me to have characterized the profile of Caesar. Because of his intellectual curiosity, as well as his gradually refined spirit of research, he was inclined to establish relationships with many colleagues from other disciplines, in the conviction that pedagogical values were present not only in formal educational structures such as school, but also in other dimensions such as literature, cinema, music. It is therefore not surprising that he tended to involve teachers from other fields in his educational projects and that he also enjoyed great appreciation in fields other than pedagogy. But above all I would like to remember the dedication with which he followed his students, participating with great human and professional sensitivity in their study itineraries, and at the same time leaving them free to each run their own intellectual adventure.

Luciano Pazzaglia

Taken from: Cattolicanews
News from the Offices, Milan
Posted: May 26, 2011