Fare scuola, rendere giustizia. La scuola in carcere: ritrovare persone, ritessere legami

Abstract

A project of investigation, research and training has followed a complete school year (2014-2015) in the courses held in the prison in Bergamo. We have listened to the life stories of the prisoners (men and women), to their thoughts and reflections, and we have observed the teaching practices, we have discussed and investigated with the teachers, we have worked along with the other professional workers in the prison. This essay, reflecting on what came out, outlines first of all the features of “an experience on the threshold” of education which is required to cross the troubled grounds of human condition, of truth, of shadow, of guilt and of punishment and grief, of redemption and of restoration; of suffering and conflict; of violence and reconciliation. It takes up the features of the delicate and possible founding of a living place, the school, where people can be welcomed and can gather experiences of a time of school which can give sense to the time of punishment. It shows how the prison “changes” the school: the school rediscover itself as centred on the students and on their stories, as a place where to promote a personal reflection and the intentionality of every person, the building of relationships, responsibilities and acknowledgements, as a way of knowledge, subjects, competences discovered as human experiences, of encounter, of sense, of commitment. In the last part it copes with the delicate and current question of how the “redeeming” education and making justice cross themselves and refer reciprocally in a demanding way; to go to school and to build up demanding ways of restorative justice in which building relationships and reviving future and common life.