Like a hospital, the school cannot turn away difficult cases.

Father Lorenzo Milani was exiled in 1954 to Barbiana, a small village without electricity, telephone, running water, or a paved road. He founded a school, and in 1967, shortly before his death, he made sure that the book written by his students was published. Letter to a teacher. It has become a classic. Retired maestros Jaume Cela and Joan Domènech now pay tribute to it with a four-handed rehearsal. Educating is giving voice. (Octahedron). Between utopia and defeatism, they seek what Thomas More called "eutopia," that is, "the good possible place": an imperfect school open to everyone. "Only a perfect school can afford to reject new people and different cultures. And the perfect school doesn't exist," the boys and girls of Barbiana wrote in their own defense.

Cela and Domènech don't write from a place of naive optimism. They are perfectly aware of the educational crisis and the extreme practical difficulties many teachers face, the feeling of helplessness and failure. They don't live in a bubble. They too have had to struggle and start over every day, like Sisyphus. Like Gramsci, they consider themselves hopeful pessimists. They propose a school that prioritizes the most disadvantaged, those whom some label as inept or ill-begotten. Of course, there are difficult kids, just like those Milani encountered in Barbiana. Of course, the administration doesn't get it right, many families don't care about anything, and the chaos in the classroom can be phenomenal.

But the school cannot throw in the towel. We must be there, face to face with the most troubled teenagers, stubbornly, without humiliating or excluding them. "We must know the lives of our students, we must take into account their individual realities, aware that our field of action is limited." In Barbiana's book, a phrase became famous:The Scuola dell obbligo non puo bocciare"It was translated as 'compulsory schooling cannot be suspended.' But if we stick to the etymology, bocciare It comes from the game of verchas —bocce in Italian—. So, instead of suspend it would be rather decline either bounce.

The alternative, of course, cannot be to pass everyone, to hand out degrees. But Cela and Domènech reject a school that, even indirectly, forces some students to drop out. As Barbiana says, it would be like "a hospital that treats the healthy and rejects the sick." Rejection of school can easily be the first step in rejecting society, determinism transformed into fatalism. That obvious notion: that one will be a delinquent.

Suffering from the idea that school is, above all, a source of knowledge, Barbiana had a motto: "No one is incapable of studying." Equality of opportunity and participation, the other two foundations of the school institution, are intrinsically linked to knowledge. Of course, Cela and Domènech demand more resources for education and less administrative intervention (since the 1980s, a reform every year and a half). They want more autonomy for schools. We advocate for greater emphasis on the humanities (reading and writing as cornerstones) and a stronger connection to the real-world problems of the community. And they call for a pedagogical renewal that isn't about innovation for innovation's sake, but rather one based on the best traditions, for example, in Barbiana.

Beyond the primary debate of passing or failing, they focus on the crucial task and responsibility of teachers, who must teach what they know and who they are. With words as their main tool: maintaining constant dialogue with students, teaching assistants, families, and other teachers. Motivating, giving meaning, breaking down the wall of indifference and mistrust, adding information with emotion, each using their own method. Above all, leading by example: those who want to educate must show a great desire to learn, must inspire curiosity for knowledge, art, culture, and science. And they must be self-disciplined. "How can we ask our students to want to read if we don't demonstrate our own passion for reading?"