Learning to live the suffering

Abstract

Today discussing suffering, disgrace, seems almost impossible in a world dominated by the myth of happiness, well-being, profit at any cost. Can suffering educate to the development and growth of the person? If we recognize that enjoying happiness is the highest aspiration that each of us tends to admit that the term happiness refers to a vast and complex semantic horizon that seems to exclude any form of suffering and pain. Can we think of education in which suffering is an opportunity for growth both of thought and of an autonomous subject? Is it possible to manage relationships which, starting from suffering and the concept of finitude, establish the possibility of understanding the complexity of the human? Even in formalized spaces, is it possible to promote a culture of schooling as a care for relationships to give a horizon of meaning to human existence and experience, including education? One fact seems to be beyond question: without a plausible horizon of meaning, pedagogical reflection and educational practice are undermined at the root (Mollo,1996).