The pedagogy of Leonard Covello, the “Mista Professore” who educated the Italian com- munity in East Harlem between the 1920s and 1950s

Abstract

The process of integration of Italian communities around the world, and in the United States of America especially, has been under a magnifying glass for decades. The history, or rather, the stories of the micro-communities of Italian origin, are still observed with great attention to reconstruct the plots of life while the educational reconstructions that have led Italians to social redemption within a generation are still characterized by question marks. The article proposes to bringing to light the work of an educator who is unknown in the panorama of Italian pedagogy but well-known and appreciated in America, Leonard Covello, who organized a school for Italian migrants in the New York suburbs through inclusive and community methods in a period between the 1920s and 1950s. This is an unexpected pedagogy that opens many reflections on the intercultural approach that schools and teachers could acquire in the current contemporary scenario.