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AIDU - Associazione Italiana Docenti Universitari
AIDU aims to promote and develop the academic profession through research, teaching and participation in university life, inspired by the principles of the Gospel and those of the Italian Republican Constitution.
AIDU's members include professors and researchers, including retired ones, from all Italian universities.
The changes underway in all public institutions, and especially in schools and universities, provide an opportunity to highlight the social role and moral and civil responsibility of university professors, but may also compromise many of the essential values of freedom and solidarity.
If we take a broader look at our time and its values/non-values, we see the damage caused by the fallen walls, which are not just about ideology and politics, but about the deeper identity of man, woman, the family and human society, about what we are and must be, in order to accept life, know its limits, respect and support rights and peace.
Promoting culture, science, technology, politics and education today involves unprecedented difficulties and responsibilities.
The Christian teachers involved in this activity, grouped together in AIDU, are challenged in a particular way by the transformations underway, at the cultural, social and institutional levels.
It is a question of becoming aware of one's own special lay vocation in the service of the human community, through the exercise of one's mission, lived with competence and a spirit of charity, beyond prejudices, bad memories and suspicions.
The teachers associated in the AIDU must exercise loyalty and observance, respect for the truth, towards everyone and towards the public good.

Alfonso Barbarisi (2024)

CdEP – Chrétiens dans l’Enseignement Public (France)
(Christians in State Schools)

The association Chrétiens dans l'Enseignement Public (CdEP) was born from the merger in October 2007 of the two former associations "la Paroisse Universitaire" and "les Équipes Enseignantes".

In our view, our place in the secular school and our Christian faith are perfectly reconcilable and mutually fruitful.

Even if we live in a society which is perfectly organised outside of religions, where Christians are more and more in the minority and where the label "Catholic" is discredited, we have the feeling that there is an expectation of the Gospel message in this society. It is true that France is a "secular" state, and the civil servants that we are must have a neutral attitude in the exercise of their functions. At the same time, it is very difficult to ask Christian teachers (often women), who are frequently involved in multiple ecclesial responsibilities, to give life to a specific teachers' movement. But it is in this context that we are seeking to invent new forms of CdEP commitment.

In an increasingly difficult situation, made worse by the pandemic, many staff linked to the National Education no longer believe in their profession, and there are fewer and fewer candidates for teaching. Of course, there are still places where teaching is done in good conditions, but teachers' morale is generally declining, and CdEP's mission to support them seems more necessary than ever. We need to find ways to do this.

Thus, our association aims to be a place to talk, to review one's life, to get back in touch with one's spirituality, with monthly team meetings on a theme, a time of prayer, a sympathetic ear. A four-day session every two years at the end of the summer for the active members, a two-yearly session for the retired members, and meetings of all the generations at the annual general assembly and at the autumn animation meeting are an opportunity to deepen our faith and to reread what we are living in the light of the Bible and the Christian proposal.

Gérard, Chantal, Christine and Jean (2023)

DKPS - DRUŠTVO KATOLIŠKIH PEDAGOGOV SLOVENIJE

(ASSOCIATION OF CATHOLIC PEDAGOGUES OF SLOVENIA)

Foundation of the association: On February 19th, 1989 a group of Catholic teachers and educators of different levels and faculties met at Ljubljana. They decided to meet regularly in order to discuss professional questions and to offer support to one another. The number of participants grew, the association was registered in 1994, but it already became the member of SIESC in 1992.
DKPS offers diverse activities to its members, but also to all other interested persons.

Activities and offers:

- Talks, workshops, and since 1997 permanent professional further formation for teachers and educators,

- various cultural and religious events, excursions and trips,

- days of recollection, spiritual exercises and personal spiritual accompaniment.

- In the group of future teachers and educators young people (students) prepare for their profession. The group is the meeting place where they can e.g. put questions to colleagues already employed, and much more.

- “Human being for others” is a programme within which especially young people do voluntary work.

- Since 1999 the magazine VZGOJA (Education) has been published four times a year. It brings topical contributions in the fields of education and school.

- Every year on the fourth Saturday of September the already traditional meeting of teachers, educators and catechists is organized at Ponivka, the birthplace of the blessed bishop A. M. Slomšek, the patron saint of Slovenian teachers, educators and catechists. This event is important, too, because it is the occasion to express thanks and recognition to meritorious teachers, educators and catechist. They are awarded honorary titles.

The seat of the association is at Ljubljana (DKPS, Ulica Janza Pavla II., SI-1000 Ljubljana; http://dkps.rkc.si) and has 10 branches in larger towns of Slovenia.

Maja ANTIČ (2011)

KIK - Klub Inteligencji Katolickiej Warszawa
(Club of the Catholic Intelligentsia, Warsaw)

Our presence in the world and in the Church

The Club of the Catholic Intelligentsia of Warsaw (KIK) has existed since October 1956. It unites the people who want to live their vocation as lay people consciously in the Catholic Church. The Club is independent of the state, but also of ecclesiastic authorities. It does not represent any political tendency, but it endeavours a reflection on the culture of political behaviour.
The activities of KIK have been inspired by the documents of the Second Vatican Council: Our environment was strongly committed to making these ideas well known in Poland. Our activities are founded on the idea of a social and intellectual Catholicism of a Catholic personalism, in the meaning of the duty of the lay people, who take responsibility for the Church and for the world, and in their ecumenical attitude. The tradition of the Club strongly combines two values: the common good and the spirit of dialogue and mutual respect.
Our spiritual assistant is the rector of St Martin’s Church in the Old Town of Warsaw.

Our concerns in the sphere of the school and of teaching

Among several specialized sections of the Club – the Teachers’ Section is the one where the discussion on the didactic and pedagogical methods takes its place. It’s here that teachers and pedagogues perform. The problems of education are also the main topic of the work of the Family Section – the most numerous one of our Club –, which concerns itself with the children of the members of KIK. There the voluntary educators are formed and helped, who realize their programmes of integration, education and religious formation. In addition to that KIK founded – and managed up till 2008 – the first Catholic social school in Poland.

Our concerns in the sphere of the Church

From the very beginning of its existence the Club has helped the Catholic and the Greco-Catholic Church of Eastern Europe. Moreover, for three decades it has helped a mission in India. We maintain relationships with numerous Catholic and Christian organisations in other countries. We have committed ourselves very strongly in the idea of reconciliation with our Elder Brothers in faith. By means of direct actions and by determining its point of view our Club has become an active participant in the life of the Catholic Church in Poland – the topic of ecumenism is essential here.

Our concerns in other spheres

The KIK of Warsaw – as well as the other Clubs in Poland – was deeply committed to the defence of the human rights, to the restitution of democracy and freedom in Poland in 1989, finally to the process of integration into Europe. Apart from its political role (which diminished with the democratisation of our country) KIK has since its founding been an expanding environment for the formation of lay people. That results in the presence of numerous of its members among the authorities of social organisations, among the responsible persons of numerous Catholic movements or even among the high civil servants. One should here remember the fact that one of the founding fathers of the Club, Mr Tadeusz Mazowiecki, was prime minister at the moment of the fall of communism in Poland. It is also a fact that Mr Jacek Michalowski, now the chief of the bureau of the president, was a member of the executive bodies of the KIK of Warsaw during a lot of years.

Since 1971 the KIK of Warsaw is part of the International Catholic Movement PAX ROMANA. That allowed its members to be in contact with Catholic movements and organisations in the West during the years of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe.

Our concerns for the internal life of the Club

Just as a lot of other social organisations in free-market countries the Club must care for the finances of its activities. Because it was necessary to move our seat, it had to take up a loan, which must be paid back within 7 years.

The Club is always searching for new solutions to reach the new generations of young people with its mission.

Malgorzata WOJCIECHOWSKA (2011)

RKF - Sweden (Riksförbundet Kristen Fostran)

RKF is a Swedish organization that focuses on Christian teachers and parents.
RKF (Christian Association for Childrens’ Upbringing and Education), was founded in 1883 in connection with a large meeting in Uppsala for public school teachers. This was at a time when the position of the Christian faith in school - as well as the church's influence in school and society - was being questioned. (At this time, the Catholic Church in Sweden was very small, and almost everyone in Sweden belonged to the evangelical Lutheran church.) RKF has always been ecumenical, but has a large member base that feels at home in the evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden.
Over time, the association has opened up to families and others who support our vision, and today our second focus is Christian parents. Although our focus is Christian teachers and parents, our eye is always on the best interests of the child. We want to bring together Christian teachers, parents and others who, for the sake of the young generation, want to promote the Christian faith at home, at school and in society. We have been a big association, but for now we are only about 175 members. We see us as a little organization and we have for several decades a steadily declining number of members, which has affected our finances and our room for action. I personally believe that we have approached a point where we can instead grow and be able to do more.

RKF founded 1885 the journal Folkskolans Vän, which today is the web magazine Kristen Livsgrund, with articles concerning home, school and society. (See www.kristenlivsgrund.se) In the web magazine we have a section with articles related to parenting and family. Our web magazine is our flagship, and the ministry I see the most potential in. For every year the article bank becomes much larger, as we add articles but do not remove them.
Furthermore RKF is one of four organizations who stand behind the play channel TV16 on the internet. There we have programs about Christian parenting, short children's films (in several languages), and Bible school lessons.

For several years we have been in contact with SIESC, after some of our members attended these meetings in Europe. It has provided personal contacts and that we as an organization have followed SIESC as an organization. This year we were entrusted to host this year's summer meeting. The meeting provided rich opportunities for personal meetings with people from many countries in Europe. We see that a rapprochement can give us more perspective, knowledge, breadth and not least a larger network for our members who are Christian teachers. This has meant that we have now applied for membership in SIESC.

That RKF is an ecumenical organization and that current members of SIESC are Catholic organizations I personally see as an asset and something that I believe can enrich both RKF and SIESC.

Carl-Henrik Karlsson, chairman/president in RKF (2023)

UCIIM - Italy

UCIIM is a professional association of teachers, headpersons, inspectors, educators and teacher trainers at schools, at teacher training colleges and in further education, founded in 1944 by Gesualdo Nosengo, due to the conviction that school and democracy form the pivotal point of the development of the country.
Our association

adheres to the Council of School Pastoral of the CEI (Italian Bishops’ Conference),
encourages and realizes the spiritual, moral and cultural formation of its members in the sphere of their particular educational mission,
promotes and realizes principles and methods in agreement with Christian thoughts and morals.

Its statute has as its aim the promotion and the realization of programmes of formation and cultural and professional offers for the teaching staff of schools and teacher training and the establishment of plans of recurrent further education of citizens.
UCIIM has its seat in Rome; it is represented in all Italian regions and develops an intense activity of professional reflection by means of complex formation programmes, research and publications.
The association directs its particular attention to topics of education and deepens important arguments of social, ethical and cultural interest such as bioethics, voluntary work, the youth and their training for work, inter-culture.
On the basis of nowadays’ regulations, UCIIM can also stipulate agreements with school institutions or with schools mutually connected by networks in order to proffer its consultation and its supervision over activities of the location itself; it also interacts with other national and European professional and cultural associations, with research centres and universities.
Its national seat is furnished with a multimedia hall of about 100 places, a library and a collection of magazines, and small rooms for workgroups.
With the help of its structures and its own highly competent members UCIIM articulates its formation activities in various spheres and operational fields, including the multimedia approach:

Consultation for projecting and realizing courses of formation;
Activities of tutoring in realizing innovative procedures at schools;
Support for self-formation of teachers and headpersons;
Preparation and support at entering the teaching profession;
Formation of headpersons;
Spreading instruments of studies and support in didactics (magazines, fascicles, books).

UCIIM owns a website www.uciim.it and periodically publishes the magazine of formation and background knowledge “La scuola e l’uomo” and the newsletter “Uciimnotizie”.

Enza GRECUZZO (2011)

VCL - Vereinigung Christlicher Lehrer/innen an höheren und mittleren Schulen
(Association of Christian Teachers at Secondary Grammar and Vocational Schools)

VCL-Austria was founded in 1920, is represented in almost all Austrian federal states and has adopted the following profile some years ago:

The human being as the centre of pedagogy
• We put the pupils in the centre of our work as teachers and see them as personalities with individual dispositions, talents and abilities. Humanity, orientation towards achievement, and striving for justice in chances determine our attitude towards pupils.
• We promote a continuous development of the quality of secondary grammar and vocational schools and a school climate furthering mutual support and cooperation of the school partners.
• We offer meetings open to all and consider them to be contributions to the development of self-confident, capable and well-informed teachers in the fields of teaching, education and school organisation.

Participation in forming our society
• We reflect fundamental questions of education, formation and teaching based on our orientation towards values.
• We start initiatives in school and educational policy as well as in questions of education and teaching. We want to develop what has been proved and to be open for changes. That’s why we try to influence school reforms, changes of educational laws and the continuous improvement of curricula.
• We aspire, as an organisation independent of political parties, after the cooperation with decision-makers in all parties and among representatives of social groups.

Orientation towards Christian values
• We find our orientation in the Christian value system. That’s why we set a high value on honesty, social responsibility, openness and tolerance.
• We promote an education oriented towards Christian values and demand taking into consideration the dimension of education referring to an outlook on life and ethics in the teaching of all pupils.
• We, as an association on our own, independent of church hierarchies, are open to all who stand up for Christian values.

Support for teachers
• By means of our magazine VCL-News and our website (www.vcl-oe.at) we spread first-hand information. Our encounters and fact-finding meetings allow an exchange of thoughts and the experience of community and solidarity.
• We offer further training for teachers to support their personal and professional development.
• We strengthen the identification of teachers with their profession and work deliberately for a positive image of teachers in public.

Which topics is the VCL concerned with at the moment?

Value education in schools, e.g. by introducing obligatory ethical education for pupils not taking part in any religious education.
Maintaining a point of view towards the new plans concerning the formation of teachers: demand for a formation of teachers of the same value, but not the same form, on the master level.
In addition to that an important emphasis is laid on pedagogical practice: Examples proved successful and worth following shall be publicized, especially in our nationwide medium VCL-News, in order to give an insight into the actual everyday life at schools and to appreciate the actual achievements of the large majority of colleagues, who unfortunately much more rarely make the headlines than exceptional outsiders and black sheep.

Publishing the quarterly VCL-News, manifold activities in the Bundesländer associations (organisation of meetings, panel discussions, talks …) and collaboration in the representative federal bodies of professional politics (ÖPU, see www.oepu.at) all serve to focus the public discussion on what committed teachers who want to promote and challenge their pupils in the best way possible really need: appreciation, support, and the necessary framework for work of high quality and value!

Isabella ZINS (2011)

THE CONCERNS OF THE MEMBER ASSOCIATIONS OF SIESC
Report by Yves Calais, November 2010

0.1 Limits of the report
Its aim is to state the situation and to provoke the reflection of the national associations and the Council of SIESC based on features of identity.
It is limited to the life of SIESC in the international meetings, in the bulletin SIESC-Today, in communications and discussions at the sessions of the Council. It cannot take into account everything that the associations live and say themselves, that appears in their publications and their assemblies; and positions of the associations are only mentioned there as illustrations of this attempt of typology.

0.2.      The framework within which the presence in the world and in the Church is realized and the concerns are lived
There are obviously different ways of presence in the world and in the Church, even if the life and the formation of teachers is always primary. They are shaped by the aim of the associations and they condition the expression of their concerns.
One can distinguish 4 rather different types of presence, always bound to the history of each country and to the relationships lived there between society, family, school, state and church.
-          Associations are committed as such in the functioning of school institutions. The Italian UCIIM and the Austrian VCL have their elected representatives in official bodies and participate as such in the public discussion. For UCIIM that happened recently on the career of teachers, the courses at schools and the position of the teaching of Catholicism in schools. For the VCL on the experiments of comprehensive schools for the 10-14-year-olds, the formation of teachers and partly centralized leaving exams. That is a position one would consider a Christian trade union’s in certain countries, but it doesn’t imply less the care for cultural and spitirual animation of teachers.
-          Associations participate, without intervening as such in official bodies, in public discussions by expressing their opinions on a certain number of items which seem important to them. Thus the German VkdL has opposed a too early schooling of children at nursery schools, one element of its position on the role of school and family in education.
-          Associations develop proposals which can then be taken up by official bodies. The Code of Ethics of the Slovenian association DKPS was partly taken over by the ministry.
-          Associations don’t intervene directly or only exceptionally in the discussion themselves, but they propose or support a personal formation in which everybody can find the resources for his/her proper positions, which he/she then realizes within the framework of other associations. That was the case of the Paroisse Universitaire in France; the new association Chrétiens dans l'Enseignement Public will doubtlessly intervene more.
Concerning the connection of associations with institutions of the Church, especially the bishops, of each country, there is the diversity which centuries of history have shaped. On the level of the universal church, the relationship of SIESC as an international organisation is established with the Roman institutions and with an acknowledged association as Pax Romana et especially Pax Romana Europe.
So the framework of their presence in the world and in the Church is one of the elements of identity of each member association of SIESC, a reflection of each of their countries. The orientation which the presence in the world and the presence in the Church follow is another element; its diversity is not analysed here. SIESC is their place of forming relations and of collaboration, without interference with respect to their diversity.

1. The internal life of the associations
It is obviously their primary concern to realize their aims and therefore to ascertain the best quality of relations between their members.
Based on reflection, the activity of the associations is mainly directed at the organisation of conferences or evening meetings, whole-day encounters and sessions, publications with their profane and religious features. One spends a lot of energy on the service for the members who can profit by it and, in addition to that, on the radiation of the association.
Almost everywhere, even more in Western Europe, there arise the problems of renewing the members and the responsible persons, and of incorporating the new generations.
The international concern is rarely present, apart from international commissions established by certain associations.

2.         Concerns of the school systems
2.1       Reforms and projects of reforms of programmes and amount of lessons as well as examinations are observed closely by the associations directly involved in the professional activities. Those intervene according to their objectives and their proper ways, following decisions taken according to their statutes.
2.2       The conditions and the modifications of religious instruction are especially observed in the countries in which that instruction is integrated in the common curricula as a compulsory or optional subject, and even more where its integration as a subject in the course of studies is called into question.
One can state that interest is mainly directed at the structures and less often asks about the contents of that instruction or the problems of catechesis proper (cp. 3.4).
2.3       The problems of ethical education play a very important role in an association like the Czech UKPCR, the choice of values, the ways of teaching them, their foundation and their acceptance in the Czech society, which is taken as being given.
2.4       The problems of the connection between school and the whole of society are put in the foreground by an association like Paroisse Universitaire - Chrétiens dans l'Enseignement Public (CdEP) in France. There the respect for all convictions in public schools of a country at the same time multi-religious and secularized, multiethnic, is strongly present as a major element of living together; the sense of citizenship and the education to citizenship are derived from it according to a certain concept of laicity. In the Italian UCIIM the connection between school and society is dependent on a different configuration, where Catholicism has a privileged position in the national culture.

3.         Concerns within the Church
3.1       In general the concern with the Church appears less important than the concern with the school system. That may be so because it seems evident and not worth while talking about. Or more often because it enters little in the scale of responsibilities of one or the other, as the responsibility for the Church is essentially considered as belonging to the competence of the clergy and of secondary importance for the laity; that brings a certain concept of the Church into play.
3.2       In the associations very directly involved in professional activities the concern with the Church mainly takes the form of supporting the positions of the hierarchy on school matters. The other associations express agreement or reservations or often make other proposals.
3.3       In the associations not or very little involved in professional activities, the concern with the Church is mainly directed towards the global relationship of the Church and society. Paroisse Universitaire has introduced the general worry for the message of the Gospel in front of the secularisation of society (meeting at Nantes), in front of the plurality of the large religions and religious or non-religious convictions (meeting at Pau); that worry has widely been shared at the meeting at Agrigento in 2008 on the inter-religious dialogue.
The concern with the unity of the Church and the ecumenical dialogue is mostly little noticeable; it manifests itself only exceptionally, even if Protestants and Orthodox Christians participate in the summer meetings.
3.4       The concern with the catechesis of youngsters attending schools is not primary in the teachers’ associations. In SIESC it was only strong at one moment, at the time of some work organised by Pax Romana. And yet the teachers find themselves indirectly involved by the fact of the weltanschauung which they transmit by means of their teaching and which contributes to forming the spirit of the pupils.
3.5       The worry about the culture of Christian milieus, contemporary profane and religious cultures with their reciprocal effects on one another, appears only rarely. And yet that is the breeding ground in which the Christian mentalities and consciences are developed, breeding ground of the societal milieus of our pupils and of ours, the teachers’.
3.6       The celebration of God in liturgy and in arts, biblical culture take a variable part in the associations and their implication is expressed in SIESC only at the occasion of the international meetings.

4. Personal comment
This report, to be completed, refined and discussed, also makes appear two features which can partly explain the difficulties to renew the members of our associations:
- a certain fixation on the school, which for the preceding generations during their active time was the major place of their commitment of their whole life, while for the younger generations it is simply a workplace, often just one like others.
- an attention to contemporary problems, of personal, cultural or religious range, which has not always grasped the culture break between the generations. The commitment in the very contemporary reality doesn’t exclude their being rooted in a history that the older generations know, having lived it, having been the active persons in it or having been nourished by it. It’s there that the dialogue of generations must take place.
That reflection will no doubt in a lot of points fit in with what our associations reflect in their questions on their active presence for persons, for the world and the Church today and on their testimony of Jesus Christ.

SIESC - European Federation of Christian Teachers

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