For a light that you felt inside. Empathy and formation in Edith Stein
Anita Gramigna, Carlo Rosa
The title of this article, which reproduces a Franco Battiato’s song phrase, dedicated to Edith Stein, synthetize the educational meaning of an interiority that is gift. In this point of view, the aim of this work is to think over how to provide training for teachers, which can deal, efficiently, with the relation between empathy and teaching. The epistemological background is hermeneutical, and the methodological approach is qualitative. The strength of Edith Stein’s philosophical and pedagogical research concerns not only the best relationships that people can establish among themselves, but in particular the relationship with the human deity of Christ. In the light of this mediation, attesting the author’s «desire for heaven», we have considered three consistent and topical factors: the centrality of the community experience for the realization of the person; the peculiarity of feminine in the form of universal maternity; the education as the result of a empathic relation of teaching and learning, direct to the discovery and implementation of the talents; hence, finally, the educational centrality of emotions in the learning process.
Keywords
Empathy, education, spirituality, emotion, Edith Stein.