Timeline of the life story of St. Pedro Poveda
Written by Super UserThis timeline presents data and dates of events in the life of St. Pedro Poveda Castroverde. It is an instrument that is not intended to exhaust the richness and diversity of his activities, pursuits, writings and initiatives, but it seeks to facilitate understanding of this Saint.
Saint Pedro Poveda was responsible for a mission in the Church and decided to offer it so that others might live it, too. He was given the gift to bring people together. He called others to live at the service of God in the heart of the world, in everyday life, living out faith and vocation in the tasks entrusted to everyone in society. His call was to serve, to offer the best, always imbued with faith. He offered a way to rally around an idea that drew no boundaries, rather it tried to merge into daily living with the efficacy of yeast and salt. He offered an agile Christian community with a basic organization composed of lay men, and especially laywomen, who tried to respond in faith and within the Church to the Gospel of Jesus and to society.
After his apostolic experience in Guadix between 1901 and 1905, he crossed Spain from North to South. At the Shrine of Our Lady of Covadonga, between the Cave and the Basilica, as canon, as a priest close to pilgrims, and as young person of his time concerned with the enormous problems related to education in the Spain of those years, he deepened into the importance of the social role of education and the need for teachers who were well prepared and lived their faith in a consistent and responsible way. He published several writings on educational issues and the formation of Catholic teachers. He remained in Covadonga until 1913.
With his conviction and "praying at the foot of the Santina (Our Lady of Covadonga)" he opened in Oviedo the first center dedicated to implement his idea. He called it "Academy," located it near the Teachers School, and placed it under the patronage of Saint Teresa of Jesus. This way, in 1911 he began in Oviedo the first Teresian Academy. This first Academy was followed by many others all over Spain and by university residences, professional women's associations, schools, publications, and various projects in response to society with professional dedication and deep Christian convictions. Around his works and actions, a significant spiritual and educational movement with broad impact in different cities of Spain was generated.
In 1913, from Jaén, he continued to drive the Work of the Teresian Academies. At the same time, he participated in various cultural initiatives in the city and numerous evangelizing tasks as Professor of the Seminary and of Teaching Schools. In Jaén he met Josefa Segovia, who had finished her studies at the Teachers College of Madrid and he asked her to lead the new Academy he was planning to launch in that city. Josefa Segovia accepted and she eventually became one of his main collaborators and the first director of the Work of the Academies that were starting to take shape.
In 1914 Pedro Poveda launched in Madrid the first Women's University Residence of Spain. In 1917, the Work of Poveda, which had already evolved into the Teresian Association, received ecclesiastical approval in the Diocese of Jaén as an Association of the faithful. From the beginning it was constituted as a lay institution, under the patronage of St. Teresa of Jesus, just as it had been from the start. The intention to adopt the lifestyle of the early Christians was made explicit, and it pledged to dedicate its efforts to education and culture, the specific emphasis of its mission.
In 1921 Pedro Poveda moved to Madrid because he was appointed royal chaplain. In the capital of Spain, with more and better possibilities for the promotion and development of the Teresian Association, he participated in the social, apostolic and ecclesial life of the city. He was part of the Central Commission against Illiteracy and of the Hermandad del Refugio, coordinated associations of Catholic students and Catholic parents, and he continued guiding and promoting the Teresian Association. He continued being involved in the human and professional formation of its members, many of them working in public positions.
On January 11, 1924, Pius XI approved the Teresian Association. Poveda continued dedicated to his educational work and to the development of the Association. Convinced that "knowledge sits well with sanctity of life" (1932) he opened new residences, created Associations and was one of the main promoters in the project of a Catholic University in Spain and other European countries. In 1928 the Teresian Association began expanding into other countries, with Chile being the first to carry forward the training of teachers in a Teachers School in the capital of this Andean country. This Teachers School, called Saint Teresa Teaching School, soon became the focus and motor to foster the Work in American lands. Currently, the Teresian Association lives and works in many countries.
In the last years of his life, Poveda insisted on nonviolence as a means to resolve conflicts. "There should be no illusions –he wrote in 1935- gentleness, meekness, and kindness are the virtues that conquer the world." On July 27, 1936, when he was 61 years old, and just after he had celebrated the Eucharist, he was arrested at his home in Madrid. He did not hide his identity as "a priest of Jesus Christ." The following morning his body was found protected by the scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
Around his Beatification in 1993, Cardinal Eduardo Pironio wrote: "We touch the deep soul of Poveda, his true identity, the very rich source of his life and his work. The Teresian Association is the best fruit of his priesthood. Poveda was a great educator, a true apostle of youth, a great promoter of youth, a great promoter of the lay apostolate, a promoter of women's participation in the life of the Church and civil society, an admirable evangelizer of culture. But, above all, he was a priest. "
On May 4, 2003, he was canonized in Madrid by a holy pontiff, John Paul II.
The Teresian Association is an International Association of Lay people of the Catholic Church, whose purpose is to seek to promote human advancement and transform social structures through education and culture, sharing in the evangelizing mission of the Church. Saint Pedro Poveda founded it in Covadonga (Asturias, Spain) in 1911.
Its members are women and men who live Gospel values, seek a serious formation and carry out the mission of the Teresian Association in social and educational State structures and private institutions through the exercise of their profession, with the same charism, style, and spirituality. They carry out their vocation through their respective associations, each with specific characteristics.
There are also youth movements, as well as socio-educational movements, alumni associations and collaborators who share in the spirituality and charism of the Teresian Association.
The name “Teresian” is inspired by Saint Teresa of Jesus (Avila), who in the words of St. Pedro Poveda, lived "a life that was fully human and totally God-centered."
For more information: www.institucionteresiana.org
1991 - 2011, Timeline: one hundred years of the Teresian Association.
Approach to the Pedagogical Anthropology of Pedro Poveda
Written by Super User
By ÁNGELES GALINO CARRILLO.- This presentation discusses the pedagogical anthropology of Pedro Poveda with the desire to deepen into the relationship between his educational concepts and the man or woman to educate in accordance with them. This is not aseptic, as it might seem. Judging by the educational meetings –or conferences-, or by specialized publications, discussions focus on content, methods, techniques, organization, and others. Fundamental issues of pedagogy. However, relatively rarely the subject to be formed emerges at the forefront, the one about whom educators could and should say: "I am here because you are here."
Well, among the fundamental issues raised by different pedagogical anthropologies, in a synthesis of synthesis, it is worth mentioning the following two:
- What can be drawn from the human way of being to understand education? This question seeks to know and guide education and its practice in accordance with the essential reality of man. It creates a kind of discourse that is not directly addressed in this talk.
- What does the universal fact of education tell us about the essence of man? This question seeks to reach the human being from the perspective of education. This will necessarily lead, in turn, to education itself. This, in general terms. In our case, what does Educator Poveda say about the human way of being and living which underlies and, at the same time, inspires his pedagogy?
Based on this question, my presentation interprets certain significant characteristics of the educational proposal of Poveda, namely: the subject of education from the point of view of gender, the centrality of the educational process and educational institutions, to infer from them the conception of the human person that inspires them and to which they aim.
I will make use of written text, actions and oral testimony, the three avenues that lead us to the author.
THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION
"The educability of students is the fundamental concept of pedagogy," wrote Herbart." “From evolutionary educability we find traits in the noblest animals, he continues, but the educability of the will for morality we only recognize in man." Given the conditions for educability, the human being, born imperfect but bursting with possibilities, is philosophically and scientifically established as the subject of education.
I quote Herbart because this author became well known in the second half of the last century and is one of the most appreciated by Poveda.
Fr. Pedro is also among the thinkers who see educability as an essential category of human beings. I will not go into the substance of the matter, namely the ability to educate oneself belogs exclusively to the human being as such. However, it should be clarified what, in his view, means taking education as an essential category of human beings, from the point of view of gender.
(To read the full article, download the attachment, in Spanish, at the bottom of this page). ).
ÁNGELES GALINO CARRILLO
Professor Emeritus at Complutense University of Madrid.
In Atreverse a educar. Pedagogical Conference, Pedro Poveda educador. Vol. 2. Narcea Ed. Madrid 1998
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A new educator for a new society. The educator in the educational proposal of Pedro Poveda
Written by Super User
I have always been attracted by the booklets of Pedro Poveda on his educational project to found an “Institución Católica de Enseñanza” (Catholic Institution of Teaching). I was impressed by his desire to make "credible" his proposal to join the efforts and wills of teachers towards a common action: raise an educational movement and create institutions that would support this endeavor, establishing networks of mutual help in the professional work of educators.
In the 70s, this thought was accepted by a majority of teachers in Spain. It is the time of the great movements of pedagogical renewal, of believing in education as a transforming force of our social reality.
But the picture has changed substantially. Although global reports strive to present education as a key element of the "world resolutions" (King and Schneider, 1991), the aim is not merely instrumental and utilitarian but it is "aimed at the full realization of the human being, in all his wealth "(Delors, 1996). Teachers, in general, go through a dark and critical period in their professional development and teacher discomfort is a reality in many of our educational institutions.
Hargreaves expressively summarizes this situation at the end of his work Professorship, culture and Postmodernism:
"Teachers know that their work is changing, just like the world in which they operate. To the extent that the current structures and cultures of teaching are left as is, the task of responding to these complex changes and accelerate them away from isolation will only create a greater overload, intensification, guilt, uncertainty, cynicism, and massive abandonment. " (Haargreaves, 1996, p. 287).
I wanted to stress "away from isolation" because none of the suggested changes at the structural and cultural level in the field of education (or in any social field) are possible to perform in isolation. Knowledge is always a collective work of a human group.
And here is where I want to place the educational proposal from Poveda to educators. His context is very different from ours. The languages and the needs are very different, too. Also, reflection and study on the professional development of teachers has been enriched by indubitable contributions worldwide and in our country. Moreover, the need to identify the professional fields of educators has grown dramatically. Professional development in non-formal education is a path that is strongly affirmed, not without difficulties. So why do I still believe in the validity of his proposal?
Throughout these months, I have been reading slowly texts from Poveda as well as the action taken by him. I think Pedro Poveda initiated a dialogue with educators that still continues.
The look
He looked at the reality of his time and told them about it. He invited them to look at it, to understand their needs, their expectations, their potential, their shortcomings, the forces of social, cultural and political action that moved them. But he also invited them to discover the depth of the mystery that gives meaning to life, transcending everyday reality without isolating it. This reflective capacity that we discover in Poveda is born out of the careful observation and commitment to reality, comprehensive and dynamic.
Today, he again invites us to look with sympathy at the world but also at our own reality –at the processes and people, institutions and life and discover their demands. How does the context affect educators? What are the forces, the potential for change that can occur within the current sociocultural processes?
The educator as protagonist of change
From this perspective, attentive to the reality of his time, projects emerged. And he offered to educators those projects of educational change. He counted on educators to build them. He thought of them to develop the projects. He believed they would not only be able to implement them but to project, dream together, build a culture of solidarity, where social groups hitherto excluded from it, would find a place. Thus they would be protagonists of change.
Today, again we need to understand ourselves as educators, strengthen our personal and professional recognition, strengthen our identity and the traits that define it.
We need to know ourselves capable of projecting a valid education for our students, immersed in a world characterized by fragility and fragmentation of socialization processes, traditionally linked to family and school. How can we talk to these generations, so different from ours?
The formation and action of educators as a community service experience
And Pedro Poveda started by doing. When in the last years of his life, he goes over his own history, he explains why he decided to take that step. "I invited everyone. Since no one undertook the implementation of the project, I started the first Academy as a means of giving shape to the idea. " (Poveda, 1935, cit. By Velázquez, 1987, p. 22.)
True to himself, Poveda, without giving up the project, starts a modest, concrete realization to give shape through this experience to his initial idea. But he was not alone in the way. No educational project is done alone. He began by inviting others to an action that required mutual support, solidarity, and teacher training. Since the proposal did not focus merely on a new curricular offering or a new methodology, but aspired to contribute, in a modest but real manner, to social transformation, the action he invited to was oriented to trigger learning processes, educational climates that would give rise to a new culture.
Today, since the educational field has expanded its action arena, the offer of Poveda suggests a way to introduce ourselves to them, if what we wish is to collaborate in the social reconstruction of our world. How can we create a culture of collaboration in our institutions? How can we work, within our everyday life, the research of our own practice, the training of professionals and educational action? How can we weave there a new style of relationship that allows us to make us better people, without closing ourselves in the comfortable niche of friends, but opening ourselves to the elements of an extraordinarily complex and violent world, which many times closes its borders to immigrants and at the same time is learning to navigate the information superhighway? How can we move forward in solidarity, knowing that we need each other in an interdependent world?
These are some of the concerns that guide our reflection on the educational proposal of Poveda for educators today.
(To read the full article download the attachment, in Spanish, at the bottom of this page).
In Atreverse a educar. Congreso de Pedagogía, Pedro Poveda educador. Vol. 2. Narcea Ed. Madrid 1998MARGARITA BARTOLOMÉ PINO
University of Barcelona
In Atreverse a educar. Congreso de Pedagogía, Pedro Poveda educador. Vol. 2. Narcea Ed. Madrid 1998
- Un nuevo educador para una sociedad nueva (1565 Downloads)