Humanist and Pedagogue.  That is how UNESCO recognized him in 1974 at the celebration of his first centenary.

“Whoever is following up the current pedagogical movement must admit that never before was known in Spain the effervescence that we notice now in teachers, nor the enthusiasm with which the media covers the elementary education and the teachers formation.  And I deduce that this matter must be taken up seriously and be studied with interest… Up to now we have gone through a period of preparation, which is a necessary precedent, and today we face the critical moment” (Around a Project, 1913)

During the first decade of the twentieth century, Poveda studies the ample panorama of national life with a special interest in the world of culture and education. He publishes articles and pamphlets on topics of teaching and pedagogy whose epistemological statues are becoming established.

“That these topics are themes of interest, who doubts it?
That the well being of the nation depends greatly on their correct solution, who can deny it?”
“That in order to solve them satisfactorily we need time, competence and study, who ignores it”? (Around a Project)

These are years dedicated to reading, reflecting and getting information, years in which he discovers his deep vocation: a man of faith that commits himself to dialogue with modernity.

Before so ample a panorama, the topics of education take on for him special importance and urgency. Following his own motto, “he began by doing and teaching”

I- A HUMANIST EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

The pedagogical humanism of Poveda takes on the most obvious meaning of this expression, that of focusing education on the person, on her individual reality and social slant. Poveda offers a humanist educational system, fundamentally concerned with the development of persons as such, and, only from there, persons capable of confronting life against the mystery of God.

He sums up his proposed ideal in a declaration with a programmatic character:

 “ The Incarnation well understood, the person of Christ, his nature and his life, give to those who understand it the surest norm to become holy, with the truest holiness, being at the same time human with a true humanism.”  (Correspondence, 1915)

What does Poveda tell us about the underlying human being that, accordingly, inspires his pedagogy? Undoubtedly, any conception, legislation or educational system contains, in its core, an idea or an image of the human person.

Poveda will always lean on that set of talents and dispositions that make men and women educable, that allow them to receive influences and to react before them with modalities specifically human: responsibility and aspiration to good. The analysis that he makes of this reality reads: education is not just a useful ingredient of human qualification but something absolutely necessary that is the right of every human being and not the privilege of a minority.

From this vantage point, Poveda, at the beginning of the twentieth century, has declared the theoretical and realistic basis in order to cement the locus of women within the contemporaneous pedagogical humanism. Poveda takes the lead in dealing with the issue of educability from the genre perspective: who and how many are they, how are women educated and formed. He thus inaugurates the culture of the difference, reacting against the quiet routine that keeps declaring greedily and drop by drop the female possibilities.  Poveda believes in women, he addresses their cause and recognizes their authority.

The social aspects of education constitute for him a Christian demand of his humanism  The seed, already stated in his thought and in his work in Guadix, constitute an essential aspect of his message.

In this way, the social perspective occupies a key position in the ‘Povedan’ pedagogy within the scope of the formative process. A perspective that struggles against the modern idolatries of power, money, technology, hedonism and superiority; that is immersed in everyday life, in the emergent movements that rediscover the transforming power of little gestures and implicates itself with the marginalized and with all forms of exclusion and violence.

II – FREEDOM AND GOOD

In addition, in the Povedan conception, the correct exercise of freedom is identified with “freedom to do good, never fearing censure or what people may say”. The Povedan pedagogy, offering participation and fostering creativity, overcomes the climates of fear.  To educate the freedom of the young he hardly set up norms. He, however, demands persons that serve as a reference, good teachers.

In Poveda, the moral education is geared to make men and women for others, open and sensitive to the needs of others, accustomed to do good simply; men and women whom society can catalogue as good.

Pedro Poveda proposes an experiential progress of the intellectual solidity and of the rectitude of the moral conscience. That is, of the two fountains of wisdom: to discern what is true and to love what is good. To the young and the adolescent he gives a brief advise with a personal touch: “At your age you will have spent many hours studying and thinking about the sciences and the arts, but how many hours have you dedicated to think about your own self? Why that fear to enter within your self?”

III – A PERSONALIZED, OPEN AND COMMUNICATIVE EDUCATION

Poveda speaks of “taking pedagogy seriously” and resolves on three objectives: to contribute a program, to devise projects and to create institutions. This is what it means for him to take pedagogy seriously. This is his way of building a future. Programs emerge from those that feel committed to the here and now. “I, that have my head and my heart in the present moment,” he’ll say during his years of maturity.

If his pedagogical humanism orientates education towards the human person both in her individual reality and in her social slant, so too do his programs. Such programs, on taking up the individual reality, give evidence to the centrality of persons, centrality that is understood from the hope in the possibilities of the human being. He endorses a type of  a personalizing pedagogy, one that is open and communicative.

Personalizing because it addresses the person from values that serve as goal and guide:  motivation, expansiveness and cheerfulness, serenity and equilibrium, the urgency to construct through tolerance and service to others; and to stimulate all this, initiative and creativity as a condition to bring to fruition the psycho-spiritual resources of each individual.

Open so as to harmonize humanism, tradition and modernity, mind and heart with the aim to launch a dialogue among the agents of education: family, school, associations, information media, and friends.

Communicative so as to stimulate an interactive current of thought among all those participating in the educational process leading to the personal growth of every one involved. Communication in relation to the cultures of origin and with the common patrimony so that each person may not only recognize herself but also may participate in a common process of personal and communitarian transformation.

IV – THE VOCATION OF THE EDUCATOR

Poveda has paid special attention to the need of the subject that progressively gives form to her/his desire to find his/her place in life, to project himself/herself into the future.  It is a subject who, with more or less lucidity, hears a call:  a vocation.  “There is a decisive moment for everyone in life, and this, if handled well, is often the beginning of happiness” (Maxims for Christian Living, 1910).  A vocation stirs up, incites, reveals, guides and signals a direction that is not coercing.  In these reflections of Poveda, a vocation comes from God, it appears related to the search for meaning in life.

The vocation of the educator has for Poveda an exemplar function. This “educator of educators” dares to demand, as a fundamental characteristic of the educator, an unconditional love in terms of his/her willingness to educate others. On different occasions he has referred with Pauline tones to this love that is self-sacrificing, patient, that never judges negatively, that hopes everything and endures everything. It knows how to respect the different without ever attempting the assimilation or control the disciple. The educator gets close to each one while preserving his/her own identity.

Aware of the fundamental role of those educating themselves in the task of educating others, he dedicated most of his energies to propose and realize initiatives geared to facilitate the formation of teachers. With the creation of the Academies and of the Pedagogical Centers, he placed innovative ideas and resources at the service of personal growth of educators for their implementation in the classrooms. The cause for the success in this field, writes Poveda, “is and will always be the vocation of those great pedagogues, the vocation of those that today profess love for teaching, and the vocation that their successors will receive”.

Likewise, Pedro Poveda is recognized with his own space in the history of education; he dedicated his writings and his activity to implement his projects that led to the creation of institutions – founder of the Teresian Association whose cultural and educational work is extended in 30 countries – and to offer his collaboration to the initiatives and projects of others. Initiatives geared towards the literacy of the underprivileged and their insertion in society, to the pedagogical actualization of teachers and their social recognition, to the education of women and their access to the exercise of their professions.

His affirmations on what education should be will always be bound to concrete experiences, to the test of truth that is contained in his very actions, to the continuance of his ideas in countless educators of yesterday and of today that have given and are now giving form to his proposals. Hence, his being granted a space among the pedagogical searchers and the achievers of the XX century, offering at the same time humanistic and pedagogical perspectives capable of yielding fruit in the XXI century for the benefit of human beings and of cultures.

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