letter from the president

All rigidities had to be eliminated, solidarity had to be created instead of competition and classification, orderliness had to be avoided, windows had to be opened and fresh air had to be let in, and children had to stop seeing the school as an oppressive place.

These approaches, then novel, have been implemented, with varying success and different nuances, almost throughout Spanish education. Still more in the human and moral aspects than in the didactic ones.

The second step, twenty-five years ago, already in a democratic society, consisted in opening up to the plurality of languages. The same didactics, the same coexistence, in a multilingual environment: English, French, German, Italian and, more recently, Mandarin Chinese. We have established contact, collaboration and exchanges with twenty-five schools in different parts of the world. Our students got used to travel, to live with Swedish, Italian, American, Irish, etc. families. By videoconference they worked in collaboration with Czech, German and Greek colleagues. And they lived – and live – the diversity of customs from a rural Sardinian world to an intellectual and university group in Los Angeles.

Now, by launching the Foundation, we want to act in two new fields: One, that our students gain access to knowledge and collaboration in cultural and social realities new to them: the Hispanic and African third world, where they must learn that our reality is not limited to the West and where -we want- they must use their enthusiasm, their affectivity and their imagination to help transform it into a better world. Another, the desire to extend our educational successes to social groups that have never had access to this intellectually elitist education, which has always been reserved for the social group that could “pay” for it.

Intellectually elitist” framework, but not socially elitist. Self-demanding, critical spirit and the firm conviction that education serves and must serve to create a better world is what defines this intellectual “elitism”, although specific, not exclusive to the European Lyceum.

But, in another communication, I will remember the many friends, acquaintances and colleagues who have developed parallel or similar projects. Now, I simply intend to explain the main objectives of the European Lyceum Foundation, counting on the human team that composes it to express these concepts with greater detail, accuracy and breadth.

The President of the Foundation,

Arsenio Inclán