St. John Bosco`s Pedagogy of the Heart

Pedagogy of the Heart: Reflections on
St. John Bosco’s Educational
Philosophy
Young Bosco’s Dream
http://salesianity.blogspot.com/2010/04/don-boscos-dream-at-age-of-9.html
It Begins: Dec. 8, 1841
http://memoirsofdonbosco.blogspot.com/2007/09/december-8-1841.html
And Continues…
• “Three days later Bartholomew brought
eight of his friends, and so my work for
young people got started.”
• By Don Bosco’s death in 1888: 250
Salesian houses in all parts of the world
containing 130,000 children & annually
turning out 18,000 apprentices.
• By 1888 over six thousand priests had
gone forth from his institutions, 1,200 of
whom stayed in the society.
• The society continues to operate
worldwide; in 2000, it counted more than
20,000 members in 2,711 houses. It is the
third largest missionary organization in
the world.
Two Ways in Education
According to St. John Bosco
http://www.popcatholicschool.org/websites/popcatholicschool/images/docs/Dis
cipline%20of%20St%20John%20Bosco.pdf
The Repressive System
• Consists in making the law known to the subjects
and afterwards watching to discover the
transgressors of these laws and inflicting the
prescribed punishments.
• Instructors must be severe in looks and words, must
avoid all familiarity with students and must rarely
mix with them.
• This system is easy for teachers to implement –
especially for large group instruction (e.g. army
training).
The Preventative System - I
• Concerns itself with creating the optimal positive
personal, instructional and community
environment and preventing anything that
would give rise to negative experiences.
• Is animated by a profound belief in the strength
of the good already present in the young, even
the most needy, and seeks to educate (ex-“out”;
ducere-“to lead”) this goodness.
• Focuses on ‘leading out’ the best in the child,
aiding him/her in the acquirement of habits that
will lead him/her to opt in favor of what is good,
healthy, joyful and life-enhancing.
The Preventative System - II
• Believes in the centrality of REASON characterized
by reasonableness of requests and rules; of
RELIGION understood as developing the sense of
God present in every person and illuminated by
the teachings of the Faith; and of LOVING
KINDNESS expressed as an educative love that
enables growth and brings about a meeting of
minds and hearts.
• Is supported by educators working vigilantly in the
midst of students & keep them focused on the
positive.
The Preventative System – In A
Nutshell
• St. Bosco to a bishop: "Your Excellency surely
knows that there are two systems of education:
the repressive and the preventive. The former
leans on force to repress and punish the guilty;
the latter relies on gentleness to help the subject
obey the law by offering him the most suitable
and effective incentives. This is our method.”
• St. Francis de Sales: “There is nothing so strong
as gentleness and nothing so gentle as real
strength."
The Goal
• Don Bosco formulated his program for boys in
simple but meaningful statements.
• He spoke of forming “good Christians and upright
citizens”
• He focused on the “health, wisdom and holiness”
of his boys and proposed a lifestyle comprising
“cheerfulness, study and piety.” What Don Bosco
did for his boys, he desired to do for the girls,
through St. Maria Mazzarello who became
Mother Superior of the Salesian Sisters of Don
Bosco (Daughters of Mary Help of Christians).
The Method
The Salesian Battle Cry:
 Reason
 Religion
 Loving Kindness
One reference: http://kreativdsyns.blogspot.com/2011/05/salesian-spirit-and-donboscos.html
Reason
• Basically synonymous with fairness, reason “… consists
essentially in disposing the pupils to obey not from fear or
compulsion, but from persuasion.”
• The rules of good behavior must be reasonable and essential;
their necessity for living happy, holy lives must be clearly,
patiently explained and exemplified.
• Focuses on a progressive enlightenment of the minds of the
young, opening them to the world, to the realities of life and
the appeal of values such as the dignity of work, the goodness
of creation and culture, etc.
• Stresses the use of common sense, keeping simple, avoiding
anything artificial & the relationship between faith and reason.
Religion
• While reason refers to human activity and human
relationships, his treatment of religion shows that his
pedagogical approach emerges from and oriented to
relationship with God.
• He believed that humankind cannot reach fulfillment without
a lived & lively faith in the God of Jesus Christ (cf John 10:10).
• He proposed a very practical religion: the turning of all the
circumstances of life into occasions of loving God & serving
others with joy, bringing into the world a living & active faith.
• Religious practice was part of the natural rhythm of daily life
in his Oratories. As he liked to put it “the columns of an
educational edifice are the Eucharist, Penance, devotion to
Our Lady, love for the Church and its pastors.”
DON BOSCO’S DREAM OF
TWO PILLARS
Loving Kindness - I
• Don Bosco gave first priority to personal relationships. He
liked the term “family spirit” to define the educatorstudent relationship.
• Long experience had convinced him that without familiarity
it was not possible to show love, and unless love is shown
there cannot arise that confidence which is an
indispensable condition for successful educative activity.
• If an encounter is to be educative it needs intelligent and
loving attention to the aspirations of students, to their
situations of life and to the local models which surround
them.
Loving Kindness - II
• "The practice of the Preventive System is wholly based on
the words of St Paul: 'Love is patient and kind, it is always
ready to forgive, to hope, and to endure whatever comes'.”
• Loving Kindness is rooted in the charity of the Good
Shepherd. It is the key that gives access to the heart of every
young person.
• It is expressed in the commitment of the educator as a
person entirely dedicated to the good of his or her students,
present in their midst, ready to work hard.
• It is a daily attitude of love that has the good of the other at
heart and works to enable students to realize their potential
with growing independence.
Loving-Kindness - III
• “If you want to do good, then you must combine charity
with candid frankness”.
• “Loving kindness … while surrounding the child with a
genuine and heartfelt love, avoids every form of false
affection.
• In a very real way, this dimension of Don Bosco’s
pedagogy exemplifies the Church’s teaching on the
ultimate purpose of catechesis; namely, “The whole
concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to
the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed
for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must
always be made accessible” (Preface to Roman
Catechism, 1566; Prologue to Catechism of the Catholic
Church, Prologue, 1992).
Symbolism of the Salesian Logo
Evangelizing Activity &
Educational Work - I
• John Bosco attained so great a dedication of himself to
the young, in the midst of difficulties sometimes of an
extreme nature, because of an intense charity that
united in him in an inseparable manner love of God and
love of his neighbour. In this way he was able to
establish a synthesis between evangelising activity and
educational work.
• Its practice predisposes the educator to welcome God in
the young, recognizing their dignity and convincing them
time and again that in them God offers the grace of
Encounter and communion.
Evangelizing Activity &
Educational Work - II
• His concern for the evangelization of his boys was not
limited to catechesis alone, nor to liturgy alone, nor to
those religious practices which call for an explicit exercise
of faith and lead to it, but covered the whole vast sector of
the youth condition … not losing sight of defects but at the
same time optimistic about progressive maturing, in the
conviction that the word of the Gospel must be sown in the
reality of their daily living so as to lead the boys to a
generous commitment of themselves in life.
• “Don Bosco realised his personal holiness through an
educative commitment lived with zeal and an apostolic
heart, and that at the same time he knew how to propose
holiness as the practical objective of his pedagogy.”
John Paul II’s Letter Iuvenum Patris “Father of Youth”
Improving Our Serve
Some Practical
Considerations
in the
Application of St.
John Bosco’s
Educational
Pedagogy
Practical Applications
1. “LOVE MUST ALWAYS BE THE MAINSPRING OF THE HEART.”
 St. Bosco wrote that his system is entirely based on love and
that educators must practice its defining virtues (cf. 1 Cor.
13) themselves in order to obtain educational goals.
 He insisted that love is the educator’s language – the
language of the heart – and that no good can come from
education until a young person has opened his/her heart in
confidence.
2. “KEEP JESUS BEFORE YOU”
 He bore patiently with the ignorance and rudeness of His
apostles…Well could He command us, then: ‘Learn of Me,
for I am meek and humble of heart.’
 We must not allow the shadow of anger to darken our
countenance…let the bright serenity of our minds immediately
disperse the clouds of impatience.
 Self-control must rule our whole being-our mind, our heart, our lips.
When someone is at fault, arouse sympathy in your heart and
entertain hope in your mind for him; then you will correct him with
profit.
 In certain difficult moments, a humble prayer to God is much more
useful than a violent outburst of anger. Your pupils will certainly draw
no profit from your impatience, and you will not be edifying anyone
who may observe you.
3. “THE PRIMARY HAPPINESS OF A CHILD CONSISTS IN
KNOWING ONE IS LOVED.”
 Teachers seen only in the classroom are simply teachers. If they
mingle with the students outside the classroom, they become
brothers and sisters.
 Each day the educational leader should address
a few kind words to the students giving advice
or counsel concerning what is to be done or
what is to be avoided. He should try to draw
some moral reflection from facts which have
happened during the day in the school or
outside; but he should never occupy more than
two or three minutes. This is the key to a moral
life, to good conduct and to success in
education.
 In every young person, even the most difficult,
there is a vulnerable spot for good. The first
duty of an educator is to find it.
A Few Concluding Reflections
• Witnesses, Not Just Teachers
 On Evangelization in the Modern World - Art. 41)
 Religion & Reason and “overgeneralizations”
 Love for each other
- “See how much they love one another”
- Tale of the Three Monks
•
Fearfully & Wonderfully Made
& The Weight of Glory (next slide)
•
Moses & the Burning Bush, Scars & Seeds
•
Prayer & Living a Sacramental Life
There Are No Ordinary People
It is a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most
uninteresting person you talk to may in eternity either be a
creature which you would strongly be tempted to worship
or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if
at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some
degree, helping each other to one or other of these
destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming
possibilities…that we should conduct all our dealings with
one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a
mere mortal.
- C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf
“Remember that Education is a Matter of
the Heart…”
Remember that education is a
matter of the heart, of which God
is the sole master, and we will be
unable to achieve anything unless
God teaches us, and puts the key
in our hands. Let us strive to make
ourselves loved, and we will see
the doors of many hearts open
with great ease, and join with us
in singing praises and blessing of
Him who wished to make himself
our model, our way, our example
in everything, but especially in the
education of the young.
Prayer to St. John Bosco
O glorious Saint John Bosco, who in order to lead young
people to the feet of the divine Master and to form
them in the light of faith and Christian morality did
heroically sacrifice yourself to the very end of your life
… obtain for us from Our Lord a holy love for young
people who are exposed to so many seductions in order
that we may generously spend ourselves in supporting
them against the snares of the devil, in keeping them
safe from the dangers of the world, and in guiding
them, pure and holy, in the path that leads to God.