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/Discipline%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-don-boscos.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 educator-student 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.

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.

Prayer to St. John Bosco