Living Don Bosco's Pedagogy: Relevance and Application Today

1. Questions • Don Bosco speaks from the experience of someone living in a Catholic culture… • Can his approach be applied in our post-Christian age?

2. Questions • Don Bosco’s experience was with adolescent boys and young adults… • Does his approach work with girls… • Does his approach work with children?

3. Intensely lived • the art of positive education by putting forward what is good through appropriate experiences which call for the involvement of the pupil and are attractive;

4. Intensely lived • the art of producing growth in the young persons ‘from within’ by appealing to their inner freedom to oppose external conditioning and formalism;

5. Intensely lived • the art of winning the heart of young people so as to inculcate in them a joyful and satisfied attraction to what is good, correcting deviations and preparing them for the future by means of solid character formation.

6. Focus • “The preventive system is more attuned to the person than focused on the generic demands of education.” Francesco Motto

7. Context • “We are talking about the ordinary environment in which the young persons lives, and it is there that the salesian educational path begins… which is a path to holiness”. Luc Van Looy.

8. Don Bosco’s language Insights into the vocabulary that John Bosco used when describing Christian education

9. Preventive System • Prevention? • Preventive? • Praevenire: go before • show the way… • trail blaze! • “A lamp to my feet”

10. Preventive System • This is more clearly seen when the derivation of ‘preventive’ is understood. • It derives from the Latin praevenire: ‘to precede’, ‘to anticipate’, ‘to go before with spiritual help’ • The term includes deep intuitions, precise options and methodological criteria

11. Assistance • Assistere: • To be there where it is happening! • To be a participant • To be actively present!

12. Reason • To reason… • Discuss • Put forth ideas and point of view • Debate • Have your say and listen to their say • Dialogue

13. Reason • the term “Reason” refers to that whole range of human activity which is the matter of education • “Reason” emphasises basic human values such as the freedom and dignity of the individual, the primacy of conscience, the goodness of creation and culture, and the worth of work and social living

14. Religion • “Religion”, indicates that his pedagogical approach is essentially transcendent, that it emerges from and is oriented towards relationship with God • Don Bosco’s educational activities were not restricted to religious education classes and active moral formation

15. Religion • Morality • Faith • Purpose • Compassion • God’s tender presence in the everyday

16. Kindness • Amorevolezza • Loving-kindness • Gentle • Interpersonal • Affectionate

17. Kindness • “Loving-kindness” is more a daily attitude of love that has the good of the other at heart and which works so that the students realise their potential with growing independence • Rather, it is an attitude expressed in practice in the commitment of the educator as a person dedicated to the good of the students

18. Kindness • Loving-kindness also implies much about the atmosphere in which education occurs • It is an atmosphere marked by a “family spirit” in which there is mutuality in human relationships and a full range of joyful and stimulating educative activities.