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Friday, September 26, 2008

Educate With Patience and Love

In my early years, when I heard the word “Don Bosco” the first thing that came out of my mind was it was an outstanding school with prominent and high class students. Not knowing that the word Don Bosco is a person’s name. Who really was Don Bosco?

St. John Bosco was a priest and at the same time an outstanding educator. He founded a religious congregation named Salesians of Don Bosco as it is called by now. He educated young people especially the poor ones and taught them good values. He didn’t just educate them but he also played with them and formed them into good Christians and honest citizens of this world. His ideas and theories have found acceptance in our present century as they are being practiced and taught.

It is important to know him and live his values because these are useful in forming ourselves to become good educators. In knowing Don Bosco, the most important values that he had when he educated the young, were the virtues of patience, love, temperance and perseverance. In fact, he practiced an educational methodology known as the Preventive System. A system anchored on the three pillars of reason, religion and loving kindness and implemented through active presence. This is why he is so good in educating young people. He also had good works not only in educating the young to become good Christians but also as responsible citizens in their countries. He lent his helping hand to his needy country men. In fact, when cholera attacked his native country, he sent his boys to help the people who were in dire need. The thing that inspired me most about St. John Bosco was his patience for his boys. As an educator, the virtue of patience is of paramount importance especially in educating and forming the young. You cannot love and persevere without the presence of patience. Teachers like you and I should follow his ways because this is very helpful in dealing and teaching people.

We must always remember that we not only teach our students but also love them just as what Don Bosco showed his boys. Let us make Don Bosco as our model in educating young people. Since we teachers are teaching in a Salesian school or setting, I encourage you to follow his ways by simply having patience and loving your students. I hope that this talk has given you additional knowledge about him and his works in educating the young. I would like to end with a quotation that came from the words of St. Francis the Sales, whom Don Bosco admired so much and took as his model in his ministry among the young. He said, “you can catch more flies with a teaspoon of honey than with a barrel of vinegar”.

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