Bogdan Stańkowski – “Giovanni Bosco and young people in the master-apprentice relationship perspective. Upbringing implications in view of work with socially-maladjusted youth” in “Con Don Bosco educatori dei giovani del nostro tempo”

It is difficult to perceive the teacher-student relation as a master-apprentice one in the contemporary upbringing reality of school or other educational institutions. Post-modernism has negated in a certain manner the importance of straining for perfection and for that reason any afterthought on the roles of a master and apprentice in upbringing seems to be groundless. Still, in the context of a Polish pedagogy, there are scholars interested in a dialogue-oriented perception of the teacher-student relation, viewed as the one of master-apprentice.

The author of this article wants to explore the phenomenology of Giovanni Bosco’s encounter with his pupils. He also wants to explain two explorative issues: a) what are the characteristic features of Giovanni Bosco’s relations with his pupils and what are the resulting implications, and b) how socially-maladjusted youth perceives their educator and how such teacher-student relations fit into the category of the master-apprentice dialogue?
Not only contemporary scholars of the Bosco’s prevention system but also documents of the Salesian Society still encourage a new perception of the system, particularly in view of working with socially-maladjusted youth. The elaborations in the first part are theoretical and have been conducted on the basis of the available literature on the subject-matter. In the second part, the author presents the results of his own studies, conducted among socially-maladjusted boys in the Salesian Youth Education Centre in Trzciniec (Poland).

INDEX

• Introduction
• Phenomenology of Giovanni Bosco’s encounter with his pupils – educational implications
  • Giovanni Bosco comes into pupils’ everyday life
  • Encounters characterised by a readiness to “experience” another person
  • Dialogue between a master and an apprentice in terms of “becoming”
    a more mature human being
  • Encounters with Giovanni Bosco orienting towards true values
  • The role of authority in the master-apprentice relationship vs optimal personal development of pupils
• Some clarifications on methodology of author’s own studies
• Perceiving adult tutor by socially-maladjusted boys – study results Reference

Reference time period: 2015

Reference institution:
Direzione Generale SDB

Università Pontificia Salesiana (UPS)