Saint John Bosco believed that the best way to stop bad behavior was to prevent its occurrence in the first place. To that end, he recommended the following principles and practices:
1. The teacher must make all rules and regulations clearly known and be sure that pupils always remain carefully supervised at all times. Like an affectionate parent, the teacher should “converse with them, take the lead in every movement and in a kindly way give advice and correction.”
2. The teacher needs early on to establish a warm, personal relationship with each child, so that the child admires and trusts the teacher and therefore desires to please him or her by living up to the school’s standards.
3. When this relationship of trust has been established, a gentle preventive warning given in private after a fault has been committed may be all that is necessary to prevent a further occurrence and to protect the child’s dignity. Thus he is less likely to suffer humiliation and lingering resentment. Much misbehavior is the consequence of youthful thoughtlessness rather than malice: children easily forget and then suddenly find themselves “in trouble.”
4. If a gentle warning does not prove effective and the bad behavior persists, the teacher takes a series of steps designed to intensify supervision and the clarification of consequences. [In the case of chronic misbehavior, the school will initiate a process outlined in our Student Handbook.]
Such a system requires much more effort and skill on the part of the teacher than the more traditional, openly authoritarian method. To that end, Angelus Academy provides regular training and supervision of our faculty to help them acquire these skills. We believe that, difficult as it may be, this approach ultimately yields the richest and most enduring harvest of virtue in the student. In Saint John Bosco’s own words:
“By the preventive system pupils acquire a better understanding, so that an educator can always speak to them in the language of the heart, not only during the time of their education but even afterwards. Having once succeeded in gaining the confidence of his pupils he can subsequently exercise a great influence over them, and counsel them, advise and even correct them, whatever position they may occupy in the world later on.”
| 