Rome (Italy). On 4 April 2024, the sixth and last appointment of the 2023/2024 will be held of the Salesian Thursdays at the Auxilium, curated by the Studies Center on the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians of the Pontifical Faculty of Education Science “Auxilium” in Rome. The 2023/2024 program, in continuity with the insights realized for the 150th Anniversary of the FMA Institute, has as its unifying theme: Preventive System. Salesian Education yesterday and today.
The online meeting is dedicated to a dialogue with several voices, by four teachers of the Pontifical Faculty of Education Science “Auxilium”, on the Preventive System today, to deepen some aspects starting from the results of a research that was carried out on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians.
The theme is the result of a research journey started in the summer of 2021 and presented in 2022, thanks to the synergistic work of an international team of 24 FMA, of different backgrounds and institutions, coordinated by the Faculty.
The survey involved about 500 people, including FMA and lay people from the 5 continents. The whole experience, from the planning phase to the implementation up to the presentation of the results, offered participants and, through them, institutions and educating communities, an opportunity for reflection, exchange, and comparison on some key elements of the Preventive System.
The results were presented at the Conference “Contribution of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians to Education (1872-2022). Paths Challenges Prospects” that took place in Rome from 25 to 30 September 2022, and published in the Acts of the Conference.
The online meeting will begin with a brief presentation of the research and will focus on one of the groups surveyed – “In every young person there is a point accessible to the good” (J. Bosco) – in which, through targeted questions, three interconnected dimensions were explored: meanings and convictions; motivational drives and values; skills and strategies.
Data from the research show that out of just over 1,300 encoded segments, only 18% refer directly to vision, 20% to motivational drives, and 62% to action.
This result leaves an open question: How to interpret this tendency to speak little of meanings? A first consideration concerns the need to promote in educators reflection and awareness of the vision in educational action.
The first intervention is by Sister Enrica Ottone, FMA, Professor of Social Pedagogy, who will present the approach, the methodological aspects, and some research results.
Sister Magna Martinez, FMA, Professor of General Teaching, will help to deepen the meaning and implications of this axiom, “In every young person there is a point accessible to the good,” in the context in which the phrase of Don Bosco is inserted.
The third intervention is by Sister Martha Séïde, FMA, Extraordinary Professor of Theology of Education, who will offer a reflection to help understanding how to interpret the tendency of respondents to speak little of meanings and how to explain the Christian vision from the theo-anthropological point of view.
In conclusion, Sister Lucy Nderi Muthoni, FMA, Professor of Dynamic Psychology, will present a psychological reading of the expression of Don Bosco: “In every young person there is a point accessible to the good.”
From all the contributions, a challenge emerged in a recurring and transversal way. The educator’s need to stop and reflect on action and in action to act in an increasingly conscious and intentional way in the awareness that the place of mission is also the place of our formation. The strategy seems to be to promote reflective, transformative, and collaborative learning, “in the field”.
Source: pfse-auxilium
