Analysing the educational presence, like presented by Don Bosco in the biographies, means that we have to analyse these documents to see how he in a narrative way describes his own role in the lives of these youngsters. Even if he doesn’t mention himself by his own name, sometimes we find, certainly in the lives of Savio, Magone and Besucco, direct and indirect references to himself.
Because the lives of these three boys are well known we want to add to our analysis three other names of less known biographies written by Don Bosco: Pietro, Valentino and Severino. In their biographies, we can find similar indications concerning the educational presence, and we learn what the absence of a good educator means for the life of youngsters.
The biographies are for Don Bosco a narrative way to talk about the goal of his pedagogy in the Oratory and thus they contain a lot of elements regarding his theoretical educational concepts.
Before analysing in the second paragraph the educational presence and his influence on the choices youngsters have to make, we start recalling some other writings of Don Bosco himself in which the role of the educator is explained.
Analizzare la presenza educativa, come quella presentata da Don Bosco nelle biografie, significa che dobbiamo analizzare questi documenti per vedere come egli descrive in modo narrativo il proprio ruolo nella vita di questi giovani. Anche se non si menziona con il proprio nome, a volte troviamo, certamente nelle vite di Savio, Magone e Besucco, riferimenti diretti e indiretti a se stesso.
Poiché le vite di questi tre ragazzi sono ben note, vogliamo aggiungere alla nostra analisi altri tre nomi di biografie meno note scritte da Don Bosco: Pietro, Valentino e Severino. Nelle loro biografie possiamo trovare indicazioni simili riguardo alla presenza educativa, e apprendiamo cosa significa l’assenza di un buon educatore per la vita dei giovani.
- 1. The reference figure and the educational presence in some writings of Don Bosco
- 1.1. The double meaning of the sacrament of reconciliation
- 1.2. The young and even older Giovanni Bosco guided by others
- 1.3. The short method “concerning the choice of one’s state of life” in the Giovane Provveduto
- 2. Choosing the own state of life and the role of the educator in the biographies written by Don Bosco
- 2.1. The formative proposal in the biographies of Domenico Savio, Michele Magone and Francesco Besucco
- 2.2. The role of the educator in the life of the youngsters
- 2.3. When the educator is not what he is supposed to be
Reference time period: 1837 – 1881
W. Collin, The ‘educational presence’ in the biographies of young people written by Don Bosco. The Salesian educator present as a help in the vocational realization, (Forum salesiano Vienna 2018 su Come Don Bosco camminare con i giovani, La presenza educativa) in https://sites.google.com/site/forumsalesianoitaliano/documenti/vienna2018.