ST. JOSEPH'S
FERNTREE GULLY, VIC‑
3156.7582929
No. 7 STAFF BULLETIN
DISCIPLINE ‑ THE "LITTLE
WAY"
Back to the topic of discipline once more; this time not as a comment on
the classroom scene, or from the point of view of one who is peeved or upset by
poor discipline or the lack of it. No. I believe we are all conscious of the
need for discipline, are doing much to pursue a right approach and practice in
the matter. These thoughts below are an attempt to present my own personal
stance and theoretical basis, and to offer it to others as a possible element
in their own understanding. I would certainly like to be able to discuss the
issues raised therein with persons interested in so discussing.
Somehow the mention of "discipline" brings clouds to the horizons
of the adolescent outlook. The word sounds sacriligious in the unholy racket of
a corridor at change‑of‑period time. Add to that the extra‑curricular
touch of courtyard chaos and one may well ask, with a new twist to an old
question: “Discipline, where is
thy sting?" And then there is the peculiar quality of the childlike which
is not irreverence, quite, but the next best thing: for "the exalted shall
be humbled" is a first principle of childhood!
Discipline and education might seem yoked together like love and marriage
or the horse and carriage. But what kind of discipline for
what kind of education? Could it be that traditional Western education,
owing so much to Plato, or Rousseau or Dewey, has taken the intellectual path
where discipline is order imposed for the purposes of instruction? While not
denying the need for that, I cannot help but feel that the word
"Discipline" must be taken back to its roots ‑ the disciple.
Disciples, at least in the Christian dispensation, seem to be more passionate than pedantic and
more at home on the winding paths of
I have reflected often on the nature of discipline in the school, the
Catholic school, the Salesian school. Disciples, those who are the model for
the Catholic school, must articulate a discipline particular to their
journeying, for they are Followers of the Way. Maybe a school which articulates
its discipline within this model is spelling out the ‘Little Way’. Lewis
Carroll used the image of the little door which led to the glorious kingdom;
Jesus spoke of the narrow door which was available to those who would be
childlike. This leads me to explore anew the insight of Don Bosco who certainly
appreciated Jesus' teaching about the child and similarly gathered youngsters
about him as he moved through the countryside. Young people do things
passionately ‑ they run, jump, kick footballs and catch frogs with
undiminishing energy and commitment to the task. Don Bosco saw that discipline
must adapt to that sort of energy. Eclectic he may have been, drawing ideas
from educators both religious and humanist, but the whole is never the sum of
its parts. Salesian education, and consequently Salesian discipline, is a
powerful amalgam of Scripture, Christian tradition and good old human common
sense. From men such as
I do not know how much Greek Don Bosco knew ‑ not much I suspect. I
wonder if he knew that the latin word 'schola' from
which we get our word school comes from the Greek "skole" which means
leisure? If Don Bosco did not know it, I suspect he intuited it. For him the
opposite to leisure was not work, as it seems to be in
our 20th century mentality, but laziness and inactivity. School was essentially
a place for activity of some kind. Now active youngsters need little imposed
discipline. Discipline in their situation is that of the game, and we all know
how effective that can be and how acceptable it can be to the players. Very
often it is self‑imposed.
In the games and leisure moments of the young person, Don Bosco saw his
"Reason" ‑not the intellectual debates of the scholars, but the
natural exuberant experiences of the young for whom cheerfulness and order are
of the same ilk. In youngsters Don Bosco had found, I believe, the "Little
Way" of ordinary pursuits, simple, commonplace and so loved by them.
Yet Don Bosco's greatest insights into discipline lay not in the discovery
of the principle of reason seen through the nature of the child, but in the
nature of the balance he found between love and fear. That balance he found in
the personalities of two great Followers of the Way, both of whom were
forceful, impatient, tempestuous characters who controlled their lives with the
sweetness of Christ. Paul and Francis.
Paul's sanctity lay obviously in his ability to be all things to all men.
It would be easy to quote his dictums of love, wherein he rises to superb and
lyrical heights, and to assume that Don Bosco based "Religion,' on that.
But Paul spoke too of a God who sometimes chastises to show his love. Paul
could fulminate with the wrath of God. We flinch as we hear Paul word‑whip the Corinthian revellers out of their drunken
orgies, or those who would lead the weak astray. He
was, as I read recently,
"an unrelenting gnat on the rump of the Roman world". Paul's letters
of love are as earthy, human and wordly as they are divine. Religion, a la Paul
of Tarsus, faces the problem of recalcitrant human nature with prodigious
energy. Better the feather duster (or whatever cheerful token of corporal
punishment might occasionally be required) than Paul's solution in Galatians
And thank God for Francis! Maybe the Protestants of the Swiss Cantons of
his time were not as unruly as the Corinthians. Certainly we do not find the
Pauline barbs or invectives in the writings of the gentle Bishop of Geneva. Yet
his arrival amidst broken crosses, burnt down Churches
and shouting mobs must have sorely tempted a man who was no mean swordsman and
a hot‑head to boot. Christlike kindness won the day.
Enough. I have gone on too long.
Fr. Julian