From the first generation up to the Synod on Young People (1888–2018)

Can an educational experience change a thread in the pattern of history? It seems there are some significant examples of a positive answer to the question - and the story of Don Bosco, founder of the Salesians, is one of them. The research published in this volume studies the pedagogical formulations of successive Salesian generations and, in terms of method, attempts to overcome the sterility of purely documentary reconstructions.

The intention to connect John Bosco with today’s educational challenges passes through different time periods with their various ways of thinking. These mentalities reinforce some new pedagogical ideas while neglecting others, prefer certain modes of action, develop reflections, some prophetic and courageous, others rather leaning towards the current mentality or to certain crisis management solutions. These changes move pendulum-style between pedagogical viewpoints and are addressed in six chapters:

1. Statements on pedagogy by the first Salesian generation
2. A practical pedagogy of osmosis
3. Adverse times call for disciplined fidelity
4. Vatican II: Before, during, after
5. Planning and animation
6. New evangelisation and education for the third millennium

Michal Vojtáš is a Salesian of Don Bosco, chair of Salesian history and pedagogy in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome and director of the Don Bosco Study Centre at the same university. In the area of Salesian pedagogy and educational leadership he has published the volumes Progettare e discernere and Reviving Don Bosco's Oratory.