Salesian Schools

The Salesian Schools is the name of the educational institutions rule by the Salesian Congregation of Don Bosco or those which are using his methods.

Vision

The Salesian School is dedicated to young people in an educational and formative environment. The Salesian School is a house, a church, a playground and a school where the students find a new style of life and prepare their future as good citizens for their country being faithful to their own religion.

The Preventive System

The figure at the center of the Salesian College is Saint John Bosco or Don Bosco, who is also known as "Father, Teacher and Friend of the Youth". Don Bosco was a visionary of 19th century Italy who could create a fascinating system of education for boys and girls from marginalized areas of any society. "Prevention" for Don Bosco means to help the youth before he or she gets in troubles. The Salesian School can be used in remote villages of Congo with farmer boys or in the most busy avenues of New York with urban youth.

Don Bosco's system has three aspects: Loving kindness, Reason and Religion, three aspects that are object of study by scholars along the 20th century, but that is combined in the figure of Don Bosco who introduced an education based in reason and love and looking to the mysterious essence of human life. "I promise you bread and Paradise", he used to say.

Salesian Schools are famous for their strict discipline and order while avoiding any kind of physical punishment while the Salesian teachers are used to study the meaning of Preventive System. In Latin America, the Salesians have been a key factor in the formation of national curricula of studies while helping street children gain an education. A Salesian School where the Preventive System of Don Bosco is the main factor of its history, creates an environment to which children want to belong and which has programs and activities. The Salesian School involved also the family, as the system holds that family and background are as important as the students' performance in school. Salesian Schools give a lot of importance to the Association of Parents and other kind of groups where parents are invited to participated beside their kids.

The culture

Being in 124 countries, Don Bosco could be seem as a kind of "globalized" education imposing the same conceptions. Culture is very important to Don Bosco and he respects the local and national identities. What can be considered "global" is the system itself with Don Bosco at its center, but every Salesian School keeps its cultural identity. Only within this context, the Salesian Schools have been welcomed in 124 countries, even in nations with religions different from Christianity. There are Salesian Schools in countries like Pakistan, India, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia where Islam and Buddhism are dominant. Those States not only recognized the value and quality of the Salesian education, but many of them invited the Salesians to settle in their countries to educate their youth.

The Past Pupils

The Don Bosco Past Pupils alumnae association proves what the Salesian Schools mean to their students. When Don Bosco was alive (1815-1888), his past pupils honored him thanking what he did for them and many of them wanted to give something in exchange. Many of them became very important benefactors of the Salesian work around the globe, while others join efforts to benefit the new generations. The Association for Past Pupils that is still active and growing to become one of the most important Associations of its kind in the world.