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Manuals
Conduct of Christian Schools:
SECOND PART - CHAPTER 6
MEANS OF ESTABLISHING AND MAINTAINING ORDER IN SCHOOLS
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CHAPTER 6
Absences
Article 1
Regular Absences and Absences with Permission 8
Some students ask permission to be absent regularly on every day in the week for a certain length of time each day. This may be accorded them in moderation and for the following reasons, after they have been carefully investigated.
For example, certain students may sometimes be permitted to absent themselves from school during the week on market days to go to work or on account of their employment. This permission may be given provided that the absence is not in the afternoon and is only for the purpose of going to work and for nothing else. Some may be allowed, for the same reason, to come to school in the afternoon every day. However, no student will be permitted to come to school only in the morning. It will also not be permitted any student to come only at 9:00 in the morning or at 3:00 in the afternoon. Besides the fact that this disturbs the order of a school, many other students would want to do the same. Nor must others be allowed to come to school in the afternoon and to go away before the Catechism. All students must be present at the Catechism as well as at the prayers every day. Nevertheless, for weighty reasons, students who work may be permitted sometimes, and those of the writing class daily, to come in just as school begins in the morning in order to read or to write, and to leave before the end of school. This permission presumes that they come also in the afternoon and are present at the Catechism and at the prayers.
Article 2
Irregular Absences and Those That May or May Not be Permitted 9
It sometimes happens that the students ask permission to be absent on Sundays and holy days. Some wish to go on trips or to go to visit their relatives; others wish to go to some village celebration or to some confraternity. None will be permitted to absent themselves from the Catechism on Sundays and holy days for any of these reasons except upon rare occasions and only when their parents ask it for them.
On school days, students will be permitted to go on pilgrimages to places which are a distance from the town and at which there is ordinarily a great concourse of people. This absence will be permitted when they go with their parents and when it is evident that it is only devotion and piety which impels them. However, they will not be allowed to absent themselves from school to be present at processions. The exception is the procession of the Blessed Sacrament during the octave of the feast, if it happens to be held in some parish on a day on which school is kept.
The students will be permitted to absent themselves from school on the feast of the Patron Saint of the parish in which they live, provided it is a solemn feast and is celebrated by the parishioners.
Students whose fathers follow a trade may be permitted to absent themselves from school on the feast of the Patron Saint of their fathers' trade. However, they will be required to come to school in the afternoon.
Children will be permitted to absent themselves from school in order to buy stockings, shoes, and so forth. They will be permitted to absent themselves even to have their clothes mended. However, these permissions will be given only when it appears absolutely necessary and when the parents cannot choose another time.
No student will be permitted to be absent on Monday and Tuesday before Lent. This practice, which should be considered of very great importance, will be very rigorously observed.
Article 3
The Causes of Absences and the Means of Preventing Them 10
When students are frequently absent from school, it is either through their own fault, through that of their parents, or through the fault of the teachers. The first cause of absences of students proceeds from the students themselves. It is because they are frivolous or undisciplined, because of their wildness, because they have a distaste for school, or because they have little affection for or a dislike of their teacher.
Those who stay away through frivolousness are those who follow the first idea that comes into their minds, who go to play with the first child they meet, and who ordinarily act without paying attention to what they do.
It is very difficult for students of this sort not to absent themselves from time to time. All that can be done is to deal with them in such a way that their absences are rare and of short duration.
Such students should be corrected only a little for their absences. This is because they will again absent themselves on the next day or on the first occasion afterward. They will reflect neither upon what has been said to them nor upon the correction that they have received. They will be induced to come to school more by gentleness and by winning them than by correction and harshness.
The teachers will take care, from time to time, to stimulate children with this type of mind and to encourage them by some reward or by some outside employment if they are capable of undertaking it. Above all, they will never threaten them with correction.
The second reason why students absent themselves is lack of discipline. This is either because they cannot be subjected to remaining a whole day in the same place, attentive and with their minds busy, or because they love to run about and play. Such children are ordinarily inclined to evil, and viciousness follows lack of discipline. For this reason, it is necessary to seek, with very great care, a remedy for their absence. Everything should be done to anticipate and to prevent it. It will be very useful to assign them some office in the class. This will give them a liking for school and will sometimes even cause them to become an example to the others. Much must be done to win them and to attract them, at times being firm with them and correcting them when they do wrong or absent themselves, but showing them much affection for the little good they do and rewarding them for little.
The third reason why students absent themselves is because they acquire a distaste for school. This may be due to the fact that they have a new teacher who is not yet sufficiently trained. Such teachers do not know how to conduct themselves in school. They at once resort to corrections, or they are too lax and have no order or silence in the classroom.
The remedy for absences of this sort is to leave a teacher neither alone in a classroom nor placed solely in charge until thoroughly trained by a teacher of great experience in the schools.
This is very important for the welfare both of the teachers and of the students. It is important in preventing frequent absences and various other disorders.
The remedy for teachers who are lax and who have no order in their classrooms will be for the Director or the Head Teacher to watch over them and require them to account for all that takes place in the classes. They will particularly be required to account for their actions when they have neglected to look after the absent or have been remiss in any of their duties, however small and of however little consequence it may appear.
The fourth reason why students absent themselves is that they have little affection for their teacher. This is due to the fact that the teacher is not pleasant and in almost every situation does not know how to win the students. This kind of teacher resorts only to severity and punishments, and consequently the children are unwilling to come to school.
The remedies for this sort of absence will be for the teachers to endeavor to be very pleasant and to acquire a polite, affable, and frank appearance, without, however, assuming an undignified or familiar manner. Let them do everything for all of their students to win them all to Our Lord Jesus Christ. They should all be convinced that authority is acquired and maintained in a school more by firmness, gravity, and silence than by blows and harshness, and that the principal cause of frequent absences is the frequency of the punishments.
Parents are the fifth principal reason for absence. Parents either neglect to send their children to school, or do not take much trouble to make them come or be assiduous. This difficulty is quite common among the poor, because they are indifferent to school, persuaded that their children learn very little, or for some other trifling objection.
The means of remedying the negligence of parents, especially of the poor, is to speak to them and make them understand their obligation to have their children instructed. They should understand the wrong that they do to their children in not making them learn to read and write, and how much this can harm their children, since lack of this knowledge will leave the children incapable of any employment. Then they must be made to realize the harm that may be done their children by lack of instruction in those things which concern their salvation, with which the poor are often little concerned. Secondly, since this class of poor are ordinarily those who receive alms, a list should be given to the parish priests of all those who do not come to school, their ages and their addresses. This is done in order that no alms be given their parents and that they may be urged and obliged to send their children to school. Thirdly, an effort must be made to attract the children of people like this and win them over by every possible means, which can often be done with success. Ordinarily, the children of the poor do as they wish. Their parents often take no care of them or even idolize them. What their children want they also want. Thus, it is enough that their children should want to come to school for them to be content to send them there.
When parents withdraw their children from school to make them work while they are too young and not yet sufficiently instructed, they must be made to understand that they harm them a great deal. To have their children earn a little, they will make them lose a very much greater advantage. It should be explained to them how important it is for an artisan to know how to read and write well. It should be emphasized that, however limited the child's intelligence, the child that knows how to read and write will be capable of anything.
Parents must be urged to send their children to school if not for the whole day at least for the entire afternoon. It will be necessary to watch very carefully over children of this sort and take care of them. To obviate the problem of having parents complain because their children learn only little or nothing and so they wish to withdraw them from school, Directors or the Inspectors of Schools must watch with great care over all of the teachers under their direction. They must particularly watch those of lesser ability. They must see to it that they instruct as diligently as possible all of the students who are entrusted to them; that they neglect none and that they apply themselves equally to them all, even more to the more ignorant and more negligent; that they keep order in the schools and that the students do not absent themselves frequently. The freedom children have in being absent is often the cause of their learning nothing.
The sixth principal reason why students absent themselves frequently is either because the teachers are too complacent in bearing with those who are absent from school without permission or because they too readily give permission to be absent.
To provide a remedy for this problem, every teacher must be very exact in watching over those who go to visit the absent. Every teacher must make sure that these visitors go to the homes of all of the absentees, that they do not let themselves be deceived by false reasons, and that they afterward report to the teacher the reasons that have been given them. Secondly, the teacher who receives the absentees and excuses their absences is to require their parents to bring them back, and is to receive no student back in the school who has been absent without first knowing and investigating well the reason given for the absence.
The reasons ordinarily are that their parents needed them, or that they have been ill. Others are absent because they are delinquents.
For the first reason to be good and valid, the need must be great, and also be very rare. The Inspector or the teacher will not accept the second reason if the student has been seen outside the house or playing with other children. Every teacher will be sure that those who visit the homes of the absent see all the ill students and report on the state in which they find them.
As for the delinquents, the Inspector or the teacher will observe what has been said above in the article on students who must or must not be corrected. They will not correct them themselves, but will oblige the parents to correct them at home before permitting them to return to school.
Those who have been absent without permission under the pretext that their parents needed them must not be easily excused. It is ordinarily the same ones that are guilty of this fault. If they repeat it three or four times without troubling themselves about it, they must be sent home and not received at the school again until they as well as their parents are ready to ask permission for every absence from school.
When a student asks permission to be absent, the teachers must always appear reluctant to grant permission. They are to investigate the reasons well, and when they find these good and necessary, they will always send the student to the Head Teacher to obtain the permission. The Head Teacher will, however, grant the permission only after great difficulty. The Head Teacher will never listen to a student who asks for a permission that has already been refused.
Absences for trivial reasons will be rare. This is a matter about which the teachers must be very careful. It is better to send students home than to permit them to absent themselves frequently, for this sets a very bad example. Three or four students will be found in every school who always ask permission to absent themselves. If it is granted, they will easily lead others to absent themselves without reason. It is better to send students of this sort home and to have 50 who are very assiduous than to have 100 who are absent at every moment.
However, before sending students home for these or other reasons, the teacher will speak with their parents several times, and explain to them how important it is that their children should come to school assiduously and how it is otherwise almost impossible for them to learn anything, since they forget in one day what they have learned in several. Students will not be sent away from school unless it appears that both they and their parents are not concerned about it and do not profit at all by all that it has been possible to say to them in this matter.
Finally, before sending away students on account of absences or for anything else, it is well to make use of the following means to remedy the situation: (1) deny the rewards for assiduity gained by a student who has been absent, even with permission; (2) do not promote the student to another level or to another lesson the next month even though the student knows how to read perfectly or is capable of being promoted; (3) make the student stand for several days in school or make use of some other penance that will embarrass the student, will be unpleasant for the parents, will incite the student to come punctually, and so will oblige the parents to force the child to be assiduous. 11
Article 4
How and by Whom Absentees Should Be Received
and Their Absences Excused 12
The Director will appoint one teacher in each school to receive back to school the students who have been absent and to excuse their absences.
Students who have been absent may be received and their absences excused not later than 8:30 in the morning and not later than 2:00 in the afternoon. The teachers will not fail to notify the students that all who have been absent must be at school before the teachers themselves arrive. The students must understand that if their absences have not been excused before the bell begins to ring at 8:30 and at 2:00, no matter what reasons they allege, that they will be punished or sent away.
If parents make complaints when they bring back their children, the receiving teacher will be careful always to excuse the teacher, if it is of the teacher that complaints are made, giving whatever advice is judged necessary, and then carefully reporting later to the Director the complaints that have been made and the reason. The receiving teacher will be careful to finish with the parents in few words.
If the absence is the fault of the parents, the student will first enter school. The teacher who has received them will then speak with the parents in private to make them realize their fault and the wrong that they are doing their children in procuring such permissions for them or allowing them to be absent. The teacher will urge them to be more exact in making the children come diligently to school, and inform them that, if they fail to do so again for similar reasons, the children will not be taken back. This, in reality, must be what is done.
Students absent through their own fault must be reprimanded in the presence of the parent who brings them back. Later and in private, the parent will be given the necessary instructions for forestalling and preventing future absences of the child.
If the receiving teacher is not familiar with the conduct of the student and the reasons for the absence or is in doubt concerning them, the teacher will leave the parent and the student at the door and go to consult the classroom teacher. Then returning to speak with the parents and the student, the teacher will tell them what is considered appropriate.
When students who have absented themselves or who have been excused enter school, they will stand at the back of the classroom until the receiving teacher has spoken to the teacher of their class and the latter has instructed them to go to their seats or to the bench of the absentees.
Each time the receiving teacher has excused the absentees who have presented themselves, this teacher will tell each of their teachers which students have been brought back, what their parents have said, and in what manner and under what conditions the students have been received back, or will send someone to do so. 13
8 Normally in this text, chapters are divided into Articles and Articles into sections. However, the sub-divisions of this chapter are a bit problematic. The chapter actually has four subdivisions: Section I, Section II, Section III, and Article III. However, they are presented here as Article I, Article II, Article III, and Article IV.
9 As noted previously, this appears as Section II in CL 24:181.
10 As noted previously, this appears as Section III in CL 24. 183.
11 At this point in the 1706 manuscript of the Conduct of the Christian Schools, there appears some additional material on why students miss school. This can be found as EXTRACT TEN on page XXX in Appendix B.
12 As noted previously, this appears as Article III in CL 24:192.
13 At this point in the 1706 manuscript of the Conduct of the Christian Schools, there appears, as Article IV, some material on punishment of students who are absent or tardy without permission. Article IV can be found as EXTRACT ELEVEN on page XXX in Appendix B.
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