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DE LA SALLE THE EDUCATOR
Othmar Wurth, FSC
The concept of the popular, tuition-free school, open to all, was not original with De La Salle: he worked largely within the older tradition of the parish free school. His real originality lay in his administrative skills, in providing the schools with dedicated and trained teachers, in his recognition that teaching was a true vocation for the lay person in the church, in the scope of his work, and in his attention to the maladjusted child.
De La Salle did not theorize about education before becoming actually involved in it. He was continually in dialogue with the experienced teachers with whom he worked. During his lifetime, whatever the Brothers of the Christian Schools accomplished could be attributed to him because he collaborated so closely in all that went on. After his death in 1719, the dynamism of his thought was translated into action by new generations of Brothers and teachers and continually adapted in response to new situations.
The Structure of the School
The school day which De La Salle designed is described in his book Conduct of Schools. The students assembled half an hour before class, kept themselves busy at reading and reviewing their lessons, or prepared their work under the direction of a more advanced classmate. Breakfast and lunch were taken in school to make sure that the students were fed properly and that they learned table manners in a Christian atmosphere.
The school generally included two or three sections of 50 to 60 students, each divided into one or more primary classes, a large class for those learning calligraphy, and sometimes one or more intermediate classes. Within the same class there were separate sections of students in reading, writing, and arithmetic, each section including the slow, the average, and the advanced student. The students were grouped on benches according to subject and progress, and each student moved along the bench and from bench to bench as he progressed in his studies. This can be viewed as an early application of individualized instruction and, perhaps, a form of programmed learning, or, in a current phrase, “micro-teaching.” Each month the teachers and the supervisor tested the students and reorganized the benches and the lessons.
Religion and religious instruction were essentials in De La Salle’s educational philosophy, and religion was the major focus in the school program. The day began and ended with prayer, and prayer began each major segment in the schedule. Religious instruction was formal, detailed, and conducted daily, with added sessions on the eves of feasts. Most of these schools were founded and supported by a parish, into the religious life of which the school was incorporated.
The careful liaison with the parish was especially manifest on Sunday. The students attended morning prayer and the parish Mass, which was followed by an hour and a half of catechism on the principal mysteries of religion. The day ended with vespers and evening prayer. Thursday was a school holiday.
The Elements of Good Schooling
The elements of good schooling for De La Salle and the Brothers included a program that was integrated, informed, and practical, as well as organized to include student involvement and individualized to meet student needs. The school itself was to possess an environment of orderliness, affection, and calmness.
An Integrated Program
De La Salle anticipated the modern concept of the integrated educational program. A principal goal of the Lasallian school was to teach young people as thoroughly in the secular subjects as in the religious, and at the same time to prepare them for professional and social life.
This secular-religious integration was to permeate the lives of the teachers as well. To prepare them professionally, De La Salle established normal schools, and to maintain standards he created the position of Inspector (Supervisor) of Schools. De La Salle’s conviction that teaching the children of the poor and the working class demanded total dedication also led him to form a congregation of religious Brothers, whose lives would be filled with the spirit of faith and given completely to education. For his Brothers, De La Salle composed many meditations on the need for the integration of faith, zeal, and competence.
An Informed Program
De La Salle insisted that the teachers know the students as thoroughly as possible and be aware of their individual psychological differences.
When each student was enrolled, parents were required to provide the detailed information outlined in the “Register of Admission,” and throughout the school year numerous observations were entered into various records. The “Register of the Change of Lessons” indicated the progress of each student in the different subjects. In the “Register of the Student Leaders,” the student who was at the head of each bench recorded daily attendance. The “Register of the Progress of the Lessons” summarized the number of times each student had been late or absent each month or remiss in his recitation of the catechism. The “Register of the Students’ Good and Bad Qualities,” a personal file on each student, was kept by the teacher. In the “Register of the Visitors of Absentees,” students assigned by the teacher reported on their visits to their absent classmates.
A Practical Program
The schools that De La Salle established provided a program that prepared the student for life in the workaday world. The curriculum in the secular subjects, for example, included the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. To facilitate the acquisition of these skills, writing was simplified, and reading was done in the vernacular. In this latter practice De La Salle departed from the standard procedure of the parish school of his day, which, focusing on participation in the Church liturgy and confronted by the problems of French spelling, continued to emphasize Latin rather than the native French in teaching children to read.
Apart from religion, the most important element in De La Salle’s educational system was literacy. Over and over he stressed the importance of learning how to read and write. Repeatedly he spoke of illiteracy as an especially severe educational handicap: even in the seventeenth century, illiteracy was a bar to steady employment.
Therefore, a precise method in teaching reading in the vernacular was developed. Students proceeded from letters to syllables, from syllables to words, from words to phrases and sentences. The reading of both printed and handwritten texts were taught; only after a child had mastered reading was he admitted to the class in writing, where he learned calligraphy.
The writing lesson was eminently practical. The Conduct of Schools directed that the students be taught to write models of documents that would eventually be useful for them. They learned to write promissory notes, bills and receipts, employee agreements and legal contracts, bonds, deeds, leases for house or land, and assorted writs and records of court proceedings. Thus they were prepared for what they could use after they had left school. When they had practiced this copying sufficiently to have mastered the standard forms, the teachers had them “make up and write such notes, receipts, contracts (and similar documents) for themselves.” The teachers would “also have them write from memory . . . what they had learned in the catechism.”
In time some of the Christian Schools developed very flexible programs, with an unusual range of subjects, becoming in a sense a prototype of what has since been called the “comprehensive school.” The programs which evolved at Saint Yon illustrate this concept quite clearly.
Program of Student Involvement
De La Salle was also in favor of participation by the students in the smooth running of the school. He implemented this objective by a system of assignments which involved the students in the management of the school and the class and taught them responsibility. The duties of the “officers of the school” - as they were ordinarily called - were quite varied. There were as many as 15 such officers, each with an assistant. Included were a doorkeeper, a bell ringer, a prayer leader, a section leader, a sweeper, a visitor of the absentees, an inspector (who supervised the students before class), an almoner (who collected the bread and fruit that was left over from the meals to give it to the poor), a server of Mass (who also taught the others how to serve Mass), and a distributor and collector of papers and books.
An Individualized Program
Despite the difficulties that might result from large numbers in the classes, De La Salle insisted that the teachers pay attention to the individual differences of each of their students. This is particularly emphasized in the chapter on correction in the Conduct of Schools . Here De La Salle set forth the various adjustments necessary to deal with delinquent students, students who were badly brought up and headstrong, those who were inclined to be bold and disrespectful, those who were flighty and thoughtless, the stubborn, those brought up gently and timidly, those who had a gentle and shy disposition, the slow, the troublesome, those who were small for their age, the newcomers, the accused, and the accusers. Each type is identified; each type is addressed in a personal way.
A Climate of Orderliness,
Affection, and Calmness
De La Salle wanted his teachers to create in their classes a spirit of quiet, orderliness, and calmness. He warned teachers against unpredictability and talking too much. The latter, he said, “is a major source of trouble in a school.” A sense of serenity would be created by reserve and dignity, not by “having a severe appearance, showing anger, or using harsh words.”
What was needed, De La Salle told the teachers, was a teacher whose demeanor was both firm and gentle, who conveyed a sense of affection for his students. He warned them that the principal cause for absenteeism and truancy was that students have little love for a teacher who does not try to win them over, who does not have a pleasing personality, who puts on a face “like a prison door.”
The best way to keep children in school, even the wayward and maladjusted, De La Salle said, was to make them like school, and this could be done only if true affection existed between teacher and students.
Incidentally, he believed that singing could contribute to the serenity of the school, even if only as a variation in the very structured, academic day. Thus, singing was part of the catechism lesson, and De La Salle put together several collections of hymns for that purpose. In some, surprisingly perhaps, the music was that of popular tunes.
Put simply, De La Salle insisted that the teachers love their students and seek to inspire a reciprocal love in them.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- How well do you know your students? Are you aware of and make allowances for their individual differences?
- What value do you place on reading and writing in your classroom? Do you feel that your students receive a well rounded education, one that prepares them for professional and social life?
- What effort do you make to insure that your lessons are as practical as possible? Do your students see the value and practicality of what you teach?
- How involved are the students in the smooth running of your school? Do you encourage student involvement and participation in your classroom or are you more teacher-centered?
- De La Salle insisted that the teachers pay attention to the individual differences of each of their students. How well do you do this? What effect does this have on your teaching?
- Do your students really like school or do you have many absent and truant students? Do the students experience, in practical ways, your affection for them?
- Do you truly love your students and seek to inspire in them a love of learning?
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