Page 17 - Salesian Bulletin 2016 [01] January-March

awareness arises from a life style which continually stresses the need to respect one’s self and others.
effect. Better to say, “Don’t throw chewing gum on the ground because it dirties and pollutes the environment for at least five years.”
the changes in the sky throughout the day, the ants, the birds.
The psychologist Maslow, in his study on people who had been successful in life, found that all, without exception, had a great reverence for the sacredness of life. It is necessary to teach children from an early age that all life is sacred, that even an ant has a right to live. It is important to teach children respect for all that is alive and to have the same respect for the lives of others as they have for their own; to urge them to help creatures in danger; to reinforce the idea that all that is alive is an integral part of the entire universe and that killing for the pleasure of it is a violation of that life we have been given as a temporary gift, as long as we live on this beautiful planet.
One of the most sensitive issues of education today is to accustom children to think concretely in terms of the “common good”. It is so easy to meet people who can competently discuss the problems caused by globalisation and then, with great carelessness, allow their dog soil the path outside their own home.
This also means educating the children to a sense of beauty. That does not require you to know how to appreciate a painting or a concert of classical music, but to be inwardly one “who appreciates”, who is aware of how much beauty exists in everyone and in everything. This can not happen if you live in a chaotic, damaged, or dirty environment. You have to give them a taste for the clean
Another basic step is knowing the world that surrounds us and the inevitable laws that can safeguard it. If we simply tell our children, “Don’t throw chewing gum on the ground” that will most often have the opposite
It only needs a few, simple steps: turn off the lights where they are not needed, turn off the tap when brushing your teeth, leave the car at home as often as possible, eat fruit and seasonal vegetables, be careful to separate the refuse. And involve the children in camps, workshops, and days in the open air. n
Parents and children together can learn to “contemplate nature”. We are no longer capable of marvelling at a flower, a face, a sunset. We live like so many busy ants without ever looking up. And we no longer notice that “the heavens declare the glory of God”. Even the school yard, a city-centre square or a tree-lined avenue can reveal unexpected treasures. All it needs is that we look with different eyes. Begin by making children appreciate their surroundings, their home, neighbourhood, park. Then get them used to observing plants at school,
games back in
and orderly . Putting
their place after use, for example, or acquiring the habit of helping out at home is a way of leaving the place available to others. Although the most important thing is always to give good example.
SDB 17
SHUTTERSTOCK/Jaroslav Machacek