Anton Vorozhko on the Education of the Human Heart

In many schools, education is understood in reductively intellectual terms. The point of teaching, it would seem, is merely to inform, to fill the mind with data, to train the intellect to perform tasks and solve puzzles. To be sure, information and intellectual virtues are essential aspects of education; but they are not the whole, and to make them so would be to reduce the person to his mind.

In this talk, taken from our recent Art of Teaching Conference, Anton Vorozhko helps us understand the role of the heart in the education of the whole human person. Starting with a reflection on the greatest of teachers, Christ—the one to whom all other teachers ought ultimately to point—Anton offers advice at once practical and personal. His talk centers on three areas, or apostolates, which he suggests teachers should consider: presence, correction, and prayer.

In the end, considering these three apostolates will help teachers turn their daily work into what St. John Henry Newman called a cor ad cor loquitur—a heart speaking unto heart—making his task not only to inform the mind but equally to move the heart.

Chapters

• 0:05 Other men are teaching!
• 1:00 Looking to the ultimate models: Our Lord and many of the saints
• 3:40 The dream of Don Bosco and the Preventive System
• 7:20 Conquer through love: seeing Christ in our classroom
• 10:03 Not a job, a vocation
• 11:24 Three apostolates of the teacher: presence, correction, prayer
• 11:40 Apostolate of presence
• 15:30 Apostolate of correction
• 17:48 Suggestions from Don Bosco
• 19:05 Apostolate of prayer
• 21:45 St. John Paul II as a university professor

Additional Resources

Forty Dreams of St. John Bosco: From St. John Bosco's Biographical Memoirs by St. John Bosco

Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II by George Weigel

Also on The Forum

The Art of Teaching: On Forming Contemplative Souls with Rich Moss

Developing Your Son's Will with Andy Reed

The Freedom to Form Bonds: Kevin Majeres on Mindfulness and Attention with Dr. Kevin Majeres

The Talk and Beyond with Michael Moynihan