Scholarly record

SILENCE, AN ELEMENT OF CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY IN THE EDUCATION OF THE YOUNG

Ion Croitoru, Anton Savelovici

Abstract

Children’s education, and, by extension, the education of the young, represents a permanently topical problem in an age of conflicts and overturning of the value axis. For this reason, old pedagogical principles and elements are being made actual again, preserving their content, verified through the experience of many generations. Such an element is also the inner silence, acquired through prayer, and which represents a spiritual state specific of the Christian way of living and, consequently, an element specific of the Christian pedagogy, which takes into account not just moral-spiritual education, but also intellectual education. One can notice, from the Christian pedagogical practice, that silence amplifies the child’s awareness, his positive reflection, his reason and thinking, his moral-spiritual desire and perspective on life, increasing the power of his memory and fostering the perspective of a healthy adulthood, inspired by the perennial values of mankind. Thus, silence appears as a remedy for spiritual diseases and a sign of spiritual health, illustrating, on the one hand, the role of an education based on the parents’ and the teachers’ good example, who only in this way can apply inspiring methods, and, on the other hand, the close conection between intellectual and moral-spiritual education. All these aspects have been presented in this study, making use of the following methods: analytical, comparative, historical and descriptive.

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