Psycho-pedagogiczne prawidłowości kontaktu katechety z młodzieżą

Abstract

Considering heteroeducation from a psychological point of view one should point out particularly those factors which, in the relation between the educator and the pupil, play the role of psychological mechanisms conditioning the effectiveness of educational influence. Generally, educational effects depend, in the first place, on the degree to which the catechist is able to become a privileged person in the mind of the pupil ‒ thus becoming an example to follow and the source of reward and punishment. A privileged position of the catechists in the consciousness of the pupils develops in the course of interpersonal relations and depends on a series of pedagogical and psychological factors. The main aim of the present paper is an analysis of those two types of factors. In the first part of the paper the author discusses the structure of the pedagogical act, with particular attention paid to element 5, i.e. interpersonal relations. He defines it as a psychological channel of educational communication. Then the author analyses its features and pedagogical principles: personalism, humanism, moralism and Christocentrism. The most essential fragment of the analysis, which constitutes the third part of the paper, deals with psychological conditioning of catechetic relations. In this part the author is first trying to establish the similarities between catechetic relations and helping or psychoterapeutic ones, and then passes, on the basis of Rogers theory of interpersonal relations, to the analysis of psychological conditions. He enumerates five conditions: 1. the necessity, on the part of young people, to realize their own problems concerning life and religion; 2. the condition of inward and outward congruence of the catechist; 3. the catechist’s absolutely positive attitude towards young people (absolute acceptance but not approbation); 4. empathic reception and understanding of inner experiences of young people by the catechist; 5. the necessity for the young people to receive an absolutely positive attitude and empathic reception on the part of the people who conduct catechetic meetings. If the above conditions are satisfied, at least to a certain degree, in catechetic relations, one should expect that the mechanism of identification with the education ideal presented by a religiously congruent catechist will be started in the behaviour of the young people. This corresponds with the commonplace experience of teachers and parents, namely that there is no education without genuine educational ideals which are represented by teachers and educators in every pedagogical system.