“Helmet for Life” – Christian Life Strategy Program

Review

The development of the Program was started in September 2010 at St. Margaret Elementary School of the Cistercian Educational Center of Pécs with the aim of helping children with social-emotional deficits to integrate into school, supporting acquiring of community norms and the affirmation of their acceptance, as well as promoting their academic progress through personality development. The extension of the Program to all public education institutions of the Diocese of Pécs was marked by the invitation of Bishop Dr. György Udvardy in 2014.

The volume contains theoretical and practical experiences of this period, with the aim of helping all institutions to educate their students to be both smart and wise.

The Program is based on the innate human needs of being self-identified and being loved, and the inner needs of being in contact and being free. The Program is adjusted to the educational schedule of public schools. The main topics recur annually, are hierarchically built up grade by grade and can be easily integrated into the 45-minute-long classes. As a result, the Program has received positive feedback not only from diocesan and monastic-order run institutions, but has also been invited to an increasing number of foundation and school district financed institutions.

This increased demand has necessitated to make the Program more widely available, not only in person, but also indirectly.

As constantly reflecting on changes during the development of the Program, it is important to note that it is not a closed and static program, but rather a basic structure that needs to be continuously developed and expanded, with new case studies and practices.

However, we cannot ignore the fact that there is a set order of things in the world. Without recognizing and respecting this order, the Program cannot successfully transmit basic ideas and guide the next generation.

The ’Helmet for Life – Christian Life Strategy Program’ is based on a nearly 15-year-long theoretical and practical experience.

What does the title mean?

Many young people leave home without knowing even the most basic rules of life, having no basic protective equipment for life that is not a safe journey. It would be a good idea to have at least a helmet to put on before setting off. Unfortunately, a “post-event helmet” is not worth much anymore…

Strategy means that you have to allocate your – otherwise limited – resources (money, time, energy, etc.) if you want to have enough of them available to complete the task. And life is not a sprint – that you can run with one breath – you have to plan ahead…

Life is a bit more complicated because defining the start and end points also defines the distance to consider. Expectations like having not only long but meaningful and substantial life would further complicate things…

Christian, on the other hand, needs a more profound explanation as it does not primarily refer to the theological content. Although the world and the human concept of the Program is based on this, it indicates a kind of “minimum normality” which is the basis of European civilization and culture. (For example, it does not seem good to cheat and steal from each other, to do harm to the health or lives of others, to think in terms of castes rather than democracy. Taking care of children, the sick, the elderly at a societal level, creating a strong and productive society based on stable families etc. is not true of all cultures and is not always self-evident.)

Please download the detailed summary in English here.

The author can be contacted via bukosisakazelethez @ gmail.com or via Facebook