There is a lovely scene in the movie 'Hidden figures' when the chief of the space project tells his main supervisor who constantly brushes aside the only black female 'super computer' who calculates the mathematical side of the space project to the moon, that his main job is to look for talent and nurture it, not curb it.
Having spent more than a decade in formation settings, as a formator, I ask myself, how much of a talent have I recognised in those I've lived with, especially the students - leave alone encouraged and nurtured it?
Perhaps most of us formators are looking for ways and means of 'moulding' the students into a particular cast. So we'd be more keen about trimming their eccentricities and creativities, rather than see how those can further the Salesian mission. The former method is easier to carry out and well formulated in our guidebooks, in comparison to the latter! The latter requires an interpretation of the guidelines... multiply the interpretations with the number of students we engage with!! But that's formation. That's the task of a formator. The regularity and constancy to this process is brought in by his/her person, not the bending of everyone else to one's monolithic interpretation.
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