In the Aristotelian tradition, human action, even as education, is marked by three essential dimensions: cognitive, affective and volitional. The affective dimension of educational interaction is manifested through the quality of the attitudes and the forms of communication. For the educators, these events express the evaluation of the person and the conduct of education. In the positive polarity of this size are placed traits as the respect, esteem, warmth, unconditional acceptance, in negative polarity: rejection, detachment, coldness,  devaluation.

Pedagogical characteristics of love

The affective dimension can be experienced as love teaching. A first part of that love is to accept unconditionally the young people, ie having the ability to meet them as persons, worthy of esteem and respect, regardless of their psychic structure, physical qualities, social background. Another feature, which helps to create loving in educational interaction, and to engage, on the part of the teacher, in trying to perceive the young people’s world to participate and to be fully involved in their lives. If young people feel treated as objects, or feel that the teacher does not care about their feelings or their ideas, or if you feel misunderstood or devalued, thus they interact in a defensive way.

When the educator, rather than interfere with hasty and direct communication behavior (evaluations, interpretations, moralizing, etc..) undertakes to see the young person's life as they see and experience, they will feel compelled to communicate about their world. The student will develop feelings of trust and security towards the educator. He doesn’t see him how someone who has the truth and wants to prove the efficacy of his arguments and the validity of his experiences, but he feels like someone interested in others and that respect them. So the educator through the process of empathy will become an "alter ego" of the young people.

In indicating the pedagogical love characteristics’ we can’t overlook the encouragement’ stretch. The teacher never wrests hope to his young people, but he promises to find a solution to their difficulties. One of the ways used to encourage young people is, even according to the educational model of Don Bosco in placing a stimulus for a change in behavior towards a purpose to reach, demonstrating to the young the hope that this purpose can be reached by him. Also be taken into account the needs and demands of children, which implies availability, active help, patient and friendly.

If the other resists

Pedagogic love also involves the trait of kindness, especially virtue is realized by the educator when he is dedicated to most vulnerable and most in need young people, regardless whether or not they correspond to his dedication and his love. This love has been reinterpreted in a feminist philosophy of Ned Noddings as taking care of others, even when it becomes tiring and full of frustrations: it perceives the resistance of the other to meet his educational projects, his objectives, his will. The young man escapes the intentions and the power of education because he doesn’t understand, does not accept or carries other plans, objectives, will.

Teaching love is celebrated just as you decide not to set aside such resistance, denying or overwhelming, but accepting it and trying to develop a work of rethinking and redesign of educational action. It is a reference to its responsibility, looking for new ways of meeting, the desire to understand and help. Manipulation, on the contrary, takes the firm commitment putting towards to the other the  responsibility of difficulties. Levinas says: "I am in charge of the other, without waiting for this to become reciprocal, would cost me my life."
The educator is engaged to explore the other's face, his question of humanity, of infinity, but the finding of this exploration is the search for a deeper and more solid educational expertise. It is constantly exploring the obstacles inherent in speech, in tracing the approximate formulations, in searching continually new examples of new devices, multiplying the reformulations inventive, changing of frame.

This ethics’ return characterizes the love of neighbor, the willingness to care for others, human and professional liability of those engaged in active service in respect of the community and individuals. P. Ricoeur describes this concern as an "intimate connection between the ethical and the emotional meat of feelings."

The educational adventure

Benedict XVI, although in a different perspective, has drawn attention to an aspect of the affective dimension, that of Eros. "That depends primarily on the creation of human beings, which is composed of body and soul. Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united, and the challenge of eros can be said to be truly overcome when this unification is achieved. Should he aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as pertaining to his animal nature alone, then spirit and body would both lose their dignity. And if, on the other hand, he had deny the spirit and consider matter, the body, as the only reality, he would likewise lose his greatness. But, eros needs to be disciplined and purified "(Deus Caritas est, 5).

Certainly in the educative adventure it comes into play the erotic component. To young people  this dimension must be tested and purified by careful supervision, not to fall into a sentimentality that brings everything to the acceptance of an relationship emotionally marked, forgetting what characterizes the educational commitment: to promote human personal, social, cultural, professional, spiritual and religious growth of young people. In particular, the vigilance must be aimed at various possible extremes of the solicitation of love:
- a love-passion, where the fascination felt towards the student to bring of seeking a dual relationship preferential if not exclusive;

- the attempt to possession, to dominion or to control of the other -through a insatiable desire to know, to discover his personal detail;

- a reduction of the other as an object, which can be processed and manipulated and broken or showcased, depending on the successes or failures.

Reason and Faith

In the educational tradition, the purification of the love’s passion is made by reason. In Christian teaching the faith approaches to the reason. This is what Don Bosco effectively summed up, presenting his educational system: based on a dynamic integration between reason, religion and loving kindness (cf. Caritas in veritate 56). This integration must guide and support the concrete educational activity. For example, the use of reason (the reason with the young people), the reasonableness of the speeches, the method of persuasion, to make known preventive norms and acting and relating’s ways, must prevail on violent taxation or obtained failures, broken or  put in shop window.

The plait of the dimensions’ contributions: cognitive, emotional and religious supports the development of a relationship marked by many educational quality. Father Braido says: "The ‘little virtues’ that fall under the term of affection -to know that you love, to share the inclinations of young people- assume consistency and dignity, moral and educational, thanks to the ‘great virtues’ that are the basis and animate them”. The ‘great virtues’ are those of love or theological charity, justice and willingness to meet the other's face.

The experience of an adult affection, respectful and selfless, it is essential to develop a positive attitude towards the values, associated with the acceptance of others and engagement in them. From Religion comes the deepest foundation of love, respect, hope and trust of the teacher in respect of the  pupil.