DON BOSCO'S WAY (DBWAY) - a study guide for parents, educators and youth leaders of different faiths (original) (raw)
KEEPING DON BOSCO'S EDUCATIONAL METHOD ALIVE IN INDIA, 1906 -2016
This article is an attempt to trace the practice of Don Bosco’s Preventive System through the 110 years of the Salesian presence in India. Beginning with the daunting challenges of the vast multicultural subcontinent, the author explores the evolution and expansion of the System through the stages of implantation, adaptation and reinterpretation.
From a Dream to a Legacy , 2025
In this article, the author synthesizes thirty years of reflection on making Don Bosco's educational method relevant to contemporary times and diverse contexts. Starting with an analysis of the 'Dream at Nine' and the formulation of the 'Preventive System', he broadens the discussion to encompass the hermeneutics of expressive education, the System’s applicability in non-Christian settings, and the pressing need for a culture of peace through peace education. ---------------- Jacob Palaparambil (Ed.), "From a Dream to a Legacy, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Don Bosco's Dream at the Age of Nine", Published by Written Words, Delhi, (for Divyadaan: Salesian Institute of Philosophy), 2025, pp. 155-168.
Religion Education or Religious Education: Westville Hindu School as a Model of Alternate Education
Anthropology University of KwaZulu Natal This article seeks to revisit the RE or Religion Education policy that has been the focus of much robust and sustained discussion in South Africa since 1993 and which was eventually published in August 2003 and meant to be implemented in the year 2005. The article explores the context for the establishing of a particular religious school, the private Westville Hindu Primary School as a model of religious education against the background of religion education in public schools. The paper examines the rationale behind the initiation of such a school and the response on the part of the parents and young learners. It probes the need and meaningfulness for such a school in light of the position papers and present inclusion of the study of religion in South African state schools.
DON BOSCO'S PEACE CULTURE - A SYNTHESIS
Divyadaan, 35/2 pages 231-248, 2024
This article is a gist of a study running into 470 pages that makes bold to investigate the life and work of St. John Bosco from a unique peace perspective. To confirm the validity of the outcome, the author adopts the sociological theory of Johan Galtung to engage in three research trends. The first is a historical evaluation of Don Bosco8s behaviour in times of conflict, crisis and trial. The second widens the popular understanding of peace to test participant perceptions of his peace traits and to reinterpret his educational method for our times. The final and major part of the book explores in rich detail the extensive personal, social, political, cultural and transcendental dimensions thereby throwing into relief the universal and ever-relevant applicability of Don Bosco's peace culture.
Educational Da'wah Strategy for Increasing Religious Activities
Atthulab: Islamic Religion Teaching and Learning Journal
Da'wah is an activity to invite and call to goodness. All Muslims are obliged to carry out this virtue. SMP Darunnajah 2 Cipining as a formal educational institution for Junior High School provides a fairly good and interesting example to study. Da'wah is meant here is Da'wah to provide education and invitations to students to carry out and improve Worship to Allah SWT, do good deeds and read the Al-Quran. The method used is descriptive qualitative method with data collection techniques in the form of observation, interviews and documentation. The results of the study indicate that the Educational Da'wah Strategy at SMP Darunnajah 2 Cipining is to carry out the following activities: Religious Tausiyah, Joint tahajjud, Perkajum (Thursday-Friday Camp), Safari Da'wah, filling out amaliyah worship books, Guidance on learning to read the Al-Quran. With these activities, students are encouraged to be more enthusiastic in worship and learning to read the Qur'an, and to be more polite in behavior.
It was a cool morning about 7.30 am, four of us Salesians celebrating the Holy Mass at a small chapel in the first BOSCO open shelter. We heard a scream and loud shouting of abuse and rushed out of the Chapel in the middle of the Mass. What we saw was a group of youngsters fighting, screaming abuse at each other and a couple of them were bleeding. A group of others were trying to separate them is pulling them from the either side. In a flash we jumped into the middle of the fighting group to separate them before could ask any one the reason for the fight. (Incidents like these used to often happen between gangs or groups of different areas and allegiance.) A few minutes passed, the warring guys were standing aside, waiting for the any slight provocation to jump on each other, when a couple of other guys brought in a packet of food, on leaf plates and covered with newspaper. They opened the food packet and invited the others to come and share starting with the peace makers. One by one they all came and shared the food, ignoring the previous war cries and anger. I just watched. A packet of food dissipated the anger and hatred and how they shared from the same plate. Educated and well groomed as we are, we often hold onto hate and dislike much longer, even if it is caused by a simple word or negligence. This all happened a few days after Fr. George, one of the pioneers who started the outreach programme to the youngsters on the street, had talked to a group of them about the importance of education. He had planned to organise non-formal lessons so that they all could learn to read and write and later sit for public examinations of different grades or at the least it would stand in good stead for their future, as he had envisioned. During one such motivational lesson, Fr. George was talking about the importance of education and how it might help them in the future. One of the youngsters called out aloud: " BA andare beedhiyalli, MA andare emmethara, navella budhivantharga bekku ". (BA means on the streets, MA is like buffalos, that we should become wise), indicating that the education even at BA or MA levels is of no use for their lives and futures. He said it with such a rhyme, impromptu, yet it had such depth of meaning. This event led the BOSCO leaders to discuss, discern and develop an educational programme borrowing the words of the youngster and called " BUDHI VANTHA " comprising a range of skills of literacy, life skills, technical and vocational skills, social relationship and behaviour, career guidance and a spirituality that is meaningful to their lives. The Salesian approach originating in the 1970s mobilised volunteers and other people of good will to reach out to millions of young people who are at risk in India, even becoming an eye opener and prompted even the Government agencies to initiate various programmes for young people on the streets.
Raising a Reader: Teachings from the Four Directions
Language and Literacy, 2016
In this two-part life writing script, I narrate and interpret my experiences as a teacher and parent of a "reluctant reader" in the early phases of learning to read. In the first part, I address the myths and panics that often overtake parents of young reluctant readers, who may fear that their children are at risk of falling behind their peers in reading. In the second part, using the Four Directions teachings taught by Elder Bob Cardinal of the Enoch Nation in a graduate holistic curriculum studies course at the University of Alberta, I interpret the process of learning to read as a relational and careful act of ceremony, which literally overflows the dominant interpretation of reading as a technical, fragmented skill of decoding. The lovely, difficult work of learning to read, when treated as a gift between generations, opens up possibilities for "renewing a common world" (Arendt, 2006, p. 196). Raising a Reader: Re-Memorying Through the Four Directions Teachings This two-part life writing script interprets the experiences of a teacher/mother of a "reluctant reader" as she is beginning to learn how to read. The first reading, Terror Memories, is a narrative of the parent's memories of learning to read, and her daughter's beginnings on her own journey to becoming a reader. Overcome by myths of competition, achievement, scarcity and the fear of "falling behind" (O'Leary, 2012, 5:40-6:01), the teacher/mother anxiously succumbs to the pressures to reduce reading to a technical, market-exchange exercise. The second reading, Four Directions Re-Memories, is a holistic re-interpretation through the lens of the Four Directions Teachings of the Medicine Wheel. The Four Directions Teachers are the Thunder Being from the West, who teaches Mental Knowing; Grandmother Mouse from the South, who teaches Spiritual Knowing; the Buffalo from the North, who teaches physical knowing; the Bear from the East, who teaches Emotional Knowing; and the Eagle, who teaches a connected, unified understanding of the world. These teachings were shared orally by Elder Bob Cardinal of the Enoch Nation, Alberta, in a 2014 graduate course entitled, "Holistic Understandings of Learning," which he co-taught with Dr. Dwayne Donald, Papaschase Cree curriculum studies scholar, through the University of Alberta. The participants in this curriculum and pedagogy course on Indigenous philosophical approaches to holistic learning were encouraged to inquire into and share our understandings of how "wisdom teachings regarding holistic understandings of life and living [may] provide meaningful curricular and pedagogical guidance in schools today" (Donald, 2014a, p. 2). Elder Cardinal teaches us that "the longest journey you will ever have to make is from your head to your heart" (B. Cardinal, personal communication, September 2014).
INDIGENOUS PHILOSOPHIES OF EDUCATION AND CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
Bannag: A Journal of Local Knowledge, 2018
Much has already been written about the philosophy of education which most of the times are from the west. In recent times, the eastern philosophies of education are also gaining attention. However, this paper attempts neither to look towards the west nor towards the east but from among and from within the cultures, that is, the indigenous philosophies of teaching and learning. The study investigates some indigenous educational philosophies from Africa, North America, Australia, and the Philippines through a review of the literature. A list of common elements of indigenous philosophies was lifted. These are terrestrialism, communitarianism, oraliticism, preparationism, perennialism, holisticism, deconstruction-reconstructionism, and practicalism. These principles were paralleled with Religious Education and possible applications on enriching philosophies on Christian education were discussed.
Dossier: Religion and Education
Horizonte, 2020
It is with great joy and pleasure that we present the new issue of HORIZONTE, the journal of theology and religious studies, that brings us the dossier theme "Religion and Education". A binomial, present in many societies, cultures, and human realities, that eventually can portray distinct realities, but has also many possibilities of interfaces: sometimes there may be clashes; other times their encounter is tense. However, when these encounters happen, these both realities are potentialized.
In this paper I start from the latest syntheses by Morand Wirth and Aldo Giraudo and I agree with them in affirming the existence of a profound harmony between our saints that derives from direct reading of some Salesian sources, from indirect Salesian influences especially through the works of Saint Alphonsus, and from the teachings of asceticism and mysticism received at the Convitto Ecclesiastico of Turin under the guidance of the theologian Guala and Saint Giuseppe Cafasso. This profound harmony goes beyond questions of direct doctrinal dependencies, lexical convergences or common themes. The structure of the convergence between our saints follows the image of the tree of love which is, according to various authors, the organising symbol of the treatise: "Love is like a beautiful tree, the root of which is the will's agreement with the good, the stump is its complacency, the trunk is its tension (movement), the branches are its attempts and other efforts, the fruit is its union and enjoyment".
Education, Tradition and Western NGOs in Dolpo
Dolpo is one of the most geographically isolated, economically disadvantaged and the least populated areas of Nepal. It is a remote region where education is one of the most scarce resources. The aim of this article is to explore the context of setting up and managing two educational facilities located in Dolpo: Tapriza Culture School and Kula Mountain School. In both cases the underlying idea is to combine modern education with local cultural preservation. The main purpose is to give an access to education to the underprivileged children and to improve the quality of life of the local community. Both educational projects seem to exemplify successful joint effort of the local communities and western based NGOs. Schools are managed locally with financial and institutional support from Europe and USA with fullest respect directed towards local traditions and customs.