austraLasia #3011
News
in brief
Cebu: 6 February 2012 -- Earthquake felt on Negros
(area marked yellow, left) Cebu (marked
yellow right) islands in the Visayas Group, Philippines - strong
earthquake on 6 February. Salesian houses affected: Dumaguete (south
Negros Occidental), Bacolod, Mambucal, Talisay Lawa-An and to lesser
extent Victorias and Cebu (City, Pasil, Punta Princessa
Talamban).
Communications affected. Thus far we presume no death or
injury
regarding our Salesian work and presence there. Awaiting comment on
actual circumstances for these communities.
Rabaul PNG: 7 February 2012: The sinking of the Rabaul Queen
off Lae, PNG's second largest city,
last Thursday, is PNG's worst ferry diasaster. Many passengers were
students. Our Salesian Rector at Vunabosco, near Rabaul, says: "So
far
I am not aware of any student or past pupil among the victims. but
yes,
some of the victims are relatives of our bosconians".
MUMBAI: 7 February 2012 --
From
our nearest Regional neighbour, South Asia, comes news of the
publication, on 31 January, of Salesian Fr Kenneth Pereira's
book,
Nurturing Presence: A Spirituality for Educators Based on the
Pedagogical Insights of Don Bosco and Carl Rogers.
While much has been written on the means of bringing about the
integral
growth of the young, comparatively little has been written
about the
concomitant growth of those who regularly deal with them,
namely
parents, educators and youth workers. This book will
hopefully fill
that lacuna. The growth-oriented vision that this book
offers is a
blend of ideas and insights from Don Bosco and Carl Rogers,
tracing
their origins to the Bible itself. The common thread
that runs through
the entire book is the theme of nurturing presence.
His Eminence Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay,
commenting
on the book states: “This book is written in elegant language,
and
navigates through various disciplines: Spirituality,
Scripture,
Philosophy, Theology, Psychology and Pedagogy, weaving them
into a
‘seamless robe’ for all educators to wear. The book
shows how the
pedagogical insights of Don Bosco, the great educationist of
the
nineteenth century, can be made relevant for our times and
circumstances by supplementing them with some of the ideas of
Carl
Rogers, the famed twentieth century American Psychologist.”
In
the first Chapter, Fr Pereria explains what he is attempting
to do: "As
far as the printed evidence goes, neither Carl Rogers nor Don
Bosco
characterised the educator’s presence to his students or
charges as a
‘nurturing’ presence. And yet, when we read between the lines
of their
writings, one gets the distinct impression that at the heart
of their
recommended practice of presence and rapport is the will to
nurture the
growth of the educand, though we must hasten to add that
Rogers and
Bosco have very different perceptions of growth" He goes
on to say:
"In his book, Animating the
Young,
Jerome Vallabaraj claims that faith and morality are at the
very heart
of the mission of the nurturer. He describes the nurturer as a
person
of an earlier generation who gives care and sustenance to
members of a
subsequent generation. Nurturing involves a continual and
delicate
balancing of the dependency scales, so as to provide the
youngster with
adequate amounts of support and dependency while at the same
time
encouraging autonomous and independent functioning. While all
these
specifications would fit Don Bosco’s educational spirituality
almost
perfectly, Rogers would probably feel uneasy about them. For
Rogers,
the age difference between educator and educand is of no
significance.
Furthermore, Rogers would certainly not place faith and
morality at the
heart of his educative mission. Nevertheless, I persist in
claiming
that the presence of the educator to the educand—even in
Rogerian
praxis—is a nurturing presence... understood however, in a
broader
sense, as being deliberately growth-producing".
For
further details contact: Tej-Prasarini, Don
Bosco Communications, Matunga, Mumbai
400019. E-mail: tej_dbc@vsnl.net, Website: www.tejonline.com
