austraLasia
1508
Japan Catholic News goes online - and with it....
TOKYO: 29th March 2006 -- After 57 years of publishing
news in English about and for Japan in print, Japan Catholic News,
under the Catholic Bishops Conference of Japan, has gone online this
month. You can find it at www.cbcj.catholic.jp/eng/jcn/index.htm
.
Item #1 (now down to #3 on the charts!) was on the new Salesian school
in Tokyo. The rest is 'lifted' unapologetically from that site:
"Throughout
history, along with giving spiritual guidance to believers, the Church
has also taught people agricultural, industrial and other skills
through which they could earn a living. In Japan during the post-war
reconstruction period the Salesian Polytechnic college played a role in
providing vocational training. Since then, Japan has changed, and the
program of the Salesian Polytechnic has changed as well.
Last year the school moved to a new campus in
Tokyo's Machida City.
At the entrance a solar car, powered by electricity from solar
batteries, is on display. In one of the workshops a glider that
appeared in Yomiuri Television's Birdman Contest is suspended from the
ceiling. Along with ordinary classrooms where lectures are held, there
is a row of workshops for industrial arts, machine crafts, electricity,
drafting, web design, sketching, sculpture, etc.
"Saint John Bosco, the founder of the Salesian
Order, called on
people to 'acquire a skill.' In the nineteenth century, when the
industrial revolution arrived in Italy, he taught dressmaking,
printing, shoemaking and carpentry, the basic skills of the time, to
children who were exploited and made to work long hours," said Salesian
Father Tsugio Tanaka (66), the principal. In the same spirit, he added,
the printing techniques and carpentry that began to be taught in Japan
after 1934 were the forerunner of the present Salesian Polytechnic.
The curriculum at the school has changed in keeping
with the
modernization of Japan. Vice-Principal Tsutomu Kojima (60)
explained
that after the Second World War, an electrical engineering department
was added." Along with carpentry and printing this became the school's
third pillar" he said.
In 1963 the school changed from a three-year
technical school to a
five-year polytechnic and students' technical skills were raised to
university level. At that time printing, electronics and design were
the main subjects. As time passed printing was computerized and
departments of electronics and information technology were added. There
was greater emphasis also on design. "The art factor became stronger"
added Kojima.
In 2001 a two-year "specialization course" was set
up for those who
had completed the five-year course. This stretched the available
program to seven years, the same as university undergraduate education,
and students could receive a bachelor's degree. Some students have gone
on to graduate school.
Though the nature of the technical skills taught at
the school has
changed, Fr. Tanaka said that the basic stance of "acquiring skills"
has not changed. Vice-Principal Kojima gave the example of learning
about the distribution of voltage during the fourth-year
electromagnetic course. Because students have already been measuring
voltage in their second year practical work the new material is simple
for them.
"When you start something difficult from practical
work the
threshold of study is lowered. Isn't 'experience a treasure!' In this
way through making things we make people." Fr. Tanaka commented
that
the level of satisfaction on the part of parents of students is
high.
" There are many parents who are happy to see that their children's
interests turn toward study," he said.
But that wasn't all. #8 on the list was about
the appointment of a new Bishop for Sendai. That diocese, you
see, has been vacant for quite a time, since Bishop Osamu Mizobe was
transferred to Takamatsu diocese in 2004. What is of interest is
that the people in Takatsu wrote to the people in Sendai with the
following comment: "We're sorry. You must feel we stole him from
you. We send our thanks".
__________________________
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