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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