1042_Thai response to new challenges in student lives

 

 

BANGKOK: 20th February 2005 --  Thailand is not alone in being an Eastern culture facing up to what might best be termed a globally mediated culture...mediated, that is, through modern communications.  But one Salesian school in particular stands out for its response to this: Saint Dominic's, Bangkok.

    Saint Dominic's grew phenomenally from a mere 214 boys in 1961 to 2000 in 1984.  The number has remained above 2000 ever since.  This year 2006.  There are more than 1000 applicants per year for just 300 places.  By any account, then a successful school.

    But Saint Dominic's is successful in a Salesian way, through a strong Educative and Pastoral Community (EPC) process and through its response to new challenges.  It continues its tradition of academic excellence and ensures a Salesian formation of its large (143) teaching staff.  It has developed an ongoing 'culture of attention to the poor' within its large community of students and their families.  And it responds to new challenges.

    In 2003, Saint Dominic's introduced a morning meditation period for students.  The sessions are not lengthy, just 15 minutes each morning, but the aim is to provide balance for lives lived in a media-generated hyperactivity, to give inner strength and to help concentration.  There are adequate signs that this kind of meditative practice has good effects on the students.

    The meditation is not to be confused with evangelisation.  The majority of the schools' students are Buddhist and State education policy encourages activities that are very much in keeping with Buddhist tradition, meditation being one of them.  But Saint Dominic's, as a Salesian school, works assiduously at a programme of evangelisation, with a handful of students involved each year in sacraments of initiation.