Page 14 - Priorities #32 2005-November

Go to b-e-net.com
Remember the name—you are in
on the start of something new. A fledgling international consortium of Benedictine schools is now an established organization with an eight-member board, a purpose, a three-year cycle of meetings around the globe, and one of the most contemporary websites on the net to pull it all together.
Gathered in the elegant and historic buildings
of Delbarton School in Morristown, New Jersey, with a backdrop of forest in blazing fall color, delegates at the Third International Benedictine Educators Conference focused on the critical issues of their individual campuses.
A nun from South Africa: “We have 730 girls and only 11 classrooms. We have divided the rooms in half, and we are using every available space for classes. Our class size is 60 to 70. In our dormitory, we have 10
or 11 girls to a room. I tell people not to bring their children in from the countryside because we are full. But there is no other way to get an education. So I can’t turn them away.”
A female lay administrator from the Philippines:
“Our post-graduate programs are very highly regarded and in fairness to our school and our students our status should be changed from college to University. But there is no priest to head a university and I am told that the Order will not agree to the change under our leadership, even though we have earned it.”
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A teacher from Brazil: “The biggest problem for my students is lack of jobs after graduation. With no jobs, they have to pass exams and obtain a university education. How can we help them deal with this difficult economic situation?”
Despite time-zone fatigue and language barriers, the reasons for coming poured out. One school has no monastics; another has no electricity. Students under intense academic pressure have little time for humanistic and spiritual development. Emerging social issues such as domestic violence call for trained staff, and there are none.
The conference title, Globalization and Education: A Benedictine Response, gives a context to the challenges and the beginnings of an answer.
The presence of 152 people from 17 countries is remarkable because when the first international conference was called in 1999, Benedictines did not even have a directory of their order’s institutions around the globe. This is an offshoot of the strong Benedictine tradition of autonomy—each monastic house is its own community and traditionally the schools are an expression of the monastic house’s ministry.
BENET, the international organization, is the Benedictine educators’ way of addressing concerns for the future in the face of declining numbers of monastics. B-e-net.com is an exciting and beautifully designed tool for working together globally. Check it out!
“We clearly are not in charge of globalization, but we can’t ignore it” said Sister Mary Collins,
a noted author and Benedictine educator, in her keynote address. Global economics and marketing are resulting in a form of “corporate takeover” of education that leads parents to want to specify the content of their child’s school experience [as
First of Two Parts
Hello, b-e-net/BENET!