Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Lasallian Values as seen from 200 meters in the sky


             
There is a fascinating building in Singapore called the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. It is billed as the most expensive stand-alone casino resort property in the world. Built to address Singapore’s anticipated growth in tourism, the hotel faces the city-state’s central business district to the north and the Singapore Strait to the south. What makes the resort remarkable is a 340 metre-long “Skypark,” shaped in the form of an enormous boat (to echo the city-state’s role as a major Southeast Asia shipping hub) which sits atop of and links together the three hotel towers. The Skypark contains gardens, jogging paths and an infinity pool which support the activities of nearly 4,000 visitors (think: a small town suspended more than 600 feet in the air).
              The Marina Bay Sands Hotel was my last view of Singapore as we departed the city-state for Los Angeles. “We” refers to a team of five La Salle colleagues who joined me on a week-long trip to Hong Kong and Singapore. These two cities have a sizeable Lasallian “footprint” with sixteen schools between them. We were particularly interested in visiting three schools: La Salle College in Hong Kong and Saint Joseph’s Institution and Saint Joseph’s International School in Singapore. These three schools are highly-regarded for their superb college-preparatory programs and it was my idea that they and we might benefit from establishing some form of networking relationship which could include students and teachers from each institution.
              Our hosts were truly gracious, generous with the time they shared with us and clearly proud of the work they do on behalf of the students entrusted to their care. Their sense of hospitality mirrored what I know visitors experience when they come to La Salle here in Pasadena. There was definitely a “Lasallian feel” to the schools we visited – surrounding their students with historical images of De La Salle and other Christian Brother saints. In fact, I suspect they do a more consistent job in this regard than we do here in Pasadena! What makes this effort truly impressive is the fact that all three schools serve a significant number of non-Christian (Buddhist and Muslim) students. And, given the fact that two of the three schools are 100 and 166 years old, one should assume that the Christian Brothers have always served a significant non-Christian student population. I was struck by this commitment to sustaining a Lasallian identity in a part of the world where Catholics are clearly in a minority. Saint Joseph’s Institution, for example, proudly displays their Lasallian Core Values (Faith-Service-Community) throughout the campus, making this visitor feel like he could be at any school sponsored by the Christian Brothers here in California! La Salle College, Hong Kong, decisively proclaims this Lasallian principle:
(The College) seeks to empower all students to realize their potential through
academic study, sport, and the arts
Reminds me of the “three-legged” stool (academics, arts, athletics) I like to use as a metaphor to describe the La Salle Difference here in Pasadena!
              The opportunity to visit successful Lasallian schools in a part of the world that is non-Western and, largely, non-Christian was transformative for me. I came away from the experience more convinced than ever that Lasallian – and Catholic – values can be meaningful to students of all – and no – faiths. Even more powerful is the recognition that what we do here in Pasadena is echoed in Lasallian schools a half a world away. While I have been aware of the fact that Lasallian schools operate in over 70 countries, it hasn’t really occurred to me to appreciate how deeply connected we are, united in passing on a nearly 400 year old educational tradition bequeathed by a genius of an educational innovator – Saint John Baptist de La Salle.
              As I departed Singapore and thought about the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, I realized that my final memory of my first trip to Asia was a structure containing three separate elements united by a boat-shaped “bridge.” What an appropriate visual metaphor for my experience of our shared Lasallian world that bridges oceans and continents for the simple purpose of delivering a high quality “Human and Christian education to the young, especially the poor.”[i]




[i] Rule of the Brothers of the Christian Schools

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