PROLOGUE

 

Problematical

In Vietnam, on the eve of the events of 1975, the district of the Brothers of Vietnam included 300 Brothers, fifteen novices and thirty scholastics[1]. They directed 23 etablishments, including the primary, secondary, technical, private boarding schools for Vietnamese and for Montagnards (minorities ethnic), a center for the blinds, an Institute of pedagogy, and an university. The movements of Catholic action or youth people found a favorable course : les Cœurs Vaillants, la Jeunesse Étudiante Chrétienne (JEC), the marian congregation, the scouting…

On one part, the Brothers did not only work in their schools at the time. All the formation alluded to this sole principal goal: Education. They were thus happy to live their lasallian vocation : Education through teaching in the school – the term "lasallian" came from the name of Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, the Founder of the Brothers. One never imagined the Brothers without school nor tried to understand the difference between teaching and education. On the other part, the success of schools of the Brothers in the past inculcated well in the minds of most people who knew them, that their reason was not just teaching in the school. 

The events of 1975 have swept all: nationalized schools, occupied houses, disorganized communities. The mean to live their mission in the past that is the school is lost. Believing that the Institute no longer has the reason to be, the Brothers left for abroad, others retired to family, others exited, more others changed their profession or orientation. At the end of 1978, a decree referred priests, religious, religious teaching as "unsuitable in a socialist school". A small number of Brothers (6) was retained because their school director of the new regime needed them. The others were dismissed. This is another reason to tell the Brothers that they no longer have place in this socialist society.

For that, I began to gradually take consciousness that teaching and education are two different things and that the school is just a privileged way for education, but not unique. Therefore, in opening my eyes and with CREATIVITY, I could find other ways to exercise my function of education without schools, find another place than the one that refused me at that time.

***

Across the Institute’s history in the world, the question of the sortie of their congregation of the Brothers at each major event is not new, no more than their displacement.  In 1905, a group of Brothers unloaded in the roads of La Havane and the following year the College of Vedado and the free of charge School of Belén already operated with 23 Brothers. In 1959, « the Cuban District was at its apogee », but «occured the events that threw the large island in the Marxist adventure. The Catholic Church is persecuted, and the religious Congregations, obliged to disappear: In March 1961, the Lasallian works were ruined…»[2]. A large number of the Brothers rejoigned the neighboring districts : the United States, Mexico, Central America, Republic of Santo Domingo.

In Czechoslovakia, at the beginning of the second World War 1939-1945, one counted 14 houses, 116 Brothers, 8 novices, and 24 scholastics. But, « all these beautiful works were destroyed by the devastations of the Second War and the communist persecution. All teaching was interdicted for religious ».[3]

Likewise, in Yugoslavia, the World War destroyed all the works of the Brothers. The Juvénat de Birnmbaum, freshly constructed in 1912, also disappeared in the storm. At the moment when the « Iron Curtain » separated Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, « The Communities of the Brothers no longer existed behind the curtain, the buildings have been alienated, and the Brothers have aged and were dispersed. Most are found in Budapest or in the environs, trying to get the better of their life […]. Admirable thing in spite of their great misery, they remained faithful to their beloved Institute. »[4]

The question of the sortie of the Brothers, from the change of orientation, thereby always exists. And there are many reasons that push them to leave the Institute. But the massive sortie in Vietnam after the events of 1975 by reducing the number of 300 to 69 should reflect on the Superiors and the Brothers who were still attached to the Institute in spite of their shock, and all those who were interested in the works of the Brothers : sorties from April 30 to December 31st, 1975, 65 Brothers ; in 1976, 26 Brothers ; in 1977, 22 Brothers ; in 1978, 15 Brothers ; in 1979, 13 Brothers ; in 1980, 6 Brothers ; in 1981, 7 Brothers ; in 1982, 6 Brothers ; in 1983, 8 Brothers ; in 1984, 3 Brothers. Furthermore, before the fall of Saigon, the Brothers spoke with ardour of the young life of the brothers for recruitment. And every year, the Brothers received infallibly twenty of young people who decided to adopt the life of the Brothers. One major point of interrogation on the identity of the Brothers came from a sudden interruption during a long period from 1975 to 1990. Hundreds of young people called juvenis who lived in the houses of special formation to prepare their future life were all returned to their family without delay. And of those, there are only three left who persevere even to this day thanks to their toughness. They only took the religious habit in 1985, after ten years of waiting. In reality, from time to time, some young people came to look to understand the life of the Brothers. But they received one dilatory response from the Superiors manifesting the remission of question or rather the way nowhere out of the vocation to the Brothers in this situation in a socialist country.

 

Years

Sorties

Novices

1975

65

0

1976

26

0

1977

22

0

1978

15

0

1979

13

0

1980

6

0

1981

7

0

1982

6

0

1983

8

0

1984

1

0

1985

2

2

1986

2

3

1987

2

2

1988

0

0

1989

2

3

1990

0

0

1991

0

4

1992

2

6

1993

1

6

1994

0

5

1995

2

7

1996

2

0

1997

2

9

1998

2

6

1999

1

5

2000

0

0

2001

1

6

2002

2

5

2003

2

6

2004

0

5

2005

3

5

One of the major questions of my thesis is  to understand this double movement : Why did they massively leave the Institute and why did they engage themselves in the Institute of the Brothers ?

Did they understand well what the identity of an educator Brother is? If not, why have they massively left the Institute right at the moment when their privileged instrument, that is the school, was attacked ? « In other words, who urged them to engage in collective action » that is the life of the Brothers ? « For the Italian sociologist Alessendro Pizzorno, behind this enigma there is first an explanation : the permanent quest, in each of us, of our identity and recognition of others »[5]. This applies in part to the disappearance of the « visible » presence of the Brothers in the society. Implicitly, do they feel that they are not recognized by others, or more precisely by the authorities of a socialist country ? This is consistent with the remark raised by A. Pizzorno : « I noticed that, for many people, all compromises in ideological material strongly referred to identity question. For the communists however, one could accept many arrangements, from the moment that the identity was self proceeded: it was the ticket of the Party ».[6]

Normally, a young person definitively chose the life of the Brothers after long years of formation. He lived peacefully in a school environment and « in a secured and protected social system » where he saw « the consequences of his choice come true » without any uncertainty in connection to « profession values» and « preferences ». He did not have the care to « take the risk to transform certain sides of his identity»[7].

« The task » is therefore to know how he understands the identity of his profession in the time when he devotes to work in the schools that already exist. Did his lecturers inculcated in him the enigma of this difference between a teacher and educator ? Or else is « the primary socialization » made but the « secondary socialization »[8] is defaulted ? The perseverance in a life « depends, evidently indeed, on context but also the habits of life, therefore of the primary socialization and initial formation »[9]. There is no doubt « a major risk to want to transform a professional practice so often marked by the routine »[10]. Meanwhile it is necessary that « persist in his being professional requires a transformation of acquired habits »[11]. But in reality, before the appearance of the success in his profession of teaching, the daily development of schools and other success… « how to convince to modify a customary practice forged with ancient expectations ? »[12]. In reality, several sessions of formation purely professional and pedagogical were organized in the past and open to the secular teachers. Therefore, it’s not that one has forgotten that « to be formed, is to attain to formulate a relevant response to the question of "what’s the point" », or that «to be formed needs to project […], to dare to think its future »[13] . But one forgot to foresee, to anticipate the worse of the situations, that the loss of this « priviledged instrument » is the school.

In view of the Brothers who leave the Institute one after the other, some of them often attribute the responsibility to the lecturers, others to the individual himself who is not rational, who is egoistically in abandoning his colleagues in difficult moment. The long interviews that we have made in a relevant measure of the qualitative sociology show that « Egotism/altruist, rationality/irrationality are of false dichotomies. The question is to define the identity, constancy, and observability as at the same time, this me, of the self, which is deemed to explain the action by imputing preferences and values ».[14]

On the other part, the evaluation of the Vietnamese education in the eyes of the officials is not very encouraging. The educative system strongly adheres to the politic of a country and manifests the true essence of this monopoly in the system education. In spite of multiple « renovations » during thirty years, the quality of education only knows the recoil as much of level of knowledge as the one of human formation. The young people who have obtained the vietnamese bachelor can not attain to draft a petition or write a correct grammatical text in vietnamese. The human formation, which is essential in education, is considered not important and neglected in school. The mentality of today’s young people differ from the one of the preceding generations : The traditions and human qualities are trivialized and above all the public transgressions of the law are considered as normal things without any remorse, on condition that they are not disclosed, as noticed by Mr. Nguyen Phuc Dai, professor of Trung Vuong school: « Four generations spoiled. The ladder of values is reversed : First and foremost, find a lot of money, taste all, enjoy first, don’t be inferior to anyone, trample on all others in order to be successful… In summary, the common sense and conscience are trivialized. The concept of morality is not similar to the one of the people of our time. Hence the values are changed. One only sees its me in the relations with others »[15]. More serious is the degradation of the quality of teachers, cadre people (communist) of the haughty level : for example, Mr. Luong Quoc Dung, Deputy Minister of Sport Committee, guilty of raping a child, spent more than one billion in Vietnamese currency (about 70 000 U.S. dollars) to run the antechambers ; Mr. Pham Sy Chien, Deputy Attorney, was in connivance with the criminal Nam Cam who shook the entire vietnamese population last year.

The results of an inquest conducted by the urban section of the Organization of Youth, among students from 34 school establishments: 25 universities, 5 superior schools, and 4 specialized schools, allow us to draw up the current image of the students of Ho Chi Minh city, image which we can think that it will persist until the year 2010, at least. The entire vision (9 284 out of 10 000 students have given one response) that one derives is not very encouraging and should make us think : 

a)    Volunteering : an environment that favours a good formation

One proves that if 47,2% of students participated in different unpaid activities, there was meanwhile just 31% among them who are conscious that volunteering is a good environment for the formation of men. 8% acknowledge that they participate in these activities in order to… disport. For various reasons, 49,4% are held in margin of this volunteer movement, which raises an important problem about the mentality of young people.

b) Essential factors of life

Another question on the different criterias of social life : 2 190 students, or 23,6%, affirmed that having an ideal in life is the most important value ; 15, 2% felt the need to have an extensive knowledge ; however, there are only 10,4% who considered justice as the most important value. One learns that only less than a quarter of young people pursuing an ideal in life and that the future leaders trivialize this most important human quality which is the justice. Not astonishing to read in the newspapers the degradation of the quality of teachers, people of the cadre as Mr. Luong Quoc Dung and Mr. Pham sy Chien… cited more loudly.

 

The most important social values

percentage

Have an ideal

23,6%

An extensive knowledge

15,25%

Peace

11,5%

Justice

10,4%

Useful to the society

8,5%

Wealth

3,5%

Be able

2%

Renown

0,4%

c)     What does one want to do in life after the studies

44,9% would like to find a job that fits with their specialty ; 19,8% considered that the high salary is more important than their specialty. There is only 5% who voluntarily devoted to serve the people in the withdrawn provinces.

How does this degradation crisis of the teachers come out that drag along the deformation of young people for thirty years ? This is a big question that the authorities have discussed a lot without being easily able to find a solution.

The Vietnamese educational system could pull out of this crisis and degradation from the moment when the democracy would be re-established and when masters and pupils have the possibility to develop their thinking and their creativity, and power to control their future, when the intellectuals would be respected, and when value men would not be rejected.

Why this subject ?

Event of 1975.

Is it a painful laceration to see all 23 establishments of the Brothers transferred to other leaders ?

Is it a despair to see a large number of Brothers massively leave for the option of another life ?

Is it already the end of the Institute of the Brothers in seeing the majority of the Brothers abandoning their profession of a teacher ?

Or is it a chance offered to the Brothers to rediscover their identity in accordance with the spirit of origin of their Founder ?

All these difficult questions without a clear and adequate response worried me for several years after this big event of 1975. Beginning in 1976, when I was no longer a teacher, I found myself more « in the street » than in the house during the day, to look for what to live. It was there at this epoch that I crossed everyday the poor street merchants having some rice cakes in their pannier, the young people who transported 100 kg of wood charcoal by bicycle, accomplishing 80 to 100 Km during the night to deliver them to Saigon (the old name of the city persists except in the official appellations) early in the morning ; whole families are hanging around the street ; school-age children plunging in water extremely polluted of the river of Saigon to recover a few iron scraps or plastic bags for the survival of their families ; youngsters circulating everywhere in the street, rushing to invite the passers-by to buy lottery tickets, souvenir cards, newspapers, and also the « white materials » (heroin, cocaine), not refusing either to steal on occasion , that I was myself the victim several times. The approach of the misery of these poor adults and children gave me a gleam of a possible path, though still very vague, to live our vocation.

I vaguely perceived that the loss of schools does not cause an end to the educational mission of the Brothers. The problem is to find the possibilities to fit in the society where the young people and the poor are thirsty for « education to live as a man ». During my stay in France to advance in my university studies, I started to try to clarify what I analyzed in my mastery memoir of 1997, entitled « Street Children in Ho Chi Minh City ». The series of this reflection continue to develop in the memoir for the D.A.R.E. in 1998, entitled « Educate, an impossible mission? ». These two memoirs can be considered as the preparation or the commencement of this thesis.

Thus, this present research aims to convince me that now, the importance is to rediscover the original identity of the Institute and the realization in this situation of a socialist country : Vietnam. The mission of the Brothers, which is the human and christian education, must take root in the charisma of the Founder and it is to justify what I will present at length the challenges of this man.  While everybody in my country think that the Institute of the Brothers has lost its identity when their schools were nationalized and when they are no longer appreciated by the authorities, the solution is not to stay there to wait for the propitious moment to recover the lost school establishments but we must dare with creativity « take the responsibility of our lives. We must be willing to take our lives in reverse, if necessary, to start again at zero. We must be willing to make the u-turn, if this is what needs to be done, and to depart from another direction » [16].

Favorable Ways to Education

Evidently it is true that school is a favorable environment, a privileged way of education. And in the current life in Vietnam, when one says « go to school », that implicitly et popularly signifies that one goes to a general education establishment, from kindergarten class to graduation and more. But, «for the sociologist, the school is primarily an institution that meets the global functions of integration and social mobility. The relative autonomy of the educational system, however, justify that while one is also interested in its internal organization, to the speciality of its action, which is to transmit, in the cadre of the deliberate programming, sets of knowledge, competence and dispositions to the young generations, as to the expectations and practices of different social players affected by its operation.»[17]

How to define an institution ?

« In a general sense, an institution is a concrete component of a real society in opposition to the analytical elements of the social system designed as an instrument of analysis of any possible society » (Parsons 1951). More precisely, an institution consists of a complex set of values, norms, and manners shared by a certain number of individuals. […]. We may, according to him (T. Parsons 1951), define an institution as all activities governed by stable and reciprocal anticipations between the players entering into interaction. »[18] The symbolic interactionism, to the Anglo-saxonne sociology as a whole, stresses on the links between identities and institutions. The values of an institution mark the players beyond what they assume.

The purview of education is therefore very vast and is not limited to a school in the strict sense. Since 1975, all schools were nationalized because the government, believing to have the monopoly of education, formed people to socialism. All the children and young people in school age have the right to come to school free of charge under the socialist Vietnamese laws. It is the deterioration of economic conditions that pushed the officials to operate an agonizing revision in this domain : The abandonment of free schooling in 1986. In fact, quite a long time, this one was presented to the population as a definitive acquirement of socialism, which would never be given to question.

Since the « renewal » of 1986, the system becomes gradually loosening. A few Congregations of Sisters begin to integrate into the world of education through the path of the kindergarten classes that bloom much more and more each year, in such manner that this way of education exists in almost all feminine Congregations in the country. But it stops there. So far, no Congregation has obtained the authorization to open a school of general education, from primary to University.

Although the newspaper have spoken a great deal of « socialize education », it means to say that henceforth the government « favors and encourages associations and individuals to participate in the work development of education »[19], and that the schools « founded by the people » and private also begin to come back to life, however the demands of the people, as monks and nuns, are so far always set aside. When they submit the dossier, a very amiable response sows in them a hope of waiting which nevertheless does not become a reality. The dossier is silently rejected.

Should we always remain there to await the day J when one will treat everybody on an equal basis ? Surely not ! We have « missed the train » for thirty years in remaining there to await. The propitious moment is rarely offered. We must search for it. We must create it.

The governmental administration has nevertheless made this distinction : All general education schools, public and private or based by the people, from primary to second grade, are directed by the Service Bureau of Education and Formation while other formations are with the Labor Service of Veterans of War and Society. This category of formation regroups the centers of professional formation, « open houses », « cordial homes », centers for the unfortunates, for AIDS patients at the last stage, etc.… Other officious houses open by this and hence welcome young girls accidentally pregnant to avoid abortion… This indicates that one can play on the interstices of the system…

As Bernard Charlot has defined : « Learn to construct has a triple process : become a man, become a unique exemplary man, become a member of a community whose he shares the values and where he occupies a place ». The school is a more favorable purview to assure the development of the personality of the individual and his survival in the society. However, over the past years, the school does not meet the expectations of parents. The quality degradation of a large number of teachers plays an important role on the quality of education, role which will be addressed in the first part of this research.

The gap left by the current educational system in Vietnam made me reflect on the fact that the school is not necessarily an irreplaceable way to teach young people to « become a man ». It is true that school is a very favorable environment to a comprehensive education as defined by Durkheim, Bernard Charlot, other authors, and also by the Vietnamese government : « The objectives of education are to form the Vietnamese man in a total development by acquiring morale, knowledge, health, aesthetic, and profession and in being faithful to the independent ideal of the people and socialism »[20].

Likewise, in reviewing the current Rule (1987) of the Brothers of Christian Schools, there are numerous other paths that enable to reach these objectives of education : collaborate with the animation of educational community (art. 12) ; The Lasallian institutions are characterized by the will to put the means of salvation within the reach of the young people, by a human formation of quality (art. 13) ; in an attitude of accompanying, the Brothers make themselves available to all and assist them to discover, appreciate, and assimilate human values… (art. 13) ; in order to bring their students to take charge of their own formation and develop their social responsibility, the Brothers assign them an active role in all the life of the institution, in the animation, discipline and work (art. 13b) ; The Brothers educate their students with a critical attitude facing contemporary society, particularly facing the mass media and the numerous technological ressources that are part of the world today (art. 13c) ; by a real insertion in the environment where they work, the Brothers are trying to better understand the profound aspirations (art. 15) ; open the young people to life, to the sense of responsibility, knowledge, and love (art. 15c) ; to achieve this finality, the Brothers encourage the collaboration and mutual enrichment among all members of the educational community. They assist everyone to fulfill its specific role : youth, parents, educators…(art. 17b) ; The brothers collaborate, in accordance with the spirit of their Institute, with those who are in the Church or society, education, youth pastoral, formation in the sense of justice, utilization of mass media, integration of young people in social and professional life (art. 17d) ; The Brothers work hard to know, to respect, and to assimilate the positive values of cultural heritage of the people where they are inserted and that they are called to serve (art. 18) ; they are developing educational methods focusing mostly on the promotion of popular quarter (art. 39) ; The Brothers have always in view the promotion of justice […], they work directly with the education of economically poor, victims of social injustice, offenders, and outcasts of society. […] The Brothers give special attention to those of their students having more academic difficulties and personal problems or suffering from social or family maladjustment (art. 40) ; Moved by the desire to allow the poor to live in dignity […], the Brothers will prove CREATIVITY to respond to these new needs (art. 41).

This creativity mentioned in the Rule is denoted in the Brothers for thirty years and especially in these last years. By opening a center of professional formation for example, the Brothers aim at the objective to create :

- an environment constantly renewed to respond to the needs of today’s young people ;

- a priority environment favours the quality of education and the scope of the trainees ;

- an environment of formation by establishing a parallel between the business and professional conscience ;

- an environment without distinction of social class and religion.

- an environment open to everybody, especially to young people et younger people in difficulty.

The formation of the professional conscience occupies thus first place in this formation. Each week, teachers reserve twenty minutes to recall the basic principles of human qualities and take framework of steps to teach students to respect the discipline.

Likewise, in the affectation of classes (classes free of charge for street children), teachers repeat every day, the forms of politeness : say thank you, hello, sorry… The street children are « savages », a teacher has noticed, at first contact. But, after three months having to learn to live as a team, exercise assiduous in these classes, the progress is visible.

At the request of parents, some communities of the Brothers in Saigon, Ban mê Thuôt (on the high plateaux of south central Vietnam) and Nha Trang lodge boys who come to the city to continue their secondary studies or universities. Outside hours of classes in the external school, the Brothers help them to review the lessons and especially to « become men ». Entrusting their children to Brothers, parents repeat this refrain which increases their responsibility for education : « We do not have time to educate » or « He always render himself at the Internet for the electronic games » or yet « They don’t listen to anyone at home » as if whether the Brothers could do miracles.

Some activities organized in the past in schools of the Brothers are gradually resumed : movement of the young Catholic students (JEC), reunions of Catholic teachers, other periodic activities organized for the holiday occasions of mid-autumn, Christmas, Lunar New Year, consultation and distribution of medicines for the poor or the montagnards. As educators, we always aim at one educational purpose. For example, before the consultation, in awaiting the preparation of doctors, we profit out of this occasion to tell people how to avoid illness, take care of hygiene – all sorts of basic questions unknown to the farmers – because to prevent is better than to cure.

In considering thus the role of the teacher, there are numerous other small activities of this category, to the condition that one dares to accept its uncertain character, persevere and constantly keep a creative spirit, tirelessly. Some people with conservative spirit have asked me, out of sceptical mien, the duration of my work. I answered to all with the same reflection : « What I created, respond to the needs of young people today. The duration of his existence does not matter much to me. Tomorrow, if it no longer responds to the expectation of young people, it is me who close it first ».

Durkheim affirmed that education is one of the three most difficult professions[21]. Much more difficult when one seeks to live its profession of education outside school. Without school, the teacher must go look for the players in all corners of the city to form a « group of individuals » who share « a complex ensemble of values, norms and practices ». As religious, to fit in this domain is not a path without obstacles, which I will study further in the third part.

As Auguste Conte outlined, it never exists on method detached from the object, it is necessary to remember that our purpose concerns a congregation in a country where it is sometimes persecuted. One can not collect in the same manner the informations in a dangerous or peaceful context. The ethnography of education does not cease to affirm that prepare the ground requires as much epistemological as methodological crafts.

Work Methodology

a) interviews with members of the congregation

I devoted myself during these three years to research in numerous interviews more or less formalized with the related players. One will find attached transcription of the most significant interviews. This present study must of course comes into existence first :

1 – Different interviews with former students before 1975

2 – Interviews with the young people not in-school at the Lasallian ;

3 – Brothers who still work at the Institute so far.

4 – Former Brothers who live in France and Vietnam ;

5 –Young people who have opted for the life of the disciples of Jean-Baptiste de La Salle in spite of the difficulties of the present situation.

6 – Lasallian Brothers of other countries.

The quality of these interviews is indeed the raw materials of my thesis. I may not always able to transcribe the words in my work but they have obsessed me in my research. Pierre Bourdieu indicates in his works that the players are not telling the truth about the place of society, but the Chicago school affirms that all place in the society finds its bearings first through the speech. Thus, one does not do anything to the subtlety of the persecutions of a political regime where the players still have fear to talk.

It essentially appears that these individual interviews are focused on 3 principal points : Identity – abandonment – mission today.

-     Identity : rediscover the image of a Brother – teaching and education – Brothers and schools,

-     Abandonment : reason to leave (for ex-Brothers) and to choose the life of the Brothers (for young aspirants),

-     Mission : ways to live the mission of the Brothers in spite of the impossibility to open schools.

b) approach to course

It was a professional necessity and ethics, and that also allowed me to make a spontaneous comparative analysis. Since my return from France, I made a start in the different circles of life in seeking some gaps permitting to introduce myself in the domain of education. I found a lot and thanks to them I got to open first the classes of affection in year 2000, a center of professional formation in Dong Thap (South Vietnam) in year 2003, a private school of primary in Pleiku, on the high plateau in 2004. And in this year 2005, another center of professional formation has received official authorization on April 12, 2005 on behelf of the Brothers who through this activity are officially and visibly « recognized » after 30 years of « absence » and a new center of rehabilitation for the toxic addicts was inaugurated in the month of August 2006. This one was founded in collaboration with a former student, in accordance with a « sinuous » path and full of obstacles that developed in the part three.

I do not forget the effort and the courage of my Brothers trying their best to find a place generally officious or official in society to live our vocation : to provide language courses, look after the pensioners, open an institute of pedagogy and theology to Scholars, the apprenticeship classes of sewing and repairing in Hue…

At the same time, I discovered the initiative of other social groups in visiting different centers of congregations religious and Buddhists : reception center of the AIDS patients in the final stage of the Soeurs des Filles de la Charité, hospice of old abandoned held by Buddhists in Tay Ninh (located approximately 80 kilometers from Saigon), that of the Sœurs des Amantes de la Croix de Caimon (South Vietnam), center for the toxic addicts « Thanh Da », in Binh Thanh, Ho Chi Minh city. Likewise, I went to Cambodia at the end of December 2004 to enrich my experiences.

Of these different approaches of the course, I noticed the amelioration in my report to my problematic and moreover, experience shows me that the most favorable path to encounter the players is the organization of social activities : consultation and distribution of medicines for the poor in some districts of Ho Chi Minh city or in the distant villages, what I realized on average once a month. One may understand that, in a poor country, a searcher who shows himself detached from contingencies materials does not succeed in obtaining informations. My thesis is therefore in any case a research action.

c) utilization of official inquests

In this work I utilized official inquests of government, inquests of Lasallian center and those of international organizations. In my logic of a qualitative posture, the calculated results are there essentially in title to the examples and not to truth. Thus, they have been particularly useful to me :

- another report published in the journal « Youth » on March 2nd, 2005 on 10 000 students in the 34 schools and universities (25 universities, 5 superior schools, 4 specialized secondary schools). Several different criterions on the social values are addressed there. A modest result is rather striking : 2 190 students, or 23,6%, recognize that the most important social value is to endorse an ideal for the life.

d) personal inquest

One will see in attached the questionnaire that I sent. More than 130 have returned. That greatly indicates the interest of identity questions raised.

- report of « sounding » on 150 people from 20 years in all the categories and social classes.

- Another report of « sounding » on 620 students and pupils about the subject of « cheating ». 578 responses were obtained.

e)  usages of documents 

Any approach concerning course necessitates not to be trap by the effects. To take from the distance and permit a rupture with the opinion, as proposed by Gaston Bachelard, it is necessary to pass through the bookish erudition. I have also read numerous books in vietnamese together with the texts concerning my membership congregation. The fact no doubt has guided this study outside of France has not always permitted to cite the most contemporary authors in sciences of education nor sociological thought developed in the seminars of the doctoral school of the Catholic Institute of Paris.

1 – The official documents published in Vietnam together with those of the Institute ;

2 – The pastoral Letters of general Superiors, records of the district Chapter of Vietnam… occupy an important place and credible in this research ;

3 – The pedagogical literature available to me ;

4 – the reviews, newspaper articles, and usage of Internet ;

f) Holding of different journals of research and observations

In the course of my mastery and my D.A.R.E., I was led to write several moments of my life history that I reutilize in this memoir since I was at the same time – and it’s the danger of my demarche – very implicated observer and player. The holding of journals helped me to take to distance with the trauma of history.

g) The art of conversation

The American sociologists in a very pragmatic logic observe that the better source of information remains the informal encounters in the trains, cafes, street, etc.… During these three years of research, I did not cease to evoke my theme with people who, initially, were not concerned, included thus with officials of the regime.

3- Presentation of the internal logic of the memoir

From the collection of given facts, I undertook to do an analysis composing 3 parts :

a- The first part seeks to emphasize the true image of an educator in accordance with the definitions of the great authors, sociologists, and the writings of Mr. de La Salle and to evaluate the monopoly of the Vietnamese educational system since 30 years in basing me on the opinions of leading personages on this hot actuality subject as education.

b- The second part pursues the purpose to find a real cause of the massive sortie of the Brothers before such tests which the biggest was the loss of schools and the juridical personality of the religious that is not recognized.

c- The third part is to assay to revivify the image of a Lasallian Brother in a socialist country in groping for the paths permitting to fit in the world of education. It is a question of life or death for the existence of the Brothers in Vietnam.

Many concrete examples sprinkled in full of the text serve at the same time to illustrate the reasoning and to demonstrate the authenticity of this complex situation. As indicated by Mr. Cesbron, all social intelligence must pass the facts to go to ideas, then return to the ideas to go to the facts. In one demarche, the dialectic of this demarche does not make of a linear manner. This is no doubt the reproach that we can do in my work to furnish so many descriptions. But these last ones indicate the reality of situations and permit to seize the problematic.


 

 

[1] Scholastic Brothers : The Brothers who have finished their probation  preparing to leave for the mission.

[2] Frère ALBAN, FSC, History of the Institute of Brothers of Christian Schools, p. 325,  Roma, 1970.

[3] Idem. p. 777

[4] Idem. p. 778…

[5] Philippe Cabin and Jean-François Dortier, the Sociology – History and ideas, Human Sciences, 2000, p. 135.

[6] Idem.

[7] Patrick Tapernoux, Transversalities, The ISP, January-march 2004, p .22

[8] Patrick Tapernoux, Transversalities, The ISP, January-march 2004, p. 21

[9] Idem.

[10] Idem.

[11] Idem.

[12] Idem.

[13] Idem.

[14] Philippe Cabin and Jean-François Dortier, the Sociology – History and ideas, Human Sciences, 2000, p. 137

[15] Appendices A, page 15, ligne 436…

[16] Frère John Johnston, Pastoral Letter 1994, p.17.

[17] Raymond Boudon, Philippe Besnard…, Dictionary of Sociology, Larousse, 2003, p. 74.

[18] Idem., p. 126

[19] Rules of education, Art. 11, Hanoi, 1991, art. 11

[20] Rules of education, Art. 11, Hanoi, 1991, art. 2.

[21] Three most difficult trades according to Durkheim: Govern, look after, and educate.