For some years now I’ve been out of schools and colleges – taking what one would call, early retirement, if one could call it that! I can’t remember when I last stood from 9 to 4 in the classroom and approached a day of teaching. During those days, everything was so focused on getting through the sessions and to bring the topic to a reasonable conclusion so as to send the students away with at least something to think about or at least something to remember!
Many years on, I look at the schools of today and see different approaches to education. The curriculum is basically about covering materials to gain enough knowledge to tackle exams and assessments. There hardly seems time nowadays to allow students space to research and to explore situations or topics. In truth, one doesn’t need to stretch the mind or to sit, ponder, query or even to discover as the answers are already there at the touch of a key or scroll of a page on the internet!
One thing I have learnt is that often our school’s educational roots are not saved on the internet. Some places of education far precede computer science and we rely only on the occasional journal, picture scrap book or simply chatting with former students of many years passed. Legacies and the purpose of forming a school in the first place – its early foundations – have to be researched or experienced within the local community. This became apparent recently when we took our local Language College to the place of their foundress – Euphrasie Barbier. Many schools and colleges around the world are named after this remarkable woman, So, over the years, we have tried to make Euphrasie part of the life of all our students in some form or another– to allow them to discover her vision and desire to see education made available for all young girls and women of many cultures.
To actually visit the place where this person lived, worked and died – to see for themselves aspects of her life – was better that any research or reading endless books. The ultimate purpose was not just for an outing but to capture the spirit of this woman who gave her life for this purpose – to enable the “unnoticed and unknown” to have a voice and purpose in life.
Michael Morpurgo once said that education is to create memories and not just to pass exams. Storytelling and sharing experiences is essential in our teaching and no better than giving students a practical example of those who have gone before them.
What we need today in our schools is a solid foundation and for our pupils to find an identity during the years of the lives in both Primary and Secondary Education. ROOTS – are what matters, hoping that it will hold all of our students steady and keep them focused on what is essential in life.
Sr Rose Mary Harbinson, RNDM
Visit of Sacred Heart Language College to the Heritage House and Tomb of Euphrasie Barbier (Marie du Coeur de Jesus) – Foundress of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, Sturry, Kent.
(Photo with permission)