Education: BVMs Meeting 21st Century Needs

Seasoning
by Joellen McCarthy, BVM; Peggy Nolan, BVM and Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM

BVM Leadership Team (l. to r.)
Mary Ann Zollmann, Joellen McCarthy and Peggy Nolan.

Dear SALT Readers,

In September 1885 Mary Frances Clarke, foundress of the BVM community, wrote to her sisters, “Do your utmost to gain the dear children. It is one of our most sacred duties to teach and instruct them. …Prayer and patience will enable you to do this.”

Almost a century and a quarter later Mary Clarke's sisters are still trying through prayer and patience to “gain the children.” While faces and names, ethnic backgrounds and ages have changed dramatically over the years, BVMs can still be found interacting with students in a variety of educational settings. This issue of Salt tells some of their stories and shows us the constant yet changing face of education.

While Mary Frances Clarke spoke of “gaining the dear children,” another unknown author expressed it this way:

“Come to the edge.”
It's too high.
“Come to the edge.”
We might fall.
“COME TO THE EDGE.”
And they came.
And she pushed them.
And they flew.

In imaginative fashion this small scenario describes the drama contained in “gaining the children.” The teacher invites the student to, “Come to the edge of what you know. Come to the edge of what you think you can do. Come to the edge of your most cherished dream.”

And when the student risks coming to the edge, she is lifted into a new world with a new horizon of knowledge, new level of ability and new set of dreams. Small invitations, small responses and small successes lead day after day to heightened curiosity, sharpened vision and expanded imagination.

Since this unfolding process progresses at each student's unique pace, “patience and prayer” are indeed required. While the teacher extends the invitation over and over, she knows in the long run that no one can make another learn. It is a sacred choice.

This issue of SALT features the ordinary every day efforts of teachers and students that lead little by little to transformation. In this issue you will meet teachers

who have learned that “gaining the children” today requires all the commitment and dedication of their nineteenth century foremothers but expressed in an array of 21st century trappings;
whose initial invitation has led colleagues and former students to expand and nurture a school community for successive generations;
who have learned that it takes parents, volunteers and local townspeople working together to encourage children in rural communities to take the risk of “coming to the edge;”
who have led troubled students to discover through drawing and painting the disarming power of nonviolence;
who have pioneered interactive lessons for women in peacemaking.

In this issue you will also meet students

who have become such a caring adult presence in the community that many recognize in them the spirit and dedication of their former BVM teachers;
who come to learn English and who in turn push their BVM teacher to learn new cultures;
who risk leaving abusive environments in order to find healing;
who return to school as adults in order to gain the skills to make a difference in the impoverished communities from which they come.

These stories highlight the critical role education plays in the flourishing of the human family. Yet in our world, wide scale displacement of peoples due to war, famine and environmental catastrophe poses grave threats to education.

Responses to such threats vary. While the Taliban has renewed its efforts to destroy and suppress recently opened schools in Afghanistan, Oprah Winfrey has committed millions of dollars to the launching of a Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.

We live in a region of the world where schools, though far from perfect, are valued by many and where an infrastructure exists to bring teachers and students together in a variety of learning communities. Given the changing landscape of education in our world, Mary Frances Clarke's plea “to gain the dear children” becomes more of a “sacred duty” than ever.

May these stories invite each of us to celebrate those persons in our lives who have pushed us to the edge and helped us to fly. Together may we be a supportive presence and active participant in positive educational efforts throughout our world.