St Ignatius College, we join a 450-year tradition of Jesuit education a mission rooted in forming responsible leaders in the world. The Jesuit educational vision is rooted in the spirituality of St Ignatius Loyola, the fifteenth century Spaniard who founded the Society of Jesus.
St Ignatius of Loyola always advocates for magis that is the more not to be content with the ordinary. This applies to our lives as an institution, we strive for more academic excellence as one of our pillars at St Ignatius. Our teachers went through 3 day retreat and workshop conducted by the programmes coordinators of the Jesuit education office of the Southern Africa Province. The theme was Values for life: Towards building Peaceful, Safe Schools. The workshop tackled issues that have to do with value-based education, Jesuit values, team building exercises, teamwork and collaboration, child protection and safeguarding and 21st Century teaching and learning. The goal of the workshop was to inculcate that excellence we seek in our educators.
Values that we want to teach the learners begin with the educator. In this modern world, an educator act as a role model among other responsibilities. For the learners to understand the values the educators have to bring these values to life. The goal was to help the educators to interpret safeguarding policy positively as it protects them. Jesuit values and pedagogy are meant to be a pathway to God and lifestyle that drives the school. Our Ignatian heritage moves us from being ordinary to extraordinary that is the Magis. The 4c’s commitment, compassion, competence and conscience should be visible as educators teach and form learners who are global citizens. Ours is to form a game changer in the world who is analytical and critical thinker.
Of the team building activities what stood out was a challenge called the deaf, mute and dumb. This activity involved teachers to learn to communicate and collaborate as a team. They were in groups and had one member blindfolded searching for an object whilst there was one member giving instructions to the blindfolded member. The one giving instructions was facing other team members, so he/she had to communicate well the instructions from other members to the blindfolded member. This exercise helped the educators to reflect on effective communication and how to help learners with different learning abilities.
Our desire is that there will be a positive influence from the educators trickling down to the learners for the service of God and others. St Ignatius this year will strive to be a place of joy, love and happiness bringing our values to life as a community seeking for excellence.
Fr Tanaka Mashiche
College Chaplain