The Ateneo education – a modus
vivendi
Coming from a Catholic girl’s school run by Dutch nuns from
kindergarten to grade two I immediately noticed the difference between that and
the Catholic boys school I had to move to.
The first element I noticed strongly was the emphasis of the
school run by the Jesuits on the study of Roman Catholicisim.
In fact, as I entered the main lobby of the Ateneo grade
school building at the Walled City grounds that year of 1938, one could not
avoid noticing the magnificent statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary prominently
facing the lobby. I learned soon enough
that the school’s patron saint was the Blessed Mother. Thus, our lives revolved around the life and role
of the Blessed Mother which included among
other devotions, prayers that started and ended each class. Then, there was the organization to which all
of us were members of, called The Sodality of Our Lady. There were more devotional prayers to be said
from time to time
The Ateneo Grade School edifice in Intramuros the Walled
City at that pre war period was austere but not really quiet for during our
recess periods, we had time to play and run around imagining ourselves to be
cops and robbers. In fact, the building
was still under construction when I joined the school. History tells us that the lot was originally
the place where our National Hero Jose Rizal studied during the Spanish period.
However, the building was burned down and for
many years remained unbuilt until in 1938 authorities decided to rebuild it for
the Grade School department.
Among the prohibition imposed by the headmaster was that
students must be confined within the grounds of the school and strictly forbidden
to go outside the building premises especially to play by sliding on the slopes
of the grounds that stemmed from the Walled City down to the grass below.
With the use of the rotting bark of the palm trees that lined the walls, a boy
can sit on it like it was a sled and using one end of the bark direct his slide
downward which was a good 20 feet in length.
Yes, it was a thrill and many could not resist it and risk being
punished – and they were punished with having to stay after class to write 100
hundred times “I shall not slide down the walls.”
Soon, I got to learn about the life of our Jesuit religious teachers
who were ordained priests of the Society of Jesus. Some of our instructors however were lay
teachers, some who had graduated from
the Ateneo and who had advocated the same philosophy of the priests. In time, we young students were discussing
how the Jesuit Order was founded by a certain Spanish officer named Ignatius de
Loyola. In Spanish his name was Inigo de
Loyola (Ignatius in English). Inigo was a dedicated Spanish officer who learned
more about the life of Jesus Christ when Loyola was in the hospital recovering
from a leg injury that he got during the Battle of Pamplona in Spain.
According to history, it was during Ignatius’ convalescence that he underwent a deep spiritual
conversion after having read THE LIFE OF CHRIST.
So, after his recovery from his wounds, Ignatius left the
military service and instead pledged to be a soldier of Jesus Christ. It was then when Ignatius formed the Society
of Jesus or in short the Jesuits.
When the war came to the Philippines in 1941 our newly
rebuilt grade school edifices were bombed and so for three years after that no
classes were held until 1946 when Ateneo reopened at the main campus in Padre
Faura St. The Grade school lot remained
unbuilt.
In 1946 as I enrolled in the Ateneo high school, I learned
that students had to take up Latin and pass it or they
would not be able to earn their diploma.
I must admit learning Latin I was difficult but once you understood the structure
you will realize its importance especially when one would pursue a career as a
priest, in the medical or engineering profession or even a chemical degree because
lots of terms used in these disciplines stem from either Latin or Greek, but
mostly Latin.
I also discovered that while the subjects were difficult
since they were a combination of science, mathematics, the classics and
philosophy, they were carefully designed
to form a pattern of learning known to the Jesuits as the course called Ratio
Studiorum. It was supposed to prepare a
student to hone is skill in Speaking (Eloqentia) and Thinking (Sapientia), very
important equipment to possess in pursuing one’s life goals. Added to these
were the cultural subjects, the arts, the Humanities subjects and of course
sports.
But later there were more theology and Epistemology but I felt
that we learned more from the Jesuit priests themselves and their particular lifestyle
and not much from the textbooks we used.
To illustrate, one characteristic of Jesuit priests was that
aside from being an ordained priest, each one of them have to major in a
specific discipline like financial management, dramatics, or even meteorology.
A review of Philippine history, one can see how many Jesuit
priests have pioneered in many skills from the time they landed in the
Philippines. For instance, the Rev. Padre Faura, S.J. was the
Spanish Jesuit who first built an observatory with a telescope to be
used by the Filipinos. The first Jesuit
labor union organizer was Fr. Walter Hogan, S.J..
The nation’s popular theatre amateur group before the war
was that of the Ateneo College under the direction of Fr. Henry Lee Irwin, S.J.
who was a master in the presentation of Shakespeare’s plays. Later on Fr. James
B. Reuter was designated overall communications czar by Cardinal Sin that
produced radio and TV Catholic programs for the different provinces in the
country. Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ. is known for being the leading Constitutional
law professor in the country and is sought after by law schools when they need
expert advice on Constitutional Law.
But among the features which made Ateneo more meaningful for
me were the extracurricular activities such as the G.K.Chesterton club (for
oratory) the drama club (theatre) the Sodality of Our Lady (devotion to the
Blessed Mother) and the distinctive Spiritual Retreats we had to undergo through
high school and college the way St. Ignatius himself had designed them.
The Jesuits have long been respected in the world because of
their distinctive quality of education, to a point when sometimes they are
envied by the local diocesan clergy and therefore, for many years Jesuits had
been expelled from many counties they were operating in bevause the citizens loved
to relate with them, only to be allowed to return later by the same diocesan
clergymen who drove them away.
One cannot just look at Ateneo in isolation for it is also a
controversial institution that has to deal with the community especially in the
field of amateur sports. Without fear of
contradiction over the years Ateneo which had become a university had been a
leading school in amateur basketball, soccer and other campus sports to mention
a few. But, as the Jesuit philosophy
states, sports is good to a point. Mens
sana in corpore sano, A healthy mind in a healthy body. Thus, it is stressed upon every Ateneo student
that one goes to Ateneo to study and not to just play. The rule is that if one is failing in two
subjects, no matter who he may be, he cannot play in any game – even a
championship one- unless those failing marks are removed before the game
starts.
So, this policy came to a head when in one particular day
during a basketball season the fight was close between Ateneo and another
school. The captain of the Ateneo
basketball team had two failing marks in the grading period. So, the Fr. Rector called his attention to
the policy, and told him that he could not play in the coming crucial game with
the other school’s team. The captain did
not expect that the school would not allow him to play in thatl close a fight
of a game. So the day came and the
players came out of their dugouts to warm up before the basketball game. All the fans of the captain were all waiting
to give him a rousing applause as he would usually emerge from the dugout to
join the other players members in the court amidst the usual applause from his
fans.
The fans waited. And waited. And waited some more. Soon, the game was about to start. No captain had emerged. So, the game was
started without the captain. Where was
the captain of the team? The poor athlete was all dressed up and sobbing into a
towel as he sat on the bench all by himself in the locker room.
He knew the
rules. The school had to impose it
strictly for all athletes/students. No exception. He learned it the hard way
but later emerged as one of the valuable players of the school and when he died
there was a monement installed in the sports memorabilia of his alma mater with
his statue prominently visible.
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