– Marco Carvalho
Santa Rosa is a Catholic school, with Catholic values. How do these values reflect on the way the school subjects are taught? What makes the difference: the way the subjects are taught? Or the values it spreads?
Well, I think the parents choose us because of both. To be honest, the Chinese Section of Santa Rosa de Lima is not a very famed school in academic terms. I am quite aware of that. Well, we are not lagging behind either. We are a little bit above the standard. The parents know about that. Of course, they can see a number of our students getting to the University, the performance of our past students in Macau’s society. They can see all that. They can see how they are doing, but mainly – as you mentioned – we are a Catholic school. We are a Catholic School and Catholic Schools in Macau seem to leave a good impression on even the non-Catholic inhabitants in Macau. Apart from those with a political background, I would say that most of the parents try to enroll their kids in a Catholic School. It’s their first choice. On the other hand, once they are here, they can see the difference and the difference is that we put more effort on our students’ moral education. Of course the moral education we teach is based on our Catholic values. I think this is one of the main reasons why they want to get in.
Santa Rosa caters to mostly female students. What is the big challenge of dealing with this kind of institution. Is it different from running a mixed school for instance?
This is the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary’s mission throughout the world. Even throughout the whole world we just have girl schools. We don’t have mixed schools, unless the Government requires us. That never happened, but we can never say it won’t happen. By educating females we keep the spirit of our foundress . She wanted girls to have an education. That was always her aim. When she talked about education, she talked about love. She used to say that love, for women, is very important: there is an internal potential for love. We have to try to develop that internal potential and help them to find means for expressing that potential, especially because women are the only ones that could give life. If they are aware of that potential, they will know that they can love, they will know how to love and how to give love.
The role of women has changed, nevertheless. Today, women are expected to be good mothers and good wives, but also good professionals. How did this affect the way the school provides education?
We will try to reach a balance, of course. We don’t tell our girls that they need to be good mothers. No, no, no! We help them to maintain certain abilities. If they want to specialize in a certain stream – if they want to be doctors or architects – they can be. They can be what they want. But we also try to give them some background. In the modern world, we hear people say that women should be ready to compete with males. Before, the usual thing was that only the males would complete superior education, but now most women can attain that. We are not stopping them from getting that. All together we tell them: “You should study well, you should have your own future. The future depends only on your choices.” They are choosing also, but internally, they won’t be able to fall behind in love. Even if you are a CEO, even if you decide you don’t want to get married, you can have an institution or an organization running very well, but what makes the difference is how you run it. You can have the technique, you can have all the substance that you need there, but if you lack love for your staff, if you don’t take care of the whole thing as if it is your family, as if it is your children, then you are not up to our education. Independently of the way that they are going to choose for their future, we want them to be able to deal with people, to treat them the way God treats us. This is very important. Nowadays, we are living in a society where we need to understand how we can integrate women in society without forgetting that they are females. If, as a female, we can obtain certain positions we should do that, because God gave us that potential and you shouldn’t leave it behind. But internally or spiritually, we should be aware of a more moral dimension and understand that love is the most important thing. Is fighting for right or fighting for money a more important thing? Is that more important than love? That’s what makes the difference about our education.
What are the main challenges that Santa Rosa faces?
Sometimes, the biggest challenges that we face come from the most unexpected persons: our students’ own parents. Some parents neglect their own children. They simply won’t show up.
Sometimes we wonder why some of our students don’t eat, they don’t do their homework and they don’t behave normally and that happens because no one gave them a family education. Family education now is being totally neglected. While children are in kindergarten, it’s OK: the parents take care of them. Starting from the primary, after the Primary 3 we can see the number of parents that come to our meeting disappearing. Afterwards, in the secondary, they are almost entirely gone. You can see the difference. The challenge coming from the parents is one of the problems that we have to face.
Follow
