The Monte Tabor and Nazareth schools were founded out of the desire of a group of married couples belonging to the Schoenstatt Movement who sought to expand and capture their own experiences of Fr. Kentenich’s ‘pedagogical school’ into a pedagogical-schooling model. They were also motivated by the certainty that this pedagogical contribution in Chile will help in the formation of people who develop their talents, giving the best of themselves in all aspects of human development, both personal and community, and that pedagogical action can translate into the “formation of people who become autonomous and free in the way they live their lives according to God’s plan for them.” The Schoenstatt Fathers are part of this process because they are greatly invested in this schooling project.
Their mission is to “form people in an educational Catholic community based on the pedagogy of Fr. Joseph Kentenich, to fully develop their talents and attachments in order to serve the Church and society and thus build an educational model for our times.”
The school’s curriculum, plans, programs and all of its formal and informal activities, provides multiple opportunities for each member of the school community (students, teachers, families, the administration section and helpers) to come into contact with and understand the reason and meaning of this reality through a series of activities that have been designed with pedagogical intent.
Challenges
The human person is a process: in each stage of evelopment there is an unfolding of the identity and this unfolding becomes real through engagement with reality, its sense and meaning. The educational aim of the Monte Tabor and Nazareth Schools is to give an answer to the vocation of the human person to know and enter the reality around him and grow in it to the best of his abilities. The person, including his intelligence, grows and develops towards this fullness as he matures and deepen his relationship with creation, with God, with ideas and knowledge, with others and with himself. In this way, the entire organization and life of the school is at the service of the development of this personal and communal identity.
In order to respond to these expectations and the demands of the world today, the curriculum seeks cooperation with each person so that each individual can foster an excellent relationship with this reality. The curriculum thus has fundamental and complementary goals:
To form the students’ personalities so that they are anchored in the spiritual, moral, social, and cultural so as to prepare them to face and take up all of life’s responsibilities and experiences.
To offer and provide diverse opportunities for all the students to learn and develop their abilities to the full.
The fundamental centre
The School’s curriculum has at its centre, an interest and motivation to learn and a commitment to life-long learning. This concept of learning is based on the premise that each student can develop and stimulate his abilities to the fullest by developing each of their talents. We have to guide and encourage the students’ strengths, interests and experiences, and to develop confidence in their learning and work abilities, so that they can work independently and in collaboration with others.
Bringing the programme to life
The programmes transversely include the students’ ability to understand their essence, their talents and their passions, to guide their existence towards their own vocation, that is, so that they can discover – in as far as is possible – their own identity and mission in the society that they are called to transform.
Some of the projects that have been implemented to achieve these goals include: the introduction of new subjects, different methodologies, the music project where students can join the choir or play an instrument, the development of a reading for comprehension programme and a strong emphasis on the development of thinking by explicitly teaching skills in all of the subjects offered by the school.
In this vein, the School ensures that the students go about discovering their learning styles so that they can improve their way of learning and understanding reality in a more holistic manner and thereby be able to serve the society in which they are developing.
Contacts
Avda. Paseo Pie Andino 5894
Tel: (56-2) 7500 900
Translated from the Spanish by Sarah-Leah Pimentel, South Africa
