Education Delegates Meeting 2018
Creating a Culture of Collaboration
Education Delegates from Jesuit Provinces across Europe (JECSE) gathered for their annual meeting in the Old Abbey of Drongen, Belgium (Nov 28th – Dec 1st).
Franck Janin sj, as president of the JCEP, opened the meeting and expressed his sincere gratitude to the Steering Committee for all their work during the interim period when the search for MT Michel’s successor was taking place. He also welcomed Ilse Dekker and thanked her for her generosity and willingness to serve as the new director of JECSE.
Networking; a new way of proceeding
Main theme for the meeting was the importance of networking as a new way of proceeding, encouraging us as a Jesuit network to remain faithful to our holistic, humanistic narrative, while the prevailing paradigm in our world today sees education mainly as ‘training for employability’.
Daniel Villanueva sj, coordinator of the Jesuit Network Initiative, talked with us about the dynamic of networking, as a means to create a culture of collaboration and to strengthen our common initiatives. It was recognized that some problems just cannot be solved alone but require an interconnected approach. Also as educators we should always remember that our school communities provide a wonderful opportunity to give students and parents a sense of belonging and a deeper awareness of our interconnectedness.
We explored how we might, as a group of delegates from the different Provinces (through JECSE) and of the Education Sector linking with the other Jesuit sectors, expand the possibilities of our networking. To help us move into this dynamic we examined the style of leadership this requires, within our communities at all levels; coordinating creative human effort, building on relationships rather than authority, on trust and community interest rather than efficiency. Finally, we surfaced the strengths and needs in our different Provinces, and we were able to determine a number of areas that we might fruitfully collaborate on. Three specific task groups were formed on the topics of Formation, Global Citizenship, and Safeguarding.
Of course within JECSE we will also continue to share best practices on ‘interiority in the school context’. In this regard there was a beautiful presentation by Franciso Cuartero sj, pastoral coordinator of the Spanish team, on their ‘Lineas de Fuerza program’, animating essential Ignatian themes over a cycle of 6 years.
Jose Mesa sj, secretary for Jesuit Education, reminded us of the developments over the last 10 years and the work being done since the last worldwide conference in Rio (2017). He also highlighted the wonderful support being given by Fr General and of the need for the regions to rally in support of the worldwide on-line-community, Educate Magis.
We ended the meeting with clear priorities for the future and a number of task groups working on how to progress these and the general mission of the Society.
