Berkley Center

Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in summer 2013 undergraduate student Nick Dirago interviewed Father Bob Dolan, S.J., the counselor at the College of the Immaculate, in Lima, Peru. In this interview Dolan discusses the impact of globalization in Peru, the idea of reading reality, and the value of ecological projects in promoting the mission of the College of the Immaculate.

The sub-header of the project this year is the Jesuits and Globalization…

It’s the eye of the hurricane here. You have the most insecure people as far as professionally expressing themselves and growing because there’s so much corruption. If you’re from one of the favored universities, you’ve got it made, while the others are constantly required to work overtime and have more and better degrees. Most state employees, they’re very poorly educated, but they’re all in key spots to process justice. The whole sense of justice is very troubled. Explicitly there are payoffs to the judge and to the state officials and lawyers, so there’s no possible justice.

What does the corruption stem from?

In Peru, it’s power and status. Power is money, and money is politics. And politics is status. You’re either in or out. It’s as old as Lima itself, but from the 1950s on it’s grown a lot. It’s transformed because of the types of economic structures, major international companies and investments. These elements change the whole value of the education that most universities give.

What consequences has the new economic structure had for upper-middle class families in Lima like the ones who send their children here?

Throughout history, it’s always been the case that in poor families the mother and father have had to work. A sign of middle class had been that women didn’t have to work. Now husband and wife both have to have degrees and have to have a good job. A good job usually means well-paying. It does not necessarily mean ethical. And that’s where the challenge is: maintaining a job, trying to do it well and justly, while you still have to meet ungodly demands as far as working overtime and not getting paid for it. The parents have little time to really relate not just within the institution but with each other. Where do you put your kids while you’re sweating the extra hours?

Do you think of it as the school needing to play that role that the family used to?

The school should never replace the roles of parenting. Our Jesuit education has a basic thesis that the most important educators, and the principal educators, are the parents. We enter into a commitment with the parents to educate their children in these values and this type of demand as far as humanities and science. We’re a bilingual school, so it’s a big seller.

I’m not saying that all this is wrong. But definitely the kind of status… this is very serious. There are very few toys that children can play with that are not electronic. There are very few [students] that do not have a phone. Cell phones make the people closer to you end up being further away, and those who are further away are much closer. But it changes how these kids can relate. What’s this going to mean as far as organizing their affective life, their social life, their labor relations? Once they’re seated into a technological system, they’re just a blip on the screen.

Peru still has a lot of agrarian society and migrating people to the city. We cannot be blind to either of these. Fe y Alegría [school network] is a wonderful example of covering all of that. The Jesuit high schools more represent people who have traditional values—religious or family or faith values—and want a school that will maintain the quality of learning.

If we’re not concerned about people, we have nothing to say about education.

What does the school do to reach out to parents? What’s the relationship with parents like?

We have an active PTA [parent-teacher association] situation. They support a good number of events, fundraisers. We have groups of parents who are picking up on our activities and social projects in some slum areas. We have parents who have formed their own groups, on their own initiative, sort of coupling with the context and the needs of the people being served; they have their Solidarity Day where they spend Saturday afternoon with the elderly and the sick. And that is something that came out of them. They’re almost jealous of their kids.

We try to be strong on spirituality. I’ve always been involved in forming these small groups of six to twelve people, usually, [who do Mark Link’s spiritual exercises]. They’re all parents. We don’t try to teach people how to pray. We try to teach people how to be people, how to make decisions. Experiences and the implications of those experiences are ones that make us more free, more communicable, more accessible with others, etc.

We have a type of school that is one of the top two or three schools, combining quality academics with Christian values. The humanities, apostolic work, men and women for others are realities in our academic process.

Every one of our teachers is required to have a retreat during the year, and then at the beginning of every quarter there are talks about how to talk in academic, in educational language the values and methodology of the Ignatian processes.

I’ve heard a lot about “reading reality”…

If we’re going to identify who we are, we have to identify in what terms we’re defining ourselves. And that has to be done in your context. It has to be done in the quality of reflection, with groups of other men and women who are willing to share this process.

If reading reality has to be done in your context… a lot of people have suggested that there could be negative consequences to putting someone from a lower-class background into a school like this.

It’d be wonderful if we could do it successfully. But the fact is… the first school in which I taught, in Arequipa back in the sixties, we were teaching social values, we had social activities, and we had a very strong scholarship-type support program. It eventually turned into a point in which anything—talking about prom, talking about trips with the classes—would end up dividing severely, and at times very aggressively, dividing these students amongst themselves. And the families. Because the question about who has money to travel, who has money to go to all these parties, or even to travel on weekends, who can buy a cell phone or have new clothing, cutting right down the middle… It was very difficult, because we’re teaching them these values and they’re interpreted…

We prepare the students to a certain point. On one hand, the [poorer] students would end up knowing more math and ABCs and everything than their own parents. And that’s very difficult when they’re growing up. But there’d be major sacrifices from the parents so that their kids continue. But if the kids graduated from our school, there was a much higher chance they’d be successful at the university.

But economically that’s not sustainable in the long run because we have not worked on the economic structures in which this type of support program could really be financed without committing economic suicide after a couple years.

It’d be nice if it could be done. But being able to help young people discover their own country, the other face of their country, the kind of structures that are still sustaining big city life while the rest—jungle people, mountain people—are still not even considered nationals when there are problems. So, being able to be part of this process of wanting to be there and relating ourselves—most of our teachers are involved in these “insertion” trips—and there’ll be teachers who are willing to sacrifice their time because that’s the best thing that we can do. Reflecting, thinking, “What’s happening to me?”

[Peru] is only Lima for most people.

Do you think the social formation process that happens at this school translates into the way people approach their lives and careers once they leave?

One thing I can’t stand about this school… all of the students are seeking education and quality and placement and a good job and a good-looking girl, but there’s a price for that. There are people who are proud to be alumni of ours, but that in many cases means you have your drinking buddies and weekend hangouts and summer trips still mapped out from your adolescent days at school. And on the other hand, it can show us how young men who develop academically and socially and then get involved in this type of trans-cultural rebirth, something really happens.

I remember one trip… when we came out after a month, we were walking out with everyone, we were just talking, but [a student] said, “This is between us. But I swear to you today, I will work my ass off to get the best degree I can, get involved in economics, and one day I will become president to try and change this country.” It wasn’t just emotive. He’s currently in a foreign country working on his doctorate. And I see this happen; the person’s convictions… he’s been changed for life. Not all of them are like that. We have, “We are the [alumni] of the school. We are the cream of the crop, so we have rights to everything this school has.” And that type of understanding is difficult.

What do things like ecological projects and the zoo have to do with education and with the mission of the school?

Well, the mission of the school is to place everything we have—the knowledge and the different types of technical skills—at the service of people, for a better life for everyone.

People say the next major wars are going to be over water. Lima has exceptional problems with water. The fact is, unless we are able to prove to people that it’s possible to invest in such a way that the best can be brought out of a very bad situation…

Our project here won the number-two prize in a UN contest for helping poor people use water. Second prize worldwide. And we showed it to governments and mayors and different government groups. Some of them have learned from it, but they aren’t willing to invest in anything that the next guy’s going to benefit from. But there are means of recycling water, of getting culture, wealth, relaxation, income… for a city of ten million. Some people would say it’s a luxury. Well, this luxury paid for itself in five years.

We believe a better world is possible. It’s all over the school. And to make a better world possible means education, means friendship and solidarity, means sacrificing yourself for the good of others, building bridges. We believe that “wasting” our time with these people who are being wasted because people had no time for them is what it means to change this country. If we don’t do it, it’s the same as nobody’s going to do it. It’s not a question of religion. It’s not a question just of social status. It’s a question of discerning the problems and working together with the people—don’t make decisions for the people; that will end ups suffocating and breaking them—but helping people to work for a better life for themselves. Making a better life possible. I think it’s worthwhile to do that. Otherwise I’m outta here.