As a Holy Child Sister, belonging to a congregation that treasures the empowerment of girls, I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to work with youth, particularly girls, all my life as a teacher and as an administrator. As an Ashanti from a matrilineal culture, the woman’s place is held in high esteem within the culture. Technically speaking, the child from this culture belongs to the mother and inherits directly from the mother’s family. Each child has their unique name given at birth and there was no issue of surname. The colonization process brought in the absolute control of the father with the mother being pushed to the background, but that was not the case culturally. This disconnect has brought to the fore the fact that most girls may feel they are not as important as boys.
In our world today, African women may feel inferior to men, owing to lack of education and other factors. However, if we recall that God created us—male and female—to complement one another and not to be in competition with one another, then, it is our ultimate responsibility to enable each other to grow to our own full potential. Venerable Cornelia Connelly, the Foundress of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, would admonish her sisters: Be yourself, but make that self all that God wants you to be. This admonition goes to all of us as creatures of God. As St. Augustine said: Our hearts are restless until we find our rest in God. We groan to become who we are meant to be and not to imitate someone else.
Dealing with young adolescents has brought me to the painful realization that although each one of us has latent gifts in us, we are often in competition with one another. Our education is to help us to unearth our potential, but unfortunately, our curriculum does not take into account the special gift of each child we encounter. We often grade our students into different categories, not realizing that each one has a unique gift to contribute to society. If you judge a fish by its ability to fly and a bird by its ability to swim, you miss the mark. Each one of us has our own unique and individual gifts, and we only blossom when we come to recognize our giftedness, own them, and strive to improve upon our latent gifts.
One of the cardinal virtues of Holy Child Education is the development of gifts. This implies that as I interact with my students, I have to study their gifts so as to recognize their capabilities and encourage them to develop these gifts. One of the ways we used to achieve this objective is the monthly assessment which is carried out in every Holy Child School. It is not enough to give the students a test and record their marks, but as a teacher, you are encouraged to study the performance of your students and give a report on each student’s progress. It is a tedious exercise, but it helps to unearth their potential and enables them to build up their self-confidence. The total development of the child must be key in our educational formation. We need to equip children to believe they are capable of making a unique contribution to their world.
Discipline should also be a key factor in our educational principle. I remember one of my students who was not an academic giant but was very disciplined. She was neat, courteous, and obedient, and one could hardly find any fault with her. I discovered that, prior to entering Holy Child School, she was disobedient and rude. However, her experiences at the school transformed her to be a role model in her community. She became such an agent of change that a parent came to plead with me to accept her own child into the school so that she too could be transformed. What a remarkable transformation—and a powerful testament to her influence.
Respect for the individual is one of the cardinal virtues of Holy Child Education. Each person is created in the image and likeness of the Divine and so it is paramount that administrators, teachers, and students treat each person with the respect and dignity they deserve. Once we recognize the divine factor in one another, we are more than willing to accord the necessary respect to one another.
We equally train our students to have concern for one another. I once told my students to sacrifice their Christmas gifts from their parents and tell the parents to give the said amount so that it could be used to help the less fortunate in the school who could not afford to pay their fees. I was personally amazed at the positive responses. In the various schools in which I have worked, it became obvious to me through my interaction with the students that the girls in adolescence are very vulnerable and need support, guidance, and encouragement in order to ensure their safety. The question is: Must girls go through all forms of injustices in order to access education? Empowering girls to know her rights is essential, allowing them to take pride in themselves as human beings.
For the past two years, I have had the privilege to visit with my past students. It has been an insightful program where the students are able to share their challenges and encourage one another to move on. Often it is this program that brings them together. They express gratitude for such programs which empower them to stand up in the vicissitudes of life and give them the confidence to forge ahead in a male-dominated world. I remain grateful for these projects which have enabled me to do a follow-up on the students who passed through my hands as an administrator. We never know how these encounters can empower young women to recognize the potential she has in herself, help her to build her self-confidence, and so contribute effectively to the nation. Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, has said: “If you educate a man, you educate an individual but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” May we have the energy and zeal to empower more women so that we can feel the multiplier effect in our world.
