Morning Star

The benefit of integrated classrooms

There is this account of strict gender-separation:

Mohabat News -- In line with its policy of introducing gender-segregation to every social enviromement, the Iranian government has banned men and women from using educational facilities at the same time. Men will be permitted access on some days and women on others. The directive applis in particular to libraries and research institutes.

According to Shahrzad News, based on a report by Fars news agency, non-governmental schools head Fereshte Heshmatian confirmed that the decision had been made at the 67th meeting of the Council for Monitoring Non-Governmental Schools, in keeping with the policy of promoting citizens' involvement in administering education. "A directive has been sent to all provincial education authorities, stressing that members of the opposite sex must not even face one another in such environments ."

I covered this in my first book, highlighting how gender separation impacts the pursuit of truth:

[M]ale-female differences had very important effects on the history of educational institutions in the life of the Church. After the fall of the Roman Empire, monasticism was the quiet force that restored order to Europe. One element that grew from this was a system of education built on monastic and later cathedral schools, which evolved slowly into a very structured way of passing along a sophisticated body of knowledge. Young boys who showed academic promise were sent to the monks to be educated, and girls whose families had the money and the inclination sent them to convents to be taught. For centuries, the Church was guardian and dispenser of the only education available, and it integrated a variety of disciplines—rudimentary science, rhetoric, logic, and elementary math—with a Christian world view. In a simple and straightforward way, contemplative reflection was combined with intellectual inquiry, giving students a well-rounded education.

As the Middle Ages progressed, the academic disciplines became more sophisticated and the teachers formed guilds—just as other workers of the age did. There was great pride in one’s profession, and teachers were just as inclined to show marks of distinction and to look out for one another in a Christian and brotherly way. Cathedral schools competed for honors, fought for the better students, and evolved into the universities that we recognize even until today. There should be a great sense of satisfaction in the part that the Church played in seeking out knowledge of the world and making education available to a widespread portion of the population.

Two rifts grew in the universities that would prove to have great negative consequences on the integrated knowledge that had served the Church and the world so well. There was eventually a split in academia between theology and philosophy, which ultimately mandated that students choose between one and the other as a primary discipline. This breach was so pronounced that by the end of the thirteenth century, the University of Paris mandated that theological topics not be even discussed by those who taught philosophy.¹ Clearly, the integration that had served education so well was being overcome by compartmentalization, as the universities drifted from their contemplative roots.

The second rift happened at roughly the same time when women were finally refused access to the universities. This was not so much an objective indictment of women as students but a shift in the way that men saw the academy. True to the spirit of the age, the guilds had evolved into chivalric outposts and the ecclesial ranks reflected the orders of the knights that fought for truth and order in the secular world. Thus, the universities barred those students and masters who were not a part of the clergy.

Concretely, then, by the end of the thirteenth century, both the feminine presence within the student body was gone from academia and the spiritual motherhood of the Church was severely constrained. The effect was twofold and wholly negative in the long run. Primarily, women, who had built many of their abbeys into powerful learning establishments, no longer had access to the best formation. At that time, Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine abbess, was the most renowned female academic and her fields of expertise were many. There were other women as well—a long and impressive list—who worked side by side with men in the scriptoria reproducing religious texts, were enrolled in the universities, and wrote treatises on a wealth of subjects. This collaboration now—school by school—came to a crashing halt.

The second effect was more subtle but every bit as harmful to the field of learning. Not only did women no longer have the benefit of the best of education, but the schools no longer benefited by the presence of women and their integrated way of thinking. What women brought to academia then—and still do—is “the living experience of the truths of faith,”¹ What followed, sadly, over the years, was a disintegration on many levels...

1 See Francis Martin, The Feminist Question, p. 49

1 Martin, p. 49

[from The Authentic Catholic Woman, Chapter 6, "The Church as Teacher"]

What drives the Taliban?

The Taliban indicates that its interpretation of Islam is the most pure, driving the members to do this:

(Reuters) - More than 120 schoolgirls and three teachers have been poisoned in the second attack in as many months blamed on conservative radicals in the country's north, Afghan police and education officials said on Wednesday.

The attack occurred in Takhar province where police said that radicals opposed to education of women and girls had used an unidentified toxic powder to contaminate the air in classrooms. Scores of students were left unconscious.

Afghanistan's intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), says the Taliban appear intent on closing schools ahead of a 2014 withdrawal by foreign combat troops.

"A part of their Al Farooq spring offensive operation is ... to close schools. By poisoning girls they want to create fear. They try to make families not send their children to school," NDS spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said.

Afghanistan's Ministry of Education said last week that 550 schools in 11 provinces where the Taliban have strong support had been closed down by insurgents.

Last month, 150 schoolgirls were poisoned in Takhar province after they drank contaminated water.

Since 2001 when the Taliban were toppled from power by U.S.-backed Afghan forces, females have returned to schools, especially in the capital Kabul. They were previously banned from work and education.

But there are still periodic attacks against students, teachers and school buildings, usually in the more conservative south and east of the country, from where the Taliban insurgency draws most of its support.

Obviously, many Muslims educate their girls, and in many Muslim-majority countries, women participate in almost all professions. Perhaps it's a question of interpretation, or perhaps it's because some are lax in their observance. Either way, I would hope that we hear the voices of pious Muslims who abhor these actions, and who keep in mind that targeting innocents is reprehensible -- no matter what the cause.

An "Oasis" tribute to Bishop Mazzolari of Sudan

Below are details from a meeting with Msgr. Cesare Mazzolari, bishop of Rumbeck, Sudan, who died while celebrating his daily mass on saturday 16 July.

To point the way to Loreto School, situated six kilometers from the city centre of Rumbek, city of 300 thousand inhabitants in South Sudan (officially ‘only’ 60 thousand, but displaced persons have swollen this community with their shacks), a white stone has been placed by way of a roadsign, a signpost for anyone following the great colonial road that leads to the city of Wau: “The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.” This remark is made only half in jest by Monsignor Cesare Mazzolari, Bishop of the diocese of Rumbek, a missionary for 30 years in these lands of distant Africa, destination of the great apostle Daniele Comboni.

 To visit this girls’ school, the only one of its kind in all of the emergent state of South Sudan, means to touch with one’s own hands the ‘revolutionary’ force of education. The rejected stone, in this instance, refers to the girls of the Dinka, the chief of the Nilotic (i. e. Negroid) tribes of these plains. After all, it is the women who have to shoulder the burden of the greater part of the labour, whether at home or outside it: the education of the children, domestic chores, a job outside. To give an example: going to get water, in these latitudes, is far from being a trifle – for it requires a journey of many kilometers on foot every morning and every evening. Here at Loreto School, however, the girls receive something different: they go to school, they are educated and they prepare to become leaders in their society. They have the enjoyment of a small well-maintained Eden.

“Ah, you can always see the hand of the Sisters,” exclaims Bishop Mazzolari, who hails from Brescia, though his vocation came to him in America (he studied and worked in California) and he is Sudanese by adoption. “Look at the flowers and the plants: everything here is so beautiful!” And in fact the interior of the building looks as though it has been architect-designed, considering the modernity and good taste shown in the ordering of the rooms. Right now the 54 girls at this secondary school are preparing for their end of year exams. The teachers – all from abroad, Uganda and Kenya, which tells us a lot about the backward situation of Sudan, the 150th poorest country in the world – are testing them in English, science, geography, and history.

Loreto School is indeed a one-off in the whole of Sudan, a country that was previously the largest in Africa, dismembered by the historic referendum which on 9 January this year sanctioned the independence of the South after 23 years of extremely bloody civil war. […]

In a country whose population is 85% illiterate, the first challenge is definitely education. Not merely teaching people reading, writing, and arithmetic, but building a personal identity, the shape of a people, a nation looking to the future. Mazzolari explains it clearly in the course of a journey by jeep: he is at the wheel despite his 74 years and the roads of South Sudan – little more than tracks in the savannah. One of the problems that the missionaries have to confront every day is the subjection of women in a culture of polygamy. “One of the things that will put an end to polygamy is the education and emancipation of women, so that they will understand that they are destined for something better than to be the 20th or 30th wife of the rich old man of the village – argues Mazzolari with conviction. Even though modernity is making its timid inroads into an impenetrable society like that of South Sudan, the young, confused by social customs, “are completely chained to their culture by a sort of system. Polygamy, the obligation of vendetta, and other negative situations: people are victims of this vicious circle. They will need tremendously strong Christian convictions to escape from all that,” explains the prelate from Brescia.

In addition to the critique of polygamy – a practice that represents a defeat for the dignity of woman and for the value of love itself – education, understood in a Christian sense, is bringing into the ancient Nigritia another very important human and social value: forgiveness. “As a Church we have reconciled the Nuer and the Dinka through our diocesan association dedicated to Saint Monica: we have brought about meetings between tribes at one time in conflict with one another, Dinka families have gone to find the Nuer and the Nuer have visited the homes of the Dinka. This has been happening over the last 7-8 years, while the war was still raging.

When individuals forget about vendetta, peace comes. Many women have forgiven the wicked deeds that the North committed against the South: in Khartoum they were tired of fighting, we in the South were prostrate with exhaustion. Basically, the peace agreement was an act of reconciliation, even if the North regards it simply as a truce.”

The Church’s work of reconciliation has not taken place only in the rooms of political power. Though it is true, as Mazzolari notes, that “for the sake of peace we did a tour of the embassies: we went to South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya, where we finally managed to get a peace agreement. We bishops also came to Europe: to the Foreign Secretary in Rome, to Germany, France, and to Great Britain. The US Bishops’ Conference has been to visit us as well as the Bishops of South Africa. It has been a continuous drive to create a new situation, an era of freedom to revive the spirit of these people who have suffered from too many years of war.”

What Mazzolari and others like him have tried to do is to heal the wounds suffered among the people through twenty years of battles and confrontations – in such a way as to overcome the very term ‘enemy.’ An example: “In the area on the border between the North and the South many young persons managed to escape from the tented camps where they had been collected as slaves of the baghar, the Arab slave traders. So we set up schools in Gordhim and in Marial Lou, two of our missions, where an education has been offered to these lads who were formerly slaves. They were traumatised youngsters mentally disturbed to such a point that they could no longer speak their own dialect. I remember having seen in a camp near Malualkon some lads living under canopies of branches: they had only just escaped! Our schools have not just been schools but real refuges for these kids. They were places where kids who had come from the North, were (very reluctantly on their part) mixed in with the ones from the South: our centres have been able to bring about a real reconciliation and integration. We have been in a position to offer a future to hundreds of kids who were formerly slaves. One day they will say: ‘If it had not been for the Church, we would still be abandoned and ignorant.’ I have sent some of the kids who were ex-slaves to university. One girl, Suzanne, even went to Oxford: now she is in charge of public relations for the government of South Sudan.”
Education here serves as bread for the hungry and water for those who are thirsty. […]

 Monsignor Mazzolari does not hide his enthusiasm when speaking of his first Christians: “In the first years of mission among the Azande I was personally responsible for preparation for baptism. Then, as Bishop, on one single evening I baptised a good 1200 youngsters in Niam Liel alone. The following morning I confirmed 900. There are moments – when we become instruments of sanctification – when we are sanctified ourselves too. We must not forget how and how much God works in the hearts of people. And when you become His minister, well, it’s wonderful! A gigantic experience!». […]

 The full text of this reportage will be published in the next issue of Oasis journal, forthcoming in September 2011. NOTA BENE: the dignity of women and the power of forgiveness are two elements of Christianity that have to be upheld in holding firmlly against the spread of Islam. This beautiful man prioritised both -- may his soul rest in peace!