At the beginning of November, our new Transformative Education Commission met via Zoom: Grace Magtaas (Asia), Sr Ascensión González (America), Sr Générose Mukeba (Africa), Isabelle-Eugénie Gorgeu (Europe) and Irene Cecile Torres (for the link with the General Council).
The aim of this first meeting was to get to know each other and to share our human and educational experiences. It was a great time of listening, discovering each other, and laughing too, because one of the challenges we face, as you can imagine, is the language!
Irene Cecile and Isabelle-Eugénie shared the work done over the last three years for the Secretariat for Transformative Education. The report included not only the challenges and difficulties encountered in implementing the three-year plan (largely due to Covid), but also the enthusiasm of working together. Veronique helped with the themes chosen (discernment, communion, peripheries, and interiority) to be able to see how Marie Eugénie and our first sisters had lived and implemented them with the students and in their first experiences of transformative education. These exchanges led to the writing of documents and diagrams. How can we bring up what is happening in the different Provinces in terms of innovation and various experiences? How can we use today's technological means to make known (not only among ourselves, but also to a wider public) what is happening in our Provinces?
Isabelle-Eugénie then shared what she had experienced during the session organized by the UISG (International Union Superiors General) on the Global Education Pact launched by Pope Francis. She referred to the article written on this subject (https://assumpta.org/en/news/education-seminar), and the challenges that this represents for our congregation.
Finally, we took on board what the General Chapter wanted for the Secretariat for Transformative Education, to reiterate the objectives and align them with the Global Education Pact. We reflected on our organization, on the sharing of tasks, on how to be more in contact with each person in charge of Transformative Education.
Since then, we had two more Zoom meetings to start developing our action plan. We have been looking at how to do this so that we didn't waste too much time on translating among us. Grace suggested the subtitle translation feature of PowerPoint (Office 365). It was an exercise in patience and mindfulness as each of us had to share her screen every time she spoke! But it helped us progress in our work, even if sometimes the translation came out a bit funny! Next time, we are going to train with Sr Mercedes in all the tools of Office 365 and use MS Teams which has a seamless translation feature as our new platform.
So, our work in the Commission has started well. You will soon have more news!
Sister Isabelle-Eugénie
Commission of Transformative Education