Montemorelos, Mexico…[Matheus Nascimento & Dulce Monjaraz/Comunicando UM/IAD]
More than 300 Adventist educators from the Inter-American Division (IAD) territory met for a three-day symposium where they learned and discussed issues that face Adventist education in their territory.
Organized by the Education department of IAD on the campus of Montemorelos University in Mexico, the first symposium on Marketing Adventist Education, held Sep. 21-24, gathered 130 education directors and hundreds more school principles and teachers from the 15 unions that made up the territory.
Several workshops were taught on topics including strategic planning, education in marketing, retention of students and financial planning.
“We have organized this symposium with the purpose of globalizing education in the territory of our Division,” explained Dr. Moises Velasquez, director for education for the church in Inter-America.
The plan is part of the challenge to integrate the 1,010 existent schools at the elementary and secondary levels, including middle schools and the 13 universities, so that they can work more closely. Also, this event compliments the next symposium that is planned in a few months in Jamaica for all the presidents of Adventist universities throughout the IAD.
“We are starting with Bible textbooks, which we hope to have by next summer,” said Dr. Velazquez. He went onto explain that Montemorelos had been working on the revision of the book and one last revision is pending before it is published in English, Spanish and French.
Another one of the integrative objectives of the IAD for the following years is to implement an online Inter-American educational program, slated to launch next year. The program will offer careers at a low cost, and will be accredited in North America and of the local country. The program will offer an opportunity to people who have not completed their bachelor's degrees or wish to enter post-graduate studies in the comfort of their own homes.
Marketing Adventist Education in the 21st Century
A present concern for Adventist educators throughout Inter-America is the decrease in the number of Adventist students who attend church schools. To counter this alarming trend, educators discussed how to market Adventist education while promoting its philosophy through a special campaign geared to parents and the preparation of audio-visual materials for young people.
“Marketing Adventist education for the 21st Century is our theme and our objective,” said Dr. Velazquez. “We are working with the principles we have, that they do not change, but actualizing the way to offer it, because the child or youth of today is totally different from how we were educated. Now we have a cybernetic student who communicates, chats, and does everything through the internet. His/her motivation in school as in the home is surrounded by technology.
Different techniques, but the same principles will make the difference in the future.
According to Dr. Ismael Castillo, president of Montemorelos University and host of the event, research has shown that by 2010, professionals with solid moral principles will be in demand in the job market. Hence, there is an urgent need to prepare young people for the future.
For this, “Adventists by nature established institutions for the development of the physical, mental and spiritual faculties,” said Dr. Castillo. “We do so within the frame of the great controversy and with a clear orientation in the formation of values and habits conducive to a moral life.”
In this context, educators were called to break the old patterns.
“The Adventist Church should give space to those professionals with new thinking, new styles, that new patterns must be broken,” he challenged.
Recommendations
As the event ended, participants were able to learn of the recommendations on behalf of IAD to the teachers and school principals for the educational leaders so that they can realize that educators or individuals in charge of education, should be trained in their area.
“A pastor is trained for evangelism, but cannot evaluate a working school plan, a class, methods or techniques that the professor should use, since it is not his specialty,” continued Dr. Velazquez. “The Inter-American Division makes that recommendation to union presidents: we want educators in the area of education.”
The second recommendation was a strengthening of training and actualization to have all trained teachers with at least a bachelor's degree.
Another recommendation was the need to improve the physical plant, the infrastructure of the campus, so that schools can be well located and be recognized for being modern.
Emphasis was also given to increasing the value of the foundations of our education. One of the central messages of the event was to read again the book “Education” by Ellen G. White.
Enriching Experiences
For Julio Cesar Gutierrez, of the school Escuela 24 de Febrero, in San Luis, Sonora, the seminary was satisfactory.
“I felt that as directors, it helped us a lot because it is needed to reform Adventist education,” he said. “It is needed to provide a quality education.”
According to Esther Valdez from Elena Marmon educational center, in Mexicali, Baja California, the event was spiritually enriching and inspired her to better her work. She said she learned the importance of marketing Adventist education, teaching moral principles in the classroom, better organization and strategic planning.
Others in attendance highlighted the strength of marketing.
“What impacted me the most was the idea of growth for the marketing education and the different techniques to promote our schools,” said Miriam Martinez, principal of an Adventist school in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. “I realize that we all have the same problems in our different schools.”
The next symposium for presidents of Adventist universities in the territory will take place at Northern Caribbean University in Jamaica, Nov. 8-12.
For more information on this event and other events, visit us at www.interamerica.org
