“So, we must teach those who come to us, those to whom we go, not only prescribed secular knowledge, but especially, how to use, how to interpret this knowledge rightly, how to walk safely over the highways and byways of life, how to meet its joys and sorrows, how to avoid sin, how to live to God.”
Those words, written by Mother Mary Joseph in a letter to all Sisters from March 18, 1940, reveal her thoughts on the ideal Catholic teacher. Over the course of the last century, the Maryknoll Sisters and the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers have sent out hundreds of missioners to teach the youth of the world. Founding schools in remote areas, these intrepid Maryknollers helped educate those who, prior to Maryknoll’s arrival, might not have had access to a safe and secure place to learn. In the early years of mission in Hong Kong, Sister Mary Paul McKenna opened what would become the Maryknoll Convent School; Father George Pfister set up and managed the Maryknoll Language School in Musoma, Tanzania in order to help train the missioners in the language of their mission; and Sister Martina Bridgeman and Sister Regina Johnson founded the Colegio Monte Marie, a girls’ school in Guatemala in 1953.
Maryknoll has a long and robust history of providing education to those in areas of the world where it was lacking. So today, on World Teacher’s Day, we celebrate those Maryknoll teachers and thank them for their countless years in the classroom attempting to help navigate their students “safely over the highways and byways of life.”
Sr. Margaret Rose Winkelmann, who helped to establish Marian College (later Secondary School) in Mogoro, Tanzania in 1957; Rosary College in Mwanza, Tanzania in 1961; and Rugambwa Secondary School in Bukoba, Tanzania in 1965.
Brother Gregory Grant, who taught at Maryknoll’s Escuela Agricola Gonzalo Correa in Molina, Chile and at Liceo La Asuncion in Talcahuano, Chile in the 1960s and 1970s.
Sister Leona Michiels, teaching science to her students at St. Ann’s School in Kaneohe on the island of Oahu in the 1960s.
Fr. Norman Batt taught science classes at Maryknoll’s Venard in Clarks Summit, PA from 1935-1940 and 1944-1951.
Sister Margaret Shepherd with her students at the Maryknoll Convent School in Hong Kong in 1981.
Father James Conard started and built the Kowak Girls Secondary School in Tanzania in the early 1990s.
Sister Regina Johnson, who helped found Guatemala’s Colegio Monte Marie in 1953. Here she is with her students in a school she also founded in Jacaltenango, Guatemala.
