A good school...

Diferentes órdenes religiosas.

As a school student I attended a private institution in my hometown managed by a religious order called Salesianos. There are some schools all around my country driven by religious orders, and one of their primary goals is to evangelize its students while educating them. Actually, today I work one one of such schools, managed by another religious order called Jesuitas, which is one of the oldest in my town. Last year it turned a hundred and sixty years as an active high school in Quito, Ecuador.

I consider my school to be a good one, even when, as a student, I rejected its teachings when I started high school. I moved to a private, non-religious school and I found it to be, in a lot of ways, worse. As my last years passed, I started to appreciate much more my former school because I saw it in a new light. Even as I decided not to follow catholic beliefs, I felt that in this new, non-religious school, individualism was endorsed also as a belief. Religious schools, I think, tend to pay more attention to the person, as a human, and to empathy and social relations.

So I think the most important residuals of my schooling are related with this sense of care that I discovered, as sometimes happen, when I lost it. This does not mean that all was perfect in my religious school: sometimes excessive care becomes also a problem. But I think, at the end, this has helped me to better understand religious institutions, but also non-religious institutions and their approach to education, care and other matters.

After ChatGPT reviewed it:

When I was in school, I went to a private school in my hometown run by a group called the Salesianos. There are lots of schools like this in my country, where the main goal is to teach students about religion while also giving them a good education. Now, I work at a different school run by another group called the Jesuitas, which has been around for over 160 years in Quito, Ecuador.

Looking back, I think my school was really good, even though I didn't always appreciate it when I was a student. At one point, I moved to a private, non-religious school and found it wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. Over time, I came to see the value of my old school in a new way. Even though I chose not to follow Catholic beliefs, I noticed that the non-religious school seemed to focus a lot on individualism. In contrast, religious schools often pay more attention to caring about people and building strong social connections.

So, the biggest lesson I took from my schooling is the sense of care and attention I discovered, especially when I realized it was missing elsewhere. Of course, no school is perfect—sometimes too much care can be a problem too. But overall, this experience has helped me understand how both religious and non-religious schools approach education, care, and other important issues.