Life in the Gimnasio takes place amid a certain mysticism, experiences of those who shared education and knowledge in the classroom. The students are the protagonists of a living, full story, filled of emotional exchanges with their environment, here the peace overwhelms, embraces and by a special force fills us with enthusiasm. In this century-old architecture, each corner is an anecdote and each memory a structure. The Raqueta is much more than an imperfect oval, an inclined plane that defies children’s play and words, the pines are not only warriors of the green that keep the secrets of what happens in these walls. The Gimnasio seems fused with nature because in its essence the green and the orange flow, like rivers of hope and joy through which ninety-five promotions have sailed, all captains of ships in search of their own port. The adventure begins in the classroom and for this reason our teachers are permanently obligated to build trips, review maps and explore new territories.
From the foundation stones, the free man has been the pillar and the teaching methods – both original and revolutionary – put to the test in these meadows, beyond incorporating certain trends, the School has determined some, from the cautious approach to human reality, to social conflicts and the challenges of a complex and catharchic world. Of course, it is understood that explaining the world is an unavoidable task, where seeking to face the enormous inequality is a commitment and debating new ideas is an obligation.
For these purposes, we must necessarily appeal to our distinguished name: Moderno (Modern) is what happens in the future, like an incessant timeline, that transports us to new destinations without ignoring the past. Perhaps, at school nothing is truer than the validity of our ancestors, their ways of thinking live with us and it is urgent to relive it with the necessary connections to the present.
Here we will have the best technology at the service of the best men, research centres as an evolution of our centres of interest. Education focused on principles such as the Discipline of Trust from the new Master Classes and study plans with clear and precise guidelines for the development of different areas of thought. We will have the best science laboratories, the most complete libraries to promote research.
It is an indispensable duty to establish what our attitude is towards new forms and methods of learning. How to make use of technological advances for the benefit of a population of children and young people, whose language and growth is permeated by these devices.
Science will be simulated in the classrooms where we will find it difficult to differentiate what we call reality from other concepts such as extended or augmented reality. The access to the cloud or to the infinite sources of information, will imply another type of travellers or navigators able to understand what interests and what doesn’t to the one who learns. The intelligent classroom is already part of our daily lives and perhaps this is when the need to guide our young people in the new scenarios appears strongly.
We have the arduous task of assimilating these changes and of educating in the basic principles of coexistence and in the complexities of autonomy so that future graduates are clear about the limits of confidence and the benefits of the discipline.
Gimnasio Moderno, an entire tradition of values in action, has notably permeated the formation of numerous generations of students, whose leadership based on principles, vocation of service, inclusive spirit and love for Colombia, has written this history in green and orange.
We are no strangers to building a better society that guarantees for its citizens the healthy exercise of their rights. For this reason, from the rectory, we assume the commitment with civility, that is, with the education of good men who consolidate the humanist profile and the liberal spirit that have contributed to the social development of Colombia for a little more than one hundred years.
Our students will be a point of reference for having received a comprehensive education of the highest academic and ethical standards. Becoming a good person is essential to face the challenges of modernity. It is true that the 21st century demands the development of varied and complex competencies in students; it is also true that we must assimilate trends in the appropriation of knowledge, information and communication technologies. But beyond these prevailing pedagogical models, including the one that defines our Active School, what will guide this new vision of our beloved Gimnasio will be the same questions asked by the founders: why do we educate?, how can we develop critical thinking and creativity in students? how can we develop flexibility and adaptability in times of constant change and new problems and challenges? In short, how do we educate for uncertainty?
In order to accomplish such an arduous task, I have proposed eight strategic lines whose foundations and challenges, clearly explained in this IEP, are the following:
- Human education and Discipline of Trust.
- Teachers of the Gimnasio Moderno.
- Academic strengthening.
- Bilingualism and internationalization.
- School of leaders with social sense and environmental awareness.
- External projection and social impact.
- Curriculum of the XXI century (Pedagogical development).
- Administrative modernization and administrative management.
The Institutional Educational Project, IEP, will develop these strategic lines in the context of globalization and understanding of diversity, as well as in the appreciation and respect for the philosophy that has inspired this institution for a century.
It has also been elaborated from the thoughts and actions of those who preceded me. It is the result of a collective reflection in which the different bodies of the educational community participated. Aware that an educational idea cannot be the result of a single perspective, that the school can only last another hundred years if it manages to orchestrate very different dreams and talents, this project is the consequence of a constant dialogue between teachers and students, parents and former students, directors and some of the most outstanding experts in the country and the world.
Beyond media considerations and multiple studies on the challenges of the 21st century, we intend to give the country the leaders that it needs and we try to unveil the inner light of each of our students, so that, regardless of their profession or field of action, they bring to society the best of their potential as a result of having been happy and understood and having learned to pursue their interests with effort.
We want to continue transforming society to improve the quality of life of all people. We seek, from this “fortress of illusion” to which the school hymn invites us, that the hope and joy that our flag symbolizes, all that we represent and that we pursue with effort, becomes a model of education for peace, precisely at the moment when Colombia needs it the most. Mister Daniel Samper Brush once said: “Working for children is the only way to make a country”. We still believe it. We will continue to educate leaders with a social and environmental awareness, committed to their own improvement and to solving the problems that their world has in store for them.
In the prologue of the new edition of the book Una Escuela, by Mister Agustín, it was pointed out: “these pages could be our navigation chart, the backbone of the hundred years that have just passed and the future to come. It has been the scaffold for our institution to always be vigorous and coherent with the postulates of its founders which confirms that our daily task is a space of intelligent recreation and construction of the Beautiful Character of many Colombians.
These texts are our compass, our cartography, our true instrument of safe navigation because the challenges of the times are loaded with confusion and deviations. Each Principal has interpreted them according to his character and its nuances, but we have all sailed with the certainty that this compass will always lead us to a safe port, regardless of the winds and tides. Thus, the Institutional Educational Project that follows will be our navigation chart, our compass, our challenge
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