When Maria Teresa Spinelli founded the Congregation of the Augustinian Sisters, Servants of Jesus and Mary, she stated specifically that the principal aim of the Congregation is the “direction and instruction of individuals”.  (1)

These “individuals”, our students, she described as “precious treasures” redeemed by the Blood of Christ, and entrusted by Our Lord to the teachers to “educate and lovingly instruct”.  (2)

The value of each and every individual child is stressed in Teresa Spinelli’s exhortation to her teachers to

“Love and respect them without distinction as the

beloved daughters of God, destined to become

Princesses and Queens in Heaven.” (3)

 

She goes on to encourage her teachers not to consider their students as “high or low, rich or poor” but to see them as “what they may become”.  (ibid.)

Spinellian education is open to all, without distinction of class or ability.

* * * * * * * *

Education for Teresa Spinelli meant the holistic development of the individual as a Christian living within society.  She sets out clearly in her writings the elements of Spinellian education that form the aims and ethos of our schools.

• Spiritual Development

This is expressed various times and given primary importance because it is the foundation of the educational vision of Maria Teresa Spinelli

“The girls must be taught the Christian

doctrine, the tenets of our Religion.” (4)

And

“The first aim of the teachers should be to

instill in these youngsters the love and

fear of God, devotion to the Virgin Mary,

to their Guardian Angel…” (5)

• Moral Development

Teachers should constantly encourage their students to “grow in virtue and avoid evil-doing”. (6) Self-discipline is seen by Teresa Spinelli as the regulator of all action.  Blind obedience to imposed rules is not desirable. (7)

• Social Development

Our Foundress emphasizes the need for educating our young people in social virtues in order that they will accept each other with tolerance, understanding and respect for their individual differences.

The students must be taught “to show respect for one another both by word and deed”.  (8) Modesty in manners, words and appearance is deemed necessary as part of “civil behaviour”.

• Academic and Cultural Development

The ability to speak proper Italian, the “buone arti” together with what Teresa Spinelli calls “cose istruttive” have a central place in the contents of her educational theory.  Reading Italian and Latin, writing and sewing were to be taught to her students.  Music, History and Geography were also part of the programme of learning in the first schools as appears from one of Teresa Spinelli’s letters to her sister-in-law.  (9)

• Vocational Development

Maria Teresa Spinelli asserts the importance of an education that prepares students for their future career

“Be prepared to educate them that they may in future

be able to earn a living”.  (10)

• Education for Leisure

Our Foundress writes that the talents and gifts of each individual student must be developed, with the help of the Lord, and the youngsters should be encouraged to use their free time profitably, without, in any way, losing out on the enjoyment it affords them.

* * * * * * * *

 

 

The Spinellian teacher is encouraged by Mother Foundress to “always do everything for the love of God” and, very significantly,

“not only be teachers to your students, but also

their mothers in Christ, loving them tenderly,

educating them with patience.”  (11)

The teacher must accept and allow for individual differences and help each student learn at her own pace.  Discipline and correction must be applied

“according to their personality and need

- some with firmness and others with

tenderness, in silence, with a look, or

with a merited sanction.”  (12)

When it comes to the students who have learning difficulties, the Spinellian teacher must be very patient.  With patience and love, with repetition and perseverance and above all, with God’s help, the teacher will surely succeed.

Teresa Spinelli frames her vision of education within an ambience of contentment and happiness.  Teachers, according to her, must “do their very best to keep their students happy and cheerful”.  (13)

Conclusion

Our vocation as religious and lay inheritors of the Spinellian testament is to carry out these wishes and, while educating our students according to the spirit of the exhortations of Mother Foundress, adapt her vision to the needs and exigencies of our times.

Inspired by these beliefs, we have again together constructed our School Development Plan which we once more dedicate to all those who have worked and are still working so tirelessly and selflessly, following in the footsteps of our Foundress, to make our schools Everyday Better.

Antoinette Pace

References

1. Const. 1827               Part V          Ch I                      No. 1
2. Const. 1827               Part V          Ch I                      No. 3
3. Const. 1827               Part V          Ch I                      No. 4
4. Allegro, Sr. L.,           Lettere,        Frosinone,         989,             p. 446
5. Const. 1827               Part V          Ch II                     Sect. I         No. 2
6. Const. 1827               Part V          Ch II                     Sect. V        No. 7
7. Const. 1827               Part V          Ch II                     Sect. III       No. 5
8. Const. 1827               Part IV         Ch III                    No. 14
9. Allegro, Sr. L.,          Lettere,        Frosinone,           1989,          p.411-412
10. Const. 1827              Part V          Ch II                     Sect. I          No. 5
11. Const. 1827              Part V          Ch I                      No. 4
12. Const. 1827              Part V          Ch II                     Sect. III        No. 7
13. Const. 1827              Part IV         Ch VII                  No. 18

 

 

NB.   Const. 1827 is the abbreviation for “Costituzioni del Venerato Conservatorio delle Serve di Gesù e Maria istituito nella città di Frosinone”

 

My grateful thanks go to Sr. Josette Attard, Sr. Vania Bonello and Sr. Johanna Gatt whose research on Mother Foundress has been of invaluable help in the compilation of the above information.

Main Dates of Maria Teresa Spinelli’s Life

and of her educational mission

1^st October 1789                 Maria Teresa Spinelli born in Rome

1^st November 1820              Received the call for evangelisagtion

1^st August 1821                   Opened her first school for girls in Frosinone

23^rd September 1827           Founded Religious Institute of Augustinian Sisters, Servants of Jesus and Mary

22^nd January 1850               Maria Teresa Spinelli died

1875                           Meeting between Mons. Pietro Pace and Mother General Frattali

1875                           Three Gozitans with a religious vocation introduced to Frosinone Community

1877                          Augustinian Sisters Servants of Jesus and Mary invited by Pope Pius IX to open school in Rome

1894                           Sisters sailed to Malta

1894                           First community and school – Primary and Secondary – opened in Qormi

1928                           First community and Nursery school opened in Mosta. Later Primary and Secondary classes were added

1937                           Augustinian Sisters in Gzira.  Primary and Secondary classes were available

1940                           Augustinian Sisters in Rabat.  Only primary classes were on offer

1950                          B’Kara school (old premises) started in B’Kara.  Primary and Secondary classes were taught

1962                           The present premises of the B’Kara school were officially inaugurated

2000                          The present premises of the Gzira school were officially inaugurated

Between 1957 and 1989 the Augustinian Sisters, Servants of Jesus and Mary spread outside the European Continent to North and South America, Africa and Asia.

In this way Maria Teresa Spinelli’s beliefs have spread and borne friut.  May we all be worthy inheritors and transmitters of her theories and practice in education.