History teachers capture the soul of the Vita et Pax college in a book: “75 years of learning with a lot of freedom and responsibility” (Schoten)

“We went looking for the DNA, the soul of our school,” says Marleen Beernaert. The nesttrix of the quintet of historians who edited ‘Impressions: 75 years of Vita et Pax, in freedom and responsibility’.

The other teachers who contributed to this project are Delphine Broes, Christophe Petit, Johan Steynen and An Van De Meirssche. They proudly show me the book that will be officially presented on Saturday, May 4, during the big anniversary party at school. Almost the entire edition of five hundred copies has already been reserved in advance.

Interviews

Condensing seventy-five years into just one hundred and twenty pages seems an impossible task. “Rather than making a strict historical overview, we have chosen to show impressions from school life,” says Beernaert.

“We selected the themes after analyzing the interviews that our students conducted themselves. Not by just randomly asking questions. Their approach was well thought out and was done with the end goal in mind: finding out what the Vita et Pax college is really about. We have also integrated the creation of this book into our educational project. The current generation of students has also learned a lot from it.”

Benedictine inspiration, Montessori, Huma(a)niora, style and sobriety, freedom and responsibility, green school, respect, dialogue and finally celebration. Former students of Vita et Pax will probably recognize themselves in the chapters. The old photos and the guidelines for the blue uniform are nice, although this has evolved somewhat over the years, even in the Vita et Pax college. Each contribution received a matching Greek or Latin text. “After all, we are a classical humanities institution,” winks Delphine Broes.

Archives

Not only Minister of the Interior Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) and other well-known ‘products’ of Vita et Pax were questioned about their experiences with the Benedictines and their educational mission.

“We also delved into the poorly organized archives,” adds Johan Steynen. “To make sense of this, we were assisted by specialists from the Documentation and Research Center for Religion, Culture and Society of KULeuven and Erfgoed Voorkempen. Together with the students, we spent many hours working on forgotten documents dug up from the bottom shelves of cupboards or old boxes. A titanic job, but there is now something that our successors in Vita et Pax can continue to work on.”

Photographic memory

Finally, the authors chose an approach that also makes their mission artistically valuable. An Van De Meirssche: “Students from the second and sixth years and some colleagues received a drawn map of the school on which they could express their experience of this school. They were allowed to draw, paint, glue, write, etc. We have included those ‘footprints’ here and there in the book.”

Of course, some of the Benedictine sisters were also questioned during the research for the book. Pioneer Sister Lucia has long since passed away, but today eight sisters still live in the monastery belonging to the school, who still closely follow the fortunes of ‘their’ college. Sister Erica, pioneer of Latin and Greek at school, will be in front of the classroom again on Saturday, May 4, giving retro lessons to alumni and more than seven hundred expected former students and other visitors can catch up over a high tea and barbecue.

‘Impressions: 75 years of Vita et Pax, in freedom and responsibility’, has more than 120 pages, was published by Universitas Digital Printing and costs 35.5 euros. Website about book 75 years of Vita et Pax college