/ Town Hall
Monday 25th March 2019
ROUTE THROUGH THE GIRLS' SCHOOLS OF CALVIÀ AND WALK FROM CALVIÀ TO PEGUERA
Two activities related to the Calvià girls' schools teachers were held on Sunday 24th March: a route through the girls' schools of the village and a walk from Calvià to Peguera in homage to the teacher Maria Salvador Senchermés.
Further information here: ISSUU and PDF
Schools' route
Calvià village tour through the houses where the girls' schools were located, by Manel Suárez. The name plates that have been placed on the old schools facades were shown during the tour.
The first public school in the municipality of Calvià in 1838. The 'Ca ses Monges' girls' school ran since 1840. Many children were forced to work to provide a salary to the family economy. In Calvià the problem was so serious that, on 29th October 1924, the Town Hall announced an edict "reminding parents of their obligation to send children from six to fourteen years of age to school."
In 1934, Calvià Town Hall approved the construction of two new schools: one in Calvià and another one in Es Capdellà. The budget of 41,500 pesetas was unreachable and an absolutely innovative decision was made: make a binding referendum amongst all the neighbours to find out their opinion on the debt there would be by issuing obligations of 500 pesetas each, which would be made available to the men and women of both villages. Unfortunately, the coup d'état and the subsequent repression paralysed the whole process.
The new school of Calvià was inaugurated at the end of the 60s, and the one in Es Capdellà, in 1982.
Walk from Calvià to Peguera
A walk in homage to Maria Salvador Senchermés, who was teacher of the girls' school of Calvià, recalling the road she used to walk along, took place.
Calvià teacher from 1936 to 1939, she embraced a political and pedagogical ideology that was absolutely different from what the nationalist side defended and wanted to implement. She applied new educational methodologies in the classroom and held the Catalan teacher title. She participated in the World Pedagogy Congress in Nice where she met educational personalities such as Rosa Sensat, or the educational practices of M. Montessori and E. Decroly.
She worked the integral attention of the students and in the evenings she stayed at the school to help over 14 year-old girls who wanted to continue studying. She promoted the work of the forbidden author Antonio Machado and the texts of Voltaire. In fact, one of the main accusations of Calvià's rector was Voltaire's practices in the classroom.
Once the war was over, Maria Salvador was able to return to the Pere Vila school group in Barcelona after having passed through the Teaching body cleansing commission. In her memoirs, the teacher intentionally omits the chapter where she talks about her stay in Calvià because, as she used to say, it hurt her a lot, even though her memory lived on amongst all her students.
