Wahler's passion for students is beyond the classroom

Aug 21, 2012

On a piece of land, overlooking Lake Victoria, Brother Paul Kasande, Father Bob Hesse (RIP) and Sister Mary Louise Wahler, all members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, sowed Lake View Senior Secondary School in 1993.

One of the founders of Holy Cross Lake View  SSS in Jinja, Sr. Wahler, now retired, describes herself as a risk-taker, Watuwa Timbiti writes

On a piece of land, overlooking Lake Victoria, Brother Paul Kasande, Father Bob Hesse (RIP) and Sister Mary Louise Wahler, all members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, sowed Lake View Senior Secondary School in 1993. It is now called Holy Cross Lake View SSS in Wanyange village, Jinja district. 

Unlike the biblical seeds that fell on rocky places and withered, Wahler, as the founder headmistress, used her expertise to nurture the Lake View seed.

She infused her staff with a sense of dedication to their work and the students with optimism about the future.
 The school became a formidable force, especially in the eastern region, shoving the legendary Busoga College Mwiri and Kiira College Butiki off the academic cliff.

Wahler, who is now retired from active school management, best describes herself as a risk-taker.
“I like challenges. When Bob Hesse and Kasande talked about starting a school for the poor, suggesting that I would be the headmistress, to me it was a wonderful idea,” she says.

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The girls' dormitory at Holy Cross Lake View SSS named after Wahler

Indeed her first challenge came sooner than expected. By the time of the first interviews in January 1993, the school was not ready. 

“However, I had hope — so I told the students that, come February, the school would be ready. I kept pointing at the structure under construction, telling them that was their school. Actually, the students moved in before classrooms were complete,” she says.

Wahler adds: “I was not dreaming of big things — our immediate need was to help the students and mobilise support. I am not embarrassed to ask for help. I am a community builder — when I see a need, I ask who, what and how people can help.”

Involving and valuing community participation is key to institutional success, according to Wahler. 
“Working together is the core reason behind Lake View's success in educating the whole person,” she says, adding: “The parents, teachers and old students of the school keep asking me: 'How is our school?' This is a sign that everyone took ownership.” 

Wahler attributes today's institutional failures to misguided agitation for power, greed and the quest to be great. 
“No one bothers to ask how we can mobilise people to work together — everyone is working for themselves, thus corruption,” she says.

Enforcing discipline in schools
Whereas learners have to be disciplined, Wahler believes the process should not be associated with pain, but purely restorative. Inflicting pain is humiliating to the victim.

“I remember at an assembly at Wanyange Girls, the deputy head teacher dragged an S.2 girl to the front and caned her. I was really mortified by this humiliation,” she says, adding: “One time in my office at Lake View, a parent caned a child over indiscipline. I felt so awful. I just said: 'Stop it and he stopped'.” 

Caning, Wahler argues, does not change the mentality of a learner, but is like putting a bandage on a wound — it does not seek to heal, but to hurt. 

Instead, she advises, teachers should employ other alternatives, such as counselling, which may be slow, but unquestionably corrective. 

“Talk to the student — find out why they behaved so. Could it be anger, tension or something at home? Surely, there must be a reason,” Wahler believes.

“Classrooms can be divided into counselling groups of about 20 and allocated to teachers. As a result, students feel good that someone is listening to them,” she says. 

Individual needs neglected
Commenting on Uganda's education system, Wahler says it does not cater for individual needs. She cites the Government policy demanding secondary school students to study sciences, arguing that it is a violation of the learners' rights to choose what they can study. “I am a scientist and I know that not all students can do sciences,” she states.

What should be done, Wahler counsels, is to build comprehensive schools, which comprise a secondary school and vocational studies to cater for the different needs of learners. 

“Unfortunately, most Ugandan parents and students disregard vocational training — they think it is beneath them. The campus mentality is what rules them.”  

“Few Ugandan parents have attained university education. So, they feel their children should go on their behalf and sort of fulfill that 'debt',” she points out.

Media mediocrity
Wahler says the country's poor education system has been exacerbated by the media which publishes pictures and news stories of the said best performing schools upon the release of national examination results, prompting unhealthy competition.

“Three days or a week of best students in the papers, what is that? It is not helping the education system. Usually, it is schools from the central that appear in the papers yet they get the cream of students and have the best facilities. So, they have no reason not to perform well and as such, there is no cause to celebrate,” she argues.

 Instead, Wahler adds, the media should focus on rural schools which are ill-facilitated, operate amidst scarcity and receive poor students, but get better grades — that is ground enough for celebration and publication. 

“How about that struggling peasant parent, who amidst all limitations, has done everything they can to sustain their child through school? The media forgets such parents,” she says.

Challenges of teaching in Uganda
Lack of enough textbooks is one of the challenges that always affected her efficiency.
“The education ministry does not invest money in books. So, teaching and learning becomes difficult,” she says. For instance, teaching English at Wanyange Girls in the early 1990s, Wahler had about six books for 60 students. “That was really challenging. But, I would instead type the passages and take them to the students,” she reminisces.

Insufficient textbooks in schools has, in the long run, mutated into a poor reading culture. 
There is nothing to broaden people's experiences and perceptions. Similarly, Wahler observes that few Ugandan teachers are willing to walk an extra mile. 

“Nowadays, teachers want to be paid, even for the simplest task. The spirit of service is no more in this country,” she says.


Born in 1940 in Washington DC in US, Wahler's mother was a housewife and her father worked in the post office. 
“I had a brother and sister and was the last born.”

She came to Uganda followed a request by Vincent Mc Cauley, the first bishop of Fort Portal Diocese, for the sisters of Holy Cross to come and work in the diocese. 

Upon her arrival in 1967, she was assigned to teach history at St. Maria Goretti in Fort Portal, although she trained to teach mathematics and chemistry. She later became the school's head  teacher in 1970.

In 1975, Wahler was transferred to Mater Ecclesia centre in Israel to be part of the staff in the programme where sisters from Africa and Asia went to study scriptures and see the holy lands. “Here, I worked as a teacher, driver and accountant until the problems in Israel worsened,” she says.

She was subsequently transferred back to the US in 1979 to start formation work — guiding and working with young women who wanted to become nuns.

Double jeopardy
Right at the time of Wahler's return to the US, her father fell sick, passing on about six weeks later. Still in the pain of this loss, her mother, too, passed on five months later. 

“It was not a good year for me. It took me 14 years to gather myself up. It depressed me a lot. It is at this point that I missed my friends in Uganda more than before — I felt alone. Actually, all my support system was dead. Exciting though, I am alive,” she says. Her loneliness, however, gradually cooled down when the sisters in Uganda started asking her to come back.

“My superiors granted me permission and I moved back. What is significant, though is that I moved from the US on December 31, 1991, the anniversary of mother's death, and was in Uganda on January 1, 1992,” she recalls.

 On her return, she was asked to supervise the construction of Maria Concepta House, where she is currently living as the vocations director. 

Sense of community 
Over the years, Wahler has loved the warmth, hospitality and the pace of life in Uganda. For example, meeting people and stopping to greet them. 

“It is even comical when people stop cars in the middle of the road to say a word or two to the other person. It is important to have time for one another because it has, in a way, built the beauty of the sense of community in Uganda,” she observes.
“The faith is strong, for example, on Martyrs Day, where people walk all the way to Namugongo, is a gesture of faith,” she notes.
 

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