Settled in the heart of a bustling city, this school run by the Society of Mary teaches their students about academics, service, the arts, and the values of Mary. However, I am not referring to our Marist School. I am referring to Maristes La Immaculada in Barcelona, Spain.
Join me in learning more about our Marist friends on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean!
At Maristes and in Spain, juniors and seniors in high school enter into the Baccalaureate program, where students choose which academic path they want to complete in order to graduate. The choices are science and technology, social sciences, or arts.
Diana Orient, a senior at Maristes, describes her schedule flexibility over the course of junior and senior year. “We can choose four subjects, but we have to take Spanish, Catalan, English, history, philosophy, and religion,” Orient said. A student on the science track, she opts to take math, physics, chemistry, and biology.
Maristes has less emphasis on faith than our school. Susana Garcia, English teacher at Maristes, described the reason for this. “There is a wider range of faiths here as Barcelona is a more cosmopolitan city, and we have more diverse students,” Garcia said.
The daily schedule of a student at Maristes starts at 8 a.m. when classes begin. One hour classes last until 11 a.m., when students have a break to eat a light breakfast. Classes resume at 11:30 and finish at 2:30. At this time, students leave school to have their lunch, which is traditionally the largest meal of the day in Spain.
Maristes senior Sofia Wang said that her favorite aspect of Maristes is “the atmosphere, the people, and the teachers.” Diana Orient likes that “the school really cares about their students. They know their names, they know who they are, and it is a community.”
In March, 22 students from Marist will visit Maristes and learn about the school and culture. Mrs. Buchanan has led the Spanish exchange for the past five exchanges, and she shared her thoughts about Maristes. “It has an urban feel in the heart of the city, and the school is an active campus with lots of history,” Buchanan said. She is looking forward to visiting again in a few short months.
All in all, the school culture of Maristes is similar to that of Marist, and we will always be connected by our Marist values, even though we are thousands of miles apart.
