The Development of Education and Vocational Training Counsellors, María del Carmen Castillo, and Culture and Sports Counsellor, Patricia del Pozo, have inaugurated the exhibition space of the San Isidoro Secondary Education Institute in Seville, located in the old chapel of the educational center.
Castillo highlighted that this space is a «true treasure that we can enjoy thanks to the work of the teaching staff and the various management teams that have carried out their work in this center and have demonstrated a commitment to education that goes beyond professional duty.» In this way, with this ‘museum,’ the history and culture of Seville are brought closer to society and especially to the students of the city.
The counsellor has reported that the center’s library has bibliographic resources consisting of more than 20,000 volumes and the number of cataloged titles from the so-called ‘ancient collection’ is more than 2,500. It contains copies dating from 1515 to 1900 and constitutes a collection of ancient editions, facsimiles, manuscripts, and maps.
Noteworthy are miniature editions of Don Quixote and in different languages such as Chinese or Tamazight (a Berber variant). The oldest book is a comedy by Aristophanes, and there are also romances suitable for the pockets of jesters.
Likewise, the counsellor has recalled that illustrious figures from the world of education, science, politics, and other cultural fields in the country have passed through the classrooms of San Isidoro, such as Manuel Machado, Serafín and Joaquín Álvarez Quintero, Romero Murube, Luis Cernuda, Severo Ochoa, Manuel Losada Villasante, or Emilio Lledó, among others. The current Physics and Chemistry and Natural Sciences laboratories have equipment and instruments from their former laboratories and cabinets, objects from the Museum.
On her part, the Culture and Sports Counselor has emphasized the importance of pedagogical spaces like that of the San Isidoro IES to «preserve, conserve, and disseminate our history and heritage». «Just as an educational law passed by a Parliament, or the writings of an expert in pedagogy are historical sources, a school composition, a schedule, a textbook, a blackboard, a microscope, a test tube, or an abacus still speak to us today and allow us to firsthand knowledge of society in the past,» noted Del Pozo.
After naming some of the outstanding students who have passed through this Sevillian educational center over its 180 years of existence, Del Pozo stressed that the «list of excellent students is far from closed, as the names of today’s young students, who are the present and future of Andalusia, are still missing.»
