Liceo Bicentenario Teresa Prats recovers the number 6 in its name

22/11/2023

In an act of commemoration of its historical identity and recognition of the history of public education, the Liceo Bicentenario Teresa Prats recovered the number 6 in its name, leaving behind the numeral 7 that it carried from 1978 to the present day. The mayor of Santiago, Irací Hassler, educational authorities, the school community, former students and even the great-granddaughters of Teresa Prats participated in the activity.

The event is part of the commemoration of the 50 years of the civil-military dictatorship and the 122 years of the high school. The name change was requested by the students themselves and had the approval and participation of the entire educational community, which was authorized by the Ministerial Secretariat of Education in September of this year.

“This renaming of the Liceo has tremendous meaning, because it is the community itself that has discussed and decided that it wants to reappropriate its historical name, a name that was taken from them in the hardest moments of our history,” said Irací Hassler, mayor. of the Municipality of Santiago. “Fifty years after the coup d’état, it has a special symbolism that Liceo 6, Teresa Prats, can take back its name and thereby resume its route, its path of public education, of diversity education, of education for the strengthening of all people”.

This historic high school in the commune of Santiago was created in May 1921 and its first director was Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, better known as Gabriela Mistral. From the beginning, the distinguished poet and teacher highlighted virtue, intelligence, and kindness as fundamental values. Her maxim was always: “Everything for the school, very little for ourselves.” Gabriela Mistral requested that the educational institution be named Liceo No. 6 Teresa Prats, in honor of the distinguished educator, granddaughter of Don Andrés Bello and who served in the Ministry of Education for several years.

Although Gabriela Mistral was a short time director, she left her pedagogical mark, preferably guiding the development of culture through conferences, talks and reading. The establishment was frequently visited by artists and intellectuals. From then on, Liceo 6 preserved this legacy in its educational project.