There are surely many who know about the Luther King schools in our Islands, but probably few know of their origins.
We propose in these lines to approach the principles of this educational institution that is already the heritage of all. We will do it with an added wish of respect and gratitude towards the founding couple.
The City Council of La Laguna brought to plenary session two years ago a motion to start the file of honors and distinctions for this couple made up of Adolfo García Delgado and Zoraida Arias Montes de Oca (died in 2019), a motion that was validated by all political groups and for the extraordinary work they carried out in the educational, business, social and sports spheres since the 1970s.
Today, his work, born in La Laguna, expands to the municipalities of San Miguel de Abona and Arafo and is reflected in thousands of students who are being educated or have been educated in a spirit of discipline and work, from a school that assumes the values of the humanism of Martin Luther King.
Adolfo and Zoraida were linked to education prior to the founding of the Luther King school in La Laguna. As owners and teachers of the Abraham Lincoln School in Madrid, they have directed their efforts since 1962 to provide quality education rooted in the principles of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza de Giner de los Ríos. His students obtained notable successes in different official tests and the social recognition of the school was not long in coming.
In 1969, on a visit to Tenerife and observing the scarce offer in private education existing on the Island, they decide to offer a quality educational proposal in La Laguna. After different vicissitudes, on October 3, 1971, the Luther King school in La Laguna opened its doors, the first mixed student center in Canary Islands with 453 students and 42 workers, including teachers and service personnel.
Multiple aids
Along the way was the effort and help of many in the project. We cite as an example the involvement of Enrique Tierno Galván and José Miguel Adán, Father Adán. But there were also new symbioses in his educational thinking: the Free Educational Institution and the ethical content of Martin Luther King’s human commitment.
The following course would already be 1,600 students and 130 workers. But the innovations over the next few years were only just beginning. There are the first language laboratory on the island, with bilingual teachers; the creation of sports spaces (1974), the twinning of projects between the Luther King school and the Canary Islands Basketball Club (1976) or the foundation of the Association of Non-State Education Centers in Tenerife (Acenet), Adolfo being its president until 1981 and which is integrated into the Spanish Confederation of Education Centers (CECE).
In 1983, Adolfo and Zoraida donated 75% of the ownership of the Luther King school for free et amore to those who have closely accompanied them in the years of its founding, creating the Public Limited Company ESDITRA (SCHOOL, DIscipline, WORK) for this purpose. In 1992, once the project was consolidated, Adolfo García, as president of the Board of Directors of ESDITRA SA, proposed to its partners to build a new Luther King school in the south of the Island. The Luther King school in San Miguel de Abona will open its doors this year academic year 1993/94 with 500 students and more than 50 workers. Today, this center educates more than 2,000 students and has a staff of about 210 workers.
In 2012, subsidized by the Government of the Canary Islands With European funds, the Luther King schools address the Educational Technological Innovation Project, a pioneering project at the European level and which was directed by his beloved son Sergio García. But it is also in that year that Adolfo García and Zoraida Arias terminated their working lives and ceased from all their positions at the Luther King institution. Two years later, the Luther King school in Arafo was born.
That idea that emerged in 1969 is today a reality at the service of Tenerife society. Together, the Luther King schools educate more than 4,000 children and young people from the Canary Islands. Its alumni are competent professionals in different areas, including the European Space Project. Throughout more than 50 years, a pedagogical style has been consolidated, sports have been promoted, projects in the third world have been supported and the families of their students who endured different hardships have always been quietly protected.
We believe that this couple, who has driven Tenerife society in different directions, deserves our respectful recognition, gratitude and affection.
