I was saddened by the recent passing of Jimmy Carter. I’m not smart enough to provide commentary on his merits as a President, but few could question his unwavering faith, charity, and humility. He was, as those in Jesuit circles would say, a person for and with others.
While he largely stayed out of the limelight post-presidency, Mr. Carter occasionally used his celebrity to advance a cause (sometimes creating controversy). But he did this sparingly and with great deference and calculation. By employing this practice prudently rather than freely weighing in on every cause de jour, there was substance and weight that produced the intended result which, most often, was attention to a social need or humanitarian injustice. He also put deeds above dialogue. Take his long standing relationship with Habitat for Humanity. Did he speak favorably about the organization? Certainly. But mostly, he just got to work. His presence was his endorsement.
In John’s Gospel, at the height of John the Baptist’s success, there was a dramatic point of inflection where John recognized that to serve his true call, “He [Jesus] must increase; I must decrease.” I get the sense that that is how Mr. Carter approached most of his personal encounters, whether it be with a world leader or a youngster in Sunday school. I like to think that Arrupe Virtual models this practice as well - working softly and behind the scenes to lift our member schools up. That, too, is the role of Catholic schools - to create the conditions to allow our students to have their moments while teachers, coaches and staff stand quietly by in the shadows. There is often considerable complexity in creating the conditions for student success, and the best schools do this with great intention. However, it’s the “standing quietly in the shadows” that is most difficult.
Recently the Chronicle of Higher Education began promoting a new publication called Understanding the Gen Z Student. The lead to their promotional email stated, “Today’s students are arriving at college with a deficit in necessary skills, among them reading, note-taking, and working independently. Faculty members are finding in their classrooms an indifference to cheating and a transactional view of the college experience.” The statement that “students are arriving” with these deficits connotes a level of defect in young people that places blame on some earlier entity in the educational supply chain, namely secondary schools. In turn, those in secondary education point the finger at the primary level, and, finally, primary school educators find fault with the lack of funding for child care and early childhood education. In short, everyone - from educational professionals, to parents, to politicians, to social workers, to business leaders, to taxpayers - gets to throw their hands in the air and shake their heads in exasperation. The problem, you see, must be the system; how can the investment of so much time and money be so fruitless?
I don’t want to dismiss the Chronicle’s claims regarding Gen Z as we at AVLI have witnessed some of the same attributes among a notable subset of students taking AVLI coursework, and efforts must be taken to address this. What I’ve come to appreciate, however, is the amount of oxygen that’s been consumed over multiple generations detailing all that is wrong with “kids these days” and how our system of education has failed them. If World War II in the 1940s galvanized the United States around a call to vastly expand the Nation’s educational footprint, every decade since has galvanized people around the need to complain about it. We have literally gone from educational “crisis” to educational “crisis” without break since the 1950s with the pendulum swinging back and forth between arguments for more conservative and more progressive approaches.
Despite this enduring “crisis”, the interesting thing is that a majority of American adults look back on the earlier stages of their life with some level of satisfaction. They fondly remember certain experiences, friends, and teachers; they revisit certain disappointments with a perspective that comes with age; and most, I suspect, look back with some degree of melancholy over all of their wasted effort in trying to circumvent learning opportunities in favor of an alternative activity that held their attention at a particular moment’s time. In other words, they recognize that their educational system afforded them the opportunity to learn, they simply chose not to in some instances and, years later, there’s a bit of regret.
I wasn’t a bad student, but I was one of the underachievers. I was not much of a reader outside of school and in high school and college I always preferred used books where somebody else had already gone through and highlighted the important stuff. I lied to my parents about having my homework done, and at times avoided eye contact with my teachers in class, knowing that I was unprepared for any questions they might throw my way. Perhaps in some ways this was you too. Can we really blame the educational systems of our childhoods for this?
For the past 75 years, each generation has expressed their dissatisfaction with “kids these days”. It’s probably time that we recognize that a big part of the problem is us, the adults. After all, we’ve been the ones to create the next breakthrough technologies in the name of “a better life”. We’re the ones who have altered the information, media, and entertainment landscapes. We’re the ones who place a premium on convenience and expedience. We’re the ones who invented the sound bite. We’re the ones to sow unrest and distrust as a way of forwarding a particular agenda. We’re the ones who always want to be right and to win at all costs (even with youth sports!). Is it any wonder that the next generation of kids always has a hard time living up to their elders’ often-conflicting expectations?
Are any of these things categorically wrong? No, this is what “progress” looks like in a broken world. And it’s the unenviable landscape that schools are required to negotiate when attempting to create the conditions for student success (along with doing their best to ensure student safety, monitoring various aspects of student health, ensuring students are fed, and more). An additional complicating factor is that schools are like petri dishes. Every moment of every day, every life within its walls is evolving as single entities and in response to each other and their shared environment.
How then does one go about the business of school reform among such complexities and competing educational interests and philosophies? The best answer is “with great care.” This is where “standing quietly in the shadows” becomes the order of the day, and it’s most central to the teaching vocation. My colleague Gabrielle Martin recently used the term bearing witness to describe her relationship with her students. Through their witness, teachers set out to serve as proof that the giftedness of each student exists and is acknowledged.
I was speaking with my team the other day about the pendulum of educational movements, and the need for us to struggle to identify those few important items that sit at or near equilibrium - seeking something durable to serve as the foundation for AVLI’s continued development. The one word I continually come back to no matter the educational institution, practice, or philosophy is hope. Hope is the single item in abundant supply among all educational stakeholders. In hope, there is a shared belief in the promise of each young person and a desire to see that promise blossom.
Hope exists in public schools, often abundantly. However, there exists a sacred nature to hope within the Catholic context as something graced by God out of His divine love for each of us. This fundamental acknowledgement provides purpose and dignity, animating the work of Catholic schools. This, I believe, enables students to endure a bit longer, and it serves as the “secret sauce” that so many parents witness in their children’s Catholic school experience - whether they themselves are Catholic or not.
At this point, it’s important for me to acknowledge how fortunate I was growing up. My parents valued education and invested a portion of their modest means in sending my siblings and me to Catholic schools. It’s impossible to speculate how my life’s journey would be different today without that choice. What is certain is that I always felt cared for at home and at school. Many many people endured and continue to endure very difficult circumstances in their youth, and our educational institutions have let some of them down. Thus, in the name of hope, we mustn’t lose the resolve to do better. Ever.
CONTRIBUTOR: Jeff Hausman, AVLI President
vol 7 issue 4