Why I Love Teaching…

Catholic Schools Week, now mercifully over, has “Teacher Appreciation Day” to wrap it up, and in addition to the nice lunch we got yesterday, I was handed a stack of written notes from students. A couple of them were more form-style, like you’d see on a Hallmark card, but many were heartfelt.

I was touched. Especially for a subject that many kids groan about having to take. But this is why a big part of what I do in class is relationship building and life lessons. Those bonds are worth more to so many of these kids, even though most of them will not remember a good chunk of what I taught in class on any given day.

And that’s ok.

Why? Because I love my students.

Class Thoughts

This is a bit of a strange week – being Catholic Schools Week and such. As a result, I decided that I needed to get in as much as possible today. With the freshmen, it was largely combining aspects of Jesus’ identity – of Redeemer, Teacher, and Miracle-Worker, emphasizing the redemptive suffering and death he endured. I always find it an important point to make because too many people will reduce Jesus to a one-dimensional being and neglect the essence of his life – his death.

Because tomorrow is “Student Appreciation Day” – we have shorter classes, a movie, and a volleyball game (of which I am foolishly partaking). I believe class periods are roughly 20 minutes, so that’s just enough to make the point then about how the words and actions of Jesus’ ministry caused people to go wild.

As for the Juniors, taking moral and social issues – it was a review of virtue: Cardinal and Theological alike, and our first main issue of the course: human dignity. Today was discussing the meaning of “equality”, and what it doesn’t mean. Tomorrow’s short class will revolve entirely around the use of language and the clarity and obfuscation it provides when speaking of these issues. We’ll see how it goes. I have one section that is really chatty and another that never says a word. Such is the life in teaching!

Sunday Funday II

It has resumed being a normal winter here on the Shore, at least somewhat anyway. A typical day gets into the mid-upper 40’s and the overnight lows are somewhere in the low-mid 30’s. Occasionally it will dip into the 20’s and occasionally it will rise to about 52 during the day. What we had the last few days is more akin to late March/early April. And now we will suffer, as we must.

I attended the daily Mass on Friday morning since we had the fog delay, and I think that the Church ought to just do away with the Sign of Peace now, unless they are willing to go through the catechesis of its proper meaning. I highly doubt that, though. There’s not a whole lot more maddening to me during the Sign of Peace for people (old Boomers especially) to be flashing the hippie “V” peace sign. I see it at my own parish as well, and I am not sure how many other things are as antithetical to the intended spirit of the Sign of Peace than a glib flashing of the V. Try that in Europe and you may be taken outside and beaten.

It’s Catholic Schools Week. Being a veteran of Catholic schools as a student and teacher, I can say with certainty that it is much better for elementary schools than it is for high schools. When I was a kid, CSW was essentially an elementary school version of spirit week. It was fun, we got to do cool things – concerts, assemblies, Grandparents’ Day, day of no homework, and free ice cream. At the high school level, we already have spirit week in the fall before Homecoming, so CSW is more acknowledged in principle than practice. We will, though, be having a student vs. teacher volleyball game and I am playing. Because I’m a masochist, that’s why.

My car was hit by a deer on my way to school last Tuesday morning. This was about only 14 hours after I paid the big repair bill for a thermostat housing replacement. The damage is largely superficial and there is no effect on the actual ability to drive it, thankfully. It did, however, take an already ugly car and make it even uglier!

Today is a full, rich day in terms of things going on, at least passively. Mass, going to celebrate a friend’s 40th birthday, and then watching the conference championship games. I don’t particular care about the Ravens (Eagles fan, after all), but please God, I cannot survive, this country cannot survive two full weeks of Taylor Swift coverage should the Chiefs win. And if they win by some ticky-tack reason, I and many other people will assume the fix is in. And they should. Oh, and go Lions.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and restful Sunday. Happy Catholic Schools Week. In just four days it will be February, my most hated month of the school year! Stay tuned this week and find out why…

On the Incarnation

The first main lesson taught in my freshman Christology classes (I have three sections of it) concerned itself with the very nature of who Jesus is, both in his own time and in ours. We briefly touched on elements such as Redeemer, Teacher, Healer, Son, and so forth, but none of those have meaning until we get to the very crux of the Incarnation – that the Son of God came into the world in the flesh and dwelled among us.

The Nicene Creed says: “For us Men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven. And by the Holy Spirit, he was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became Man“.

One of the reasons I love the term “incarnation” is because it removes all the ambiguity about the human nature of Christ; it is such a raw term, akin to “meat” and truly emphasizes the physicality of Jesus Christ. Throughout the Gospels, there are many little subtle things that continue to remind us of that physical, tangible nature of Jesus. One could almost see them as a preemptive defense against the then-dominant Greek cultural stress on spirit and the soul to the exclusion of the body. And given the timing of its publication, the Gospel of John was a direct defense against the already present and growing Gnostic heresy that would bedevil Christianity for centuries (and still does to an extent).

We see such examples in how Jesus grew up (Luke 2), slept (Matthew 8:24), wept (John 11:35), and agonized and suffered a gruesome death (all the Passion Accounts). We can related to these things because Jesus was just like us in all ways, except our fallen nature of sinfulness.

When discussing the Incarnation, I like to give a little lesson on the word condescension, because nearly always it is used in a negative sense – think “mansplaining” or something along those lines. But when used properly and positively, it means that someone comes down to us, as one would get down on the floor with a small child to play with blocks. Christ coming into the world and taking on all of our limitations of time, space, growth, and death is the ultimate condescension. Why? Because as St. Athanasius said and wrote nearly 1700 years ago (and is said during the preparation of the altar during Mass), the Son of God lowered himself into our humanity so he could raise us up into his divinity, thus restoring us to our proper state as created prior to the Fall in the Garden of Eden.

I finished by reminding them that while the Incarnation is not, strictly speaking, necessary, for as Gabriel says to Mary at the Annunciation: “nothing is impossible for God”, it is incredibly appropriate and fitting for our salvation to be put in motion this way. Who better than the Son of God in the flesh to come give us a living and breathing example and demonstration of humility and sacrifice? Just as we learn skills and tasks through demonstration and doing, so we also learn humility and sacrifice love by witnessing and doing.

New Semester Courses

The first week of the new semester is over, but even with that, it wasn’t truly a full week. Here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, we have these things called “fog delays”, in which school will start later due to the heavy water vapor. Granted, driving in the fog is no joke, but it’s not usually a problem by 8 in the morning. Nevertheless, yesterday’s school day was started 90 minutes later due to such a delay, and by the time I was leaving campus in the afternoon, it was 75 degrees.

On January 26th.

Anyway, the courses go like this – for the 9th graders, we are doing Christology – the study of Christ. It’s straightforward in the sense that it is a combo of talking about who Jesus is and a study of the New Testament. It’s one of my favorite topics to teach and it is something I really get into, regardless of the grade level. For the 11th grade, the course is called “Catholic Moral and Social Issues”. They took Moral and Ethical Philosophy in the first semester, and now they concern themselves with the applicability in the issues we face in life and society.

It is a little bit of a tricky course. for a few reasons. The main one is that teenagers are (largely) fickle and ignorant about the deeper issues. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of them, it’s just the way it is . There are always exceptions, and adults aren’t exactly better either. My larger point, though, is that teens will mature and more often than not will change how they view things the older they get. I certainly did.

Another element is the very counter-cultural nature of such a course. The world says one thing, and proper Christian formation says another. Separating the two is always difficult especially given the age group involved, who largely are still focused on reputation and gaining the approval of their peers. My challenge during the first couple of days was tell them to look deeper at the issues and use their God-given sense of reason to wade through it and see the nuance; emotive argumentation is not going to be permitted. Disagreement is allowed, but we are going to be rational in our disagreement.

In other words, exactly the opposite of how our social and political bodies act in the world.

The course is designed around the Ten Commandments, namely Commandments 5 (Thou shall not kill) through Commandment 8 (Thou shall not bear false witness). We will start with the latter as a stand in for human dignity and its status as the skeleton key for every other door we open. It makes sense – quite frankly, if you dehumanize someone, it becomes easy to take his property, family, and even life. Therefore, it is important to start with the dignity aspect even though it isn’t a “tangible asset”, so to speak.

We’ll see how it goes. This week is Catholic Schools’ Week, which means there will be lots of auxiliary events and a shortened amount of class time. Alas, on we move!

Course Preparation

In a previous post, I asked how we can crunch two-thousand years of Christian history into four months? What is going to be left out?

Turns out, plenty. But I do believe I got the formula down at least for the first unit – which will cover from Pentecost to the collapse of the Roman Empire (this is for 10th graders, by the way). The theory is that the theology curriculum (as put forth by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops) is house-building: start with the foundations and work up. Therefore, I shouldn’t have to spend a lot of time going into detail about who Jesus is and what he came to do – that is the main theme of the 2nd semester course in the 9th grade.

HOWEVER…

And this is how the devil is in the details (ironic use, huh?). The question is: how much did we ever recall over the summer between grades?

Right.

So there is no doubt I am going to have to swing back through what Jesus said and did to make sure the students understand why Pentecost was so important as a launching point. And so the first unit will have 3-4 days specifically devoted to Jesus’ ministry, mission of redemption, and establishment of the Church. That’s ok, though, because it is always interesting to give it a refresher so there can be a running start.

The 9th grade course is about Christ and Divine Revelation. It largely consists of walking through the foreshadowing of Jesus in the Old Testament. Some of the students coming in will never have taken a theology course before, nor do they know how to read Scripture. So before we even get to the nuts and bolts of the Old Testament, we’re going to have to lay the groundwork It’s something I used to angst over, but the older I’ve gotten, the more at peace I am with it.

That said, teaching the unchurched/non-religious is still always going to be a struggle. That piece I linked was something I wrote a few years ago, intending to try and get it published in a Catholic publication, but life happened and it never came to fruition.

There’s a bunch of things coming in the near future that have to do with the start of the school year. I am putting my nose to the grindstone to get them done, but I still enjoy sharing them with you, because this is a new journey and one I haven’t made in eons.

I do ask that you pray for me as I begin all of this. I am an experienced teacher, but a lot of this is returning to “rookie” mode, and I need all the help I can get!

St. Joseph, Pray for Us. St. Peter and St. Paul, Pray for Us.

My Cynicism and Education

I’ve been spelling out how I view the larger world, especially in terms of corrupted and corruptible institutions, but I figured I would address the objection of “how can you see the world this way and be responsible for the education of impressionable young people?”

It’s actually not that difficult.

For one, I never discuss specific politics in the classroom. My students never know who or what I vote for in any given election, nor do I discuss it with them. Why? Because it’s not their business or concern. We all had teachers who wore their political opinions on their sleeves. I have had colleagues through my 18 years in education who did the same.

I find it takes away from the classroom experience because all it ends up doing is providing confirmation bias for one group of students and giving license to another group not to pay any attention to what the instructor has to say on the actual subject, because “he believes X, Y, and Z on political issues A, B, and C,” thereby rendering (in their minds) invalid his actual expertise.

I prefer to keep them guessing. One of the most fun moments early in my teaching life was right before the 2004 election; one section of freshman boys spent an entire class period in early November debating whether I was voting for George W. Bush’s re-election or for John Kerry. They could never figure it out, and I liked it that way.

Which brings me to another point, and one that doesn’t get enough of a spotlight in our youth-worshipping culture: teenagers don’t know anything. Ok, that’s unfair – a few know some things, but I remember how I was when I was ages 13-17: I merely spouted off what I was hearing from my (liberal) parents and what they read and watched. Once I was old enough to realize I needed to form my own views of the world, it dawned on me that if I went into education (as I always wanted to do), arguing politics with teenagers was really just arguing with their parents, not them, regardless of which way they leaned on the spectrum. This has been borne out way too many times to be enumerated in my experience, and I believe leaving the politics at the door is the best way to be effective.

So how do I square my cynicism with teaching? Teaching theology, it’s actually simple. There are certain principles involved – one is faith in God, not in princes (Psalm 146). Another is the reminder that man does not live on bread alone (Matthew 4:4). A third is the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12). A fourth one is the Greatest Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40), and the fifth is the New Commandment to “love ye one another, as I have loved you” (John 13:34). What all of these things remind us of is that life starts with ourselves and how we interact with God and neighbor. Other principles such as charity beginning at home and the lesson of the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25) are included as guiding forces in the classroom.

A major problem in modern society is we are encouraged to be how Luke Skywalker was prior to becoming a Jedi – always looking ahead, never paying attention to where he was in the present. We tend to miss the fact that there are things we can do right in front of our own faces. Instead, we are encouraged to try and solve problems that no singular individual can possibly solve at a distance, and all that leads to is “virtue signaling” and an elevation of good intentions above all else, with the problem remaining.

Instead, I try to encourage thinking things through logically, knowing that students aren’t going to learn anything if I just spoonfeed them what I want them to think and say. I also try my best to get them to think and act locally – one’s neighbors will benefit so much more from acts of charity and goodwill. “Changing the world” is a foolhardy exercise, but it gets more attention and recognition. However, real change starts small and locally – one step at a time.

If you go back to my original post on my cynical thoughts (as well as the follow-up), I stressed that top-down solutions almost never work. It always begins with the little things. Do the little things, and the big things will follow.

However, it takes patience and a willingness to make mistakes. Difficult for a teenager, but a lesson well learned, and one that will help them make their place in the world and society better.

Back to Work

August 12, 2022 – Vacation is over; I took my family on a short getaway to the beach and now that we’re back it’s time to get down to business. And quite frankly it was about time to be preparing for the next school year. Fortunately, I don’t have to learn how to teach – I only have to learn the culture and the student body. And yet, I have a certain feeling of being overwhelmed – and it’s not a feeling I’m used to – the only times I can remember otherwise were when I started teaching nearly two decades ago and when I became a father. Otherwise, I am usually just a roll-with-it kind of personality.

As it is, I have one of my course policies completed and ready to go, but I need to get clarification on the other course and its direction. I’m also curious as to the periods of the day being taught. Sounds like I have a half-and-half dynamic of underclassmen.

Should be fun. Now I need to relieve some stress – yard work will do the trick.

New Courses For the Fall

I did learn what it is I’ll be teaching for the fall: Old Testament and Church History.

Both of those courses will be a hoot. Except for the fact they are semester courses. Which makes things a little more difficult. The question becomes: what gets emphasized, and what gets cut?

I’ve taught both course in entire years and I felt I couldn’t do justice to them. With the Old Testament, we could spend way too much time on the early Genesis items (Creation to Babel) or not enough time on things such as the Wisdom writings (Job, Psalms, etc.). With Church history, there’s so much to cover with the Roman Empire, and lots to gloss over with the Middle Ages and even toward modern times.

So no matter what, it is going to be a challenge. I am up for it, to be sure, but I’m also sure someone is going to be annoyed if topic X doesn’t get covered. What I can’t tell you is if that someone is going to be me! Either way, my job and goal is to present the topics as faithfully as possible regardless of the time constraints, such as they are. I’ll definitely be keeping everyone up to speed as these changes keep coming along in life. It’ll certainly be interesting.

Starting to Get Set

I am in the midst of the “time off” between Summer School and the start of the next school year (circa August 29), but because I am switching schools for the first time in my professional life (after 18 years, no less), this summer is a little different.

It is a bit strange, because I am moving from one Catholic school to another, and yet, the two schools could not be more different in a lot of ways. The former has 800+ students, all boys, and the campus is a very tight fit in an urban/suburban setting. The new place has around 200 students, it is co-ed, and the campus is brand-spanking new with room for expansion and growth.

My life and teaching career are also at completely different spots. When I started teaching I was in my early 20’s and because I was returning to my alma mater, I didn’t need to be brought up to speed about the culture of the school, or the schedule, or how to get from point A to point B. I only needed to concentrate on the items inside the classroom – curriculum and class management. Now, in my early 40’s, I don’t have to learn how to teach (don’t get me wrong, I can always still learn), but I do have to spend a lot of time getting to know the people, the facilities, and the general culture. I am coming in as an outsider; I have to do everything new except the teaching part. It’s a very strange dynamic, indeed.

Other things include having to submit to a drug test. Never done that before (at least not before this coming Friday). I am guessing with the proliferation of marijuana decriminalization and legalization this is now a thing. The courses are all semesters rather than year-long courses. That will be an adjustment, although I have taught some semester courses before, just not for freshmen.

No matter what, though, teaching is what I love. And this is definitely going to be an interesting year, and I will continue to write about it as we move through it. If you ever wondered what it is for a sort of middle-aged guy to up and start over again in the same profession, pull up a chair and gather around, because you will find out.