I’m laughing these days, as a predominant theme in the education journals I read focuses on preparing students for life in the 21st century. It’s funny because I imagine that at some point we focused on preparing students for the 20th century, even the 19th century, and I’m sure in a few years we’ll be discussing how to prepare kids for the 22nd century! Good teachers should be mindful and responsive to the changing landscapes into which their students are headed.With the start of our first senior year and the recent visit to campus by eighteen Jesuit colleges and universities, there’s been increasing talk these days about college and university admissions, and many students are considering what they can do to enhance their chances to be successful at whatever is next for them after Xavier. Lately, many of these suddenly aware students have been in my office.
Usually, these students, all earnest and articulate in their desire to be better prepared for next year, be it 10th grade or freshman year in college, begin by asking to be put in honors and/or the Advanced Placement sections of the courses in which they are currently enrolled. After they remind me that colleges look for honors and AP courses on a transcript as an indication of academic rigor, I try to get them to question whether accelerated is always better. It’s not like the non-honors and non-AP courses at Xavier are decelerated. It’s not a race.
Two of my favorite educators are Ignatius of Loyola and Parker Palmer. Both of these teachers talk about helping their students form “habits of mind and heart” (Palmer), or a way of being in the world (Ignatius). When we talk to students at Xavier about taking more advanced course work, we try to keep in mind that while it’s important to prepare kids for college math (and 11th grade math for that matter), it’s also important to help them find a way of proceeding in their lives in whatever is next for them. This involves talk about discernment, self-direction, time management, vocation, innovation, creativity, engagement, beauty, vulnerability, confronting fear, mystery, failure, and brokenness. I’ll admit it’s often difficult to pay attention to these sorts of “great things” when the room is crowded with plans for the next thing in a student’s life.
Welcome to the tension we seek each day at Xavier! Push yourself as you get to know yourself. If we are engaged in the work of learning AP US History and finding a way to be in the world, we will feel this in palpable ways. There won’t be enough hours in the day. The moments of breakdown will be balanced by sudden moments of reprieve. The storm will be followed by calm. This is not an either/or proposition. We seek both the storm and the calm. Let us always be mindful of the challenge to keep God and the pursuit of great things at the center of our efforts.
Students with these sorts of habits of mind and heart will, no doubt, set the world (and the next century) on fire!
Peace, Chris