Nobelity

I will try to tone down the sarcasm that I normally aim towards our nation's leader for this post, because Obama did at least have the self-awareness to say he did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

I realize that not all winners can be Ghandis, MLKs, and Mother Teresas. There will have to be a few Elie Wiesels and Gorbachevs thrown into the mix. In all seriousness, if you look at a list of laureates, you see a collection of people who did things for the world. Even the more controversial figures have acted on a global scale. Take Henry Kissinger, for example. Controversial figure, to say the least, but he was working in Vietnam. Or Al Gore. The credibility of his facts is, well, fairly non-existent, but he shared the award with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and what happens to the environment matters to the whole world.

President Obama, as best I can tell, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for hope. It makes me feel better about the US education system from a global perspective. Even my slowest students realize that there is a difference between hope and peace. They are also starting to grasp the idea that rewards come after actions, not as motivation to do something.

Stories

One of the various email lists that I occasionally read linked me to an article in the New York Times. A little while ago, a pro-life activist was shot. I wrote about it, but commented that his views were likely not the cause of his murder, based on what I'd read. I don't know anymore, but I do know how fantastic it is for a paper like the Times to cover an abortion story in this manner.

Even if I would prefer being called pro-life.

A Times blog also showed some of the graphic images that some activists use. While I have mixed feelings (mostly a range of disapproval, disappointment, and sorrow) about the use of graphic images, I like the way the blog presented the pictures. There's plenty of warning, but curiosity will drive most people on. And the power of the visual reality, for which so many people fight, will have a chance to work its magic.

Crosses

Yesterday I subbed for the 7th grade and history teacher. It was a challenging day, to say the least. The 6th and 8th grade history classes went well, but the 7th grade had more than a little trouble. The constant rain that kept us inside all day made it worse, and I suppose they were about due for an explosion.

When I got home, I had trouble shaking the day. I was so tired of being responsible for other human beings. That is a lot of pressure! Finally, a late night chat with Em put things into perspective.

She talked about the film, Freedom Riders, which I haven't seen. She made her point however : a lot happens in these children's lives bigger than school. I can forget it easily, because they minimize the harder parts in life. None of them (or few) have any conception even of their socio-economic stati, which is beautiful and frustrating at the same time.

Em also mentioned the importance of our community, in supporting each other and carrying each others' crosses. The image came to my mind of Simon of Cyrene. And instead of my community helping me bear my cross, I realized that these students have crosses that I can't imagine, and I am here to help bear them. No wonder I feel so much pressure. There are 64 middle school crosses and 3 teacher crosses coming at me from that school, for all of whom I am called to be some sort of Simon.

Rather than overwhelm me, however, the idea comforted me and put bits of life into their proper places. I can't deal with all the attitude from the school; I can't solve all these kids' problems; I can't even meet their educational needs. But I can extend a hand, or at least a finger, and help with their crosses. It will take patience and counsel to understand how, but it makes sense, and, with the grace of God, I can do it.

Magical Teacher Moments

I have them every now and then. Today, I had three.

The first two happened while the 6th grade was journaling. One of the boys put up his hand, and when I went over to see what he wanted, he asked me which "there/their" to use. Up until that point, I wasn't convinced that any of them realized that different forms of that word exist/matter, let alone thought about which to use when. But he had "the" written on the page, and his pen poised for the next letter.

To understand the next moment, you must also know that it takes massive amounts of effort, patience, repeated commands, and physical escorts to make the 6th graders settle down for 10 minutes of journaling. One of the bounciest girls, after finally settling down, announced, when we were done journaling, "What if we want to write more? I'm not finished!" And she had written more than most of her classmates!

Finally, during the last block of the day, the "Math Enrichment" class for Ana, a few students, and me, I sat down with one of the brightest kids in the 6th grade. A math teacher from St. Louis University High School had been working with him on Algebra, and today I got to help him. He figured out how to add a negative and a positive number! It may seem small, but he figured it out on his own! And he was doing 9th grade math!

Church and State

Catholic Social Teaching is called the best kept secret of the Catholic Church. It makes sense; think about how often we hear that being Catholic means kneeling nicely at Sunday Mass and praying the Rosary daily. Then think about how often we hear that being Catholic means fighting for the rights of workers, joining the struggle to empower disadvantaged communities, or creating safe havens for pre- or newborn babies? Sure, every now and then we get that image, mostly along with the message that these people are the extremists, sometimes even the loons, not your regular, run-of-the-mill variety of Catholic.

What if it's the other way around? What if those who advocate CST live exactly as a true Catholic should live, and the rest of us are "Catholic Lite" : same surface taste, but no substance underneath?

One of the sad results of our negligence of CST expresses itself in the political realm. Our negligence allows political parties and actors to co-opt passion for justice and tricks people into believing that justice solutions reside in a specific party, politician, or piece of legislation. The belief that we need just political action forms a core part of CST, but so does the idea that political action will not fix the world without the action and support of the faithful outside the political realm.

This dichotomy of political and religious solutions poses a fascinating question in a country that obsesses over the "separation of church and state," which we translate into the "restriction of religious actions and values to the church building and maybe home life." Not quite what our Founders had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment.

The Post-Dispatch today had an article that focused on the breaking down of this false wall with a "church-state disaster relief partnership." Tim Townsend, who wrote the article, explained Missouri's system that facilitates the state government and religious groups to work together at providing disaster aid. Using Katrina as an example of where the government failed and religious groups pulled through, he describes how this cooperation happens at a national level as well. Reading the article brought back memories of Sociology of Religion and Latino/a Migration, when we discussed religious-based justice movements. (We used Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo's God's Heart Has No Borders, a great book.)

Townsend does not discuss any Catholic groups, however. (Hondagneu-Sotelo does. Apparently on a small scale, you find Catholic justice groups all over the place.) Why are Catholic groups not discussed? I can think of a few reasons, and I don't know which is the case. First, they could simply fly under his notice, for a variety of reasons. Second, Townsend could not like Catholic groups. Or, third, they simply are not there, as part of the governmental partnership, or at all. Each of these reasons would have very different implications as to what we need to change to receive the notice that these Baptist and Methodist groups received.

Of course, this begs the question : Do we want that notice? I do. Not for the praise that Townsend rightly gives religious-based groups, but instead for the image change. If we make CST part of the image of a Catholic, maybe we can motivate ourselves to live up to that image and we can become the change in the world.

The Inside of Your Head

I like my new schedule and the chances I have now to work with small groups of students. I hope it will help me get into their heads some. The more time I spend with these kids, the more I see them as individual human beings (duh) and the more I realize that I just don't understand how their minds work.

Some examples:

Yesterday we had a huge thunderstorm while the 7th grade boys were working social studies in the library with me. The first crack of thunder did not resemble thunder -- it sounded like something had exploded outside the building. I actually didn't realize it was thunder at first. I thought someone had crashed their car outside the school. I expected the sirens that I heard soon after to stop at the school. But I kept me seat and my head and kept working.

The boys, however, were out of their seats in seconds. "School's over!" they said, not to cause trouble or be smart, but simply because that was their conclusion, by their use of logic. It took a moment to convince them that yes, we did have to stay in school.

I gave some 6th grade boys a test today. Their history teacher told me that I could help them figure out the answers, just don't actually tell them the answers. I let them get started, and they thought long and hard about the matching. And put down answers resembling a "priest-king" is a "group of territories" and an "empire" is a "type of writing." After thinking. Yet, the moment I pointed to "priest-king" and said, "What type of answer should this have? Is it a person, a place, or a thing?" they could answer "political and religious leader."

Another question read, "Why was the invention of the sailboat helpful?" or something along those lines. The answer their teacher wanted was that they used wind power over muscle power. I tried to help: "What would they have used before sailboats?" "Well, like, a canoe or something." "Then what's the difference between a sailboat and a canoe?" "Well, it can carry food."

What?! I really want to know what goes on in their heads, because I just don't understand. I have the feeling that if I understand the insides of their heads, I will be able to reach them better.

Which is the ultimate point of my third observation about the ways their minds work. When they are out of the classroom at break, they hit the uneven blacktop and start games of basketball, football, and volleyball in and around jump rope, tag, and races. Their attitudes completely change. I realize that this might happen with a lot of people, but I was the same on the water (racing) and in the classroom: intense, goal-driven, optimistic, and focused. They have such good team work, attitude, focus, and skill in sports that I want to figure out where it comes from and how it works so that I can channel it into the classroom.