Recently I watched a scene from the Generation X classic movie, the Breakfast Club, which is about 5 teenagers serving a Saturday detention under the watchful eye of the cynical, bitter assistant principal, Mr. Vernon. In the scene, Vernon laments to the school custodian that, after 22 years, each year he finds that the students get more and more arrogant and disrespectful. The custodian retorts that “kids haven’t changed, you have.” He then reminds Vernon that teaching, while fun at first, is actually hard work, especially as one gets older and more difficult to seamlessly relate to the young person’s point of view. 

I was reminded of this reality this year going back to the classroom full time after over a decade as an assistant principal. It has been 22 years since I started in Xaverian education. For me, it is a lot harder to manage a class now than 10 or 20 years ago. When students are distracted or are misbehaving, it is very easy to default into dictator mode, where one acts to control and contain, regardless of what the students’ intentions are, and who is actually causing the problems, or to go to the opposite end of the pendulum and act like I didn’t see or hear students saying something that merits immediate correction. Are we willing to instead do the hard thing, which allows us to reflect the Xaverian charism in our interactions, and therefore show who we truly are and want our students to be? Are we willing to open our hearts to the students in our care, with all the risks that this entails? 

This is no easy work, and like any great project, is not done all at once. Like a distance runner, educators have to keep pace daily not only with their schedules but also their own contemplative lives, however they practice it. As we think about how to practice zeal in the Xaverian way, perhaps we can consider some specific dispositions or ways of being that relate to the pace of life both at school and elsewhere. 

PACE

Presence-how much are you engaged with others around you? Loved ones and co-workers whom you see every day, and the strange faces that pass you as you walk or drive? Are you entering their world or are you stuck in your own space, unwilling to emerge? 

Awareness-If you are an educator, how attuned are you not only to how your students are behaving, but why they are behaving the way they are acting in this way? This then informs your own actions instead of reactions which may not be helpful to anyone. How aware are you of how you are presenting yourself to others? Does your mood dictate your actions or tone of voice? How can you be good to yourself while at the same time be good to your colleagues and students?

Constitution-Do you have the courage to not only lean in and listen and observe what is really happening around you, but to act in a way to address an unsafe or unacceptable situation but to maintain everyones’, including the person you are correcting, safety and dignity? When you see or hear a hurtful comment or action, can you do the right but hard thing and speak up when it is easier to take the path of least resistance and pretend you didn’t see or hear it?

Edifying-Edification is related to having a strong constitution in managing students and our interactions with adult peers. If your goal is to see and bring out the good in others, then you will approach them with the assumption that they have good intentions as you meet them. This is the foundation of the enduring personal relationships we of the Xaverian tradition speak of with such reverence. 

Yes, zeal comes from the heart. Like our actual physical hearts, our spiritual hearts get stronger the more we exercise them by being open to God and the hearts of our neighbors. These next few months may seem long and difficult, but they can be anything but ordinary.