Newsletter 3: 8 March 2023
Dear Colleagues,
Teaching moments
As the first flush of the new school year recedes and the rhythm of the term and learning programmes is well established, inevitable among students will be misunderstandings, disagreements, and bruised relationships. With a learning agenda that is so acutely time bound, such “disruptions” can be extremely frustrating for teachers and school leaders. Whilst a constant reminder of the imperfect nature of our human condition, importantly for Marist educators, such disruptions provide profound teaching moments with the young people in our care. Emotions experienced by students are often raw, new, and perplexing, potently galloping ahead of reason. Physically, a young person’s growth is obvious, whilst their emotional development less so. The work of the teacher in bringing disputes to an end, and restoring relationships through listening, understanding, compromise, apology, and forgiveness is priceless.
Saint Marcellin instinctively understood the immense potential of the teacher to educate and provide a Christian example through their daily engagement with students. Marcellin1 observed to the early Brothers,
“Education does not consist in either discipline or teaching; it is not imparted by courses in politeness or even religion, but by constant daily contact between students and their teachers, by personal advice, attention to details, encouragement, corrections, and all other sorts of lessons to which this uninterrupted contact gives rise. Of all the lessons you can, and indeed must, give your pupils, the first and principal one, the most meritorious for you and the most efficacious for them, is your example. Education is assimilated more easily and makes deeper impression by way of the eyes than by way of the ears.”
Marcellin presents a vision for Christian education echoed in every Church document on Catholic education published since Vatican II, some 120 years later. Rather than accommodating “disruptions”, we Marists are encouraged to embrace the “opportunities” to teach and learn Jesus’ way, in the everyday lives of our students. May we be especially attentive to these opportunities during this period of Lent.
Today is International Women’s Day. In response to the call for submissions to the 2021 -2024 Synod of Bishops, Australian Researchers from Newcastle University, Tracey McEwan, Kathleen Phillips, and Miriam Pepper have completed what is believed to be the largest survey of Catholic women in history involving 17,200 participants from 104 different countries communicated in 8 languages. Aligned with the theme of the Synod, the research is designed to provide clear insights from women to inform discernment and decision making, “For a Synodal Church: communion, participation, and mission”.
The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference 2022-23 Social Justice Statement is titled RESPECT and urges us as Christians to confront violence and abuse. President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Tim Costelloe SDB, in his foreword to the document emphasises a destructive reality in Australian society, the injustice and abuse suffered by women and children.
Those who suffer such abuse are most frequently women and children while the perpetrators are most frequently men. But no matter who suffers such violence, and who perpetrates it, the damage to the lives of the victims and survivors of such abuse is real, destructive, and long-lasting.
The virtue of solidarity challenges us to support those who are seeking justice in the face of such widespread violence. The teaching of Christ urges us to promote relationships marked by respect and freedom rather than coercion and control. The message of the Gospel is not a message of domination of one person over another but a message of mutual esteem and kindness.
Importantly, the Australian Bishops on their website also highlight this day by acknowledging the need for greater inclusion of women in decision making and leadership roles within the Church (https://socialjustice.catholic.org.au/event/international-womens-day-2023-03-08/.)