Day 11 | Week 3: Make The Ordinary Come Alive

... from "That Parent's Tao Te Ching" by William Martin.

35. Make The Ordinary Come Alive

Do not ask your children
to strive for ordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is a way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples, and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.

Day 4 | Week 2: Pope Francis on Education II

Pope Francis in his address to the Italian Union of Catholic School Teachers, Managers, Educators, and Trainers [14 March 2015] --

"School is certainly comprised of valid and qualified instruction, but also of human relations, which for us are welcoming and benevolent relations, to be offered indiscriminately to all. Indeed, the duty of a good teacher — all the more for a Christian teacher — is to love his or her more difficult, weaker, more disadvantaged students with greater intensity. 

Jesus would say, if you love only those who study, who are well educated, what merit do you have? And there are some who make us lose our patience, but we must love them even more! Any teacher can do well with such students. 

I ask you to love the “difficult” students more... those who do not want to study, those who find themselves in difficult situations, the disabled and foreigners, who today pose a great challenge for schools."

"If a professional association of Christian teachers wants to bear witness to their inspiration today, then it is called to persevere in the peripheries of schools, which cannot be abandoned to marginalization, exclusion, ignorance, crime. In a society that struggles to find points of reference, young people need a positive reference point in their school. 

The school can be this or become this only if it has teachers capable of giving meaning to school, to studies and to culture, without reducing everything to the mere transmission of technical knowledge. Instead they must aim to build an educational relationship with each student, who must feel accepted and loved for who he or she is, with all of his or her limitations and potential. 

In this direction, your task is more necessary now than ever. You must not only teach content, but the values and customs of life. There are three things that you must pass on. A computer can teach content, but to understand how to love, to understand values and customs which create harmony in society, it takes a good teacher."

"I encourage you to renew your passion for humanity — you cannot teach without passion! — in the process of formation, and to be witnesses of life and hope. Never, never close a door, open all of them wide, in order for the students to have hope."

Day 3 | Week 1: Gratitude

by Louie Schwartzberg and David Steindl-Rast

Day 2 | Week 1: Pope Francis on Education

Our school president sent this to our community this morning:

"My question to you, as educators, is this: Do you watch over your students, helping them to develop a critical sense, an open mind capable of caring for today's world? The spirit capable of seeking new answers to the very challenges that society sets before humanity today? Are you able to encourage them not to disregard the world around them, what is happening all over? Can you encourage them to do that? 

To make that possible, you need to take them outside the classroom; their minds need to leave the classroom, their hearts must go out of the classroom. Does our life, with its uncertainties, its mysteries and its questions, find a place in the curriculum or different academic activities? Do we enable and support a constructive debate which fosters dialogue in the pursuit of a more humane world? Dialogue, that bridge word, that word which builds bridges.

One avenue of reflection involves all of us, family, schools and teachers. How do we help our young people not to see a university degree as synonymous with higher status, with more money or social prestige? It is not synonymous with that. How can we help make their education a mark of greater responsibility in the face of today's problems, the needs of the poor, concern for the environment?" -- Pope Francis [from a speech to educators in Ecuador, July 2015]

Day 1 | Week 1: Performing Miracles and Touching Hearts

Our director for campus ministry reminded us of this most beloved of all of the founder's quotations this morning:

"You can perform miracles by touching the hearts of those entrusted to your care." -- Saint John Baptist de La Salle [Meditation 180.3 | Feast of Saint Hilarion]

Preparation Day 5 | Professional Day 2: Always Pray

Our vice principal for curriculum development and academic services gave us a card today in hopes of continuing our constructive dialogue, a positive faculty spirit, and a mission driven approach to building community:

Preparation Day 4 | Professional Day 1: The Grass Is Always Greener

"The grass is always greener where you water it ..."

(Although, in California, it's where you're allowed to water it ...)

Preparation Day 3: Faculty Staff Community Opening Retreat

"Let us remember ... that we are in the Holy Presence of God."

"Live, Jesus, in our hearts ... Forever!"

Preparation Day 2: Inspiration Through Encouragement

“Inspire and lead others by encouraging them.”
-- Saint John Baptist de La Salle [Meditation 193.2]

(Charcoal drawing by Brother Patrick Martin, FSC)

Preparation Day 1: Stillness

"Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments 
of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we 
eventually honor with the name of action. Our most emotionally 
active life is lived in our dreams, and our cells renew themselves 
most industriously in sleep. We reach highest in meditation, 
and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great; 
he is free from the experience of hostility; he is a poet, and

most like an angel."

-- Leonard Bernstein, 1976