The Metapedagogy of Love


“…reflecting on the person and the God Jesus and who He is and what His mission is can benefit us and our students greatly. As teachers, if we understand God to be Lover and Beloved (St. Augustine) then we start realize that our goal is to form our students in that same image...and to form ourselves. I am convinced that our students (and really everyone) needs to know they are eternally Beloved of God. Our students live in a world that is so demanding and so stressful that they never get a chance to reflect on the Love they already experience in life. In many cases, their teachers may be the only ones who can help them to know this. Of course, as they grow in knowledge of their Belovedness, they also grow in their capacity to Love. It is up to us to "be Christ" for them in the classroom, the halls, the gym, the theater, etc...”
Day one for my students: Cultivate Love. What does it look like to be in a classroom where everyone knows they are Loved? What effect does that classroom have on the student and on their learning ability? My students openly share how when they felt unloved by a teacher or a classmate, it shut them down in class. It made them feel less than full as a person. The result? They didn’t learn as well. This is the basic reality of the intersection between Catholic Anthropology and education. If a student is not able to experience Love the way they were created to experience, then they cannot learn. There is more psychology to this, but at the heart of the matter is the need for teachers and students to work together so everyone knows that no matter what happens in class, no matter what someone’s opinion or grade may be, they will still be Loved and have the chance to Love others… to be more fully human.
St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare, Ireland. John the Baptist's great words "I must decrease so He can increase" should be the mantra of every teacher. Our lessons and objectives are always less important than the Truth that our students need to know... they are Loved.

“It is more important for you to know that you are Loved than for me to be right,” I told one of my classes this first week of school. It is more important for a student to have the confidence to share their opinions (even if they are categorically or logically flawed). Most of my students have experienced being shut down by a classmate or a teacher because they had the “wrong” answer to a question or they had the wrong way of thinking about something. For me, the only real Truth that I need my students to know in class is that they are Loved. If they know the Truth that they are Loved, then their relationship with God can begin to flourish. And as that relationship flourishes, all other thoughts or opinions or ideas will naturally and logically orient toward the image and likeness of God. The relationship I have with my students should not be one where I tell them Truth and they must believe. The teacher-student relationship should instruct Love in their dialogue and mutual acknowledgement. We often get too bogged down in the details of our lessons; maybe we need to step back and consider the metapedagogical reality that education is really about students learning who their Authentic Self is….learning that they are made to Love and to be Loved.

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