Humble Dialogue


                “It is not my job to make my students hate Henry James the way I hate Henry James.” Dr. Coia, one of my education professors, gave me this advice. I refuse to use my classroom to promote political or personal ideology. I had a student come to me after school, nearly in tears. As she tells the story, she had come from a class where the teacher consistently seemed to vilify students who disagreed with said teacher’s beliefs. If the purpose of Catholic Education is to help students encounter God and to know their Authentic Self, then I cannot think of a more counter-productive way to do this than to denigrate or cut down our students. Instead of beginning with the presupposition that either one or the other of us present in the classroom is right or wrong, why are we not simply teaching our students to be in dialogue with each other? In this particular case, it was a matter of the teacher having to be right all the time, and if the students didn’t agree, then it was the students’ who were unwilling to learn. If we are made in the image and likeness of the Trinity, and if that Trinity is in perfect relationship with itself, then it makes no sense to focus on who is right or wrong. The Father does not dominate the Son and the Holy Spirit! Maybe we can learn from the Trinity here. Maybe we can humble ourselves like the persons of the Trinity humble themselves. Maybe we can seek dialogical relationship with our students rather than dictatorial monologue.
The Knock Basilica in Knock, Co. May, Ireland. The apparition at Knock was particularly interesting, Mary said nothing. She stood silently, adoring the Lamb. The Word of God, humble Himself, spoke for us all. Perhaps as teachers we should look to our students as Mary looked to her Son and let them speak. 

                There is much more I can say about this; I want to be careful with how I word this, but I will stop here. Let me end this short blog with a simple statement: the goal of education is to teach students that they are Loved and that they can Love; this can really only be done by developing a culture of humble dialogue in the classroom.

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