Na kana I Hawai'i (Saints in Paradise)

           

Recently I was privileged to visit the island of Moloka’i (Hawai’i) where the sad story of the forced relocation of victims of Hansen’s disease (Leprosy) played itself out for a little over a hundred years. In 1865 the (then) Kingdom of Hawai’i, in an effort to stem the spread of Hansen’s disease, decreed that all Lepers would be forcibly relocated to the isolated Kalaupapa peninsula on the island of Moloka’i. Children were taken from their parents as well as brother from sister and husband from wife. Even after the discovery of a variety of treatments beginning in the 1940s, it wasn’t until 1969 that the state of Hawai’i formally rescinded its isolation laws.

            What made my visit to Moloka’i so privileged was the role the Catholic Church played in caring for the physical, material and spiritual needs of the Lepers. Beginning in 1873 a young Belgian priest, Father Damien De Veuster, asked the Bishop of Hawai’i to be sent to Moloka’i in service of the Lepers. He was the first non-Leper to live on Moloka’i for an extended period of time. More than ten years later he was joined by Mother Marianne Cope and two Franciscan Sisters. Mother Marianne assumed responsibility for the Colony upon Father Damien’s death and, for the next 35 years, would faithfully - and cheerfully - serve the patients of Kalaupapa.

            On that visit I was privileged to “meet” Mother Marianne for the first time. I say for the “first time” because I have known about her for virtually my entire life. At the time that she accepted the request for nursing sisters to be sent to Hawai’i, Mother Marianne was Superior General of the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse - the same nuns - a hundred years later - that taught me in elementary school and my sister in high school. Sister Bonaventure, my eighth grade teacher, was a native of Hawai’i. We grew up knowing the heroic story of Mother Marianne and her Sisters.  Needless to say, when the opportunity to visit Moloka’i came up, I jumped at the chance to “meet” Mother Marianne.

            By all accounts, she was a remarkable woman. While still in her thirties, Mother Marianne founded Saint Joseph Hospital (the hospital in which I first greeted the world) and at a fairly young age - 40 - she was elected the second Superior General of the Franciscan Sisters.  A little over five years later, Mother Marianne accepted the invitation (the only affirmative response to a letter that was sent to 50 other religious orders) from the Kingdom of Hawai’i to staff a hospital for Lepers. Having never encountered the scourge that was Leprosy, Mother Marianne boldly asserted: “I am not afraid of any disease.” In 2005 Mother Marianne followed Father Damien into the halls of sanctity when the Church declared her a saint.

            The Bishop of Honolulu, Larry Silva (the first native-born resident of Hawai’i to assume that office), accompanied us on the visit to Moloka’i and preached the homily at Mass that day. The Gospel - Luke 10:25-37 - contained the parable of the man robbed and left for dead on his way to Jericho (I’ve previously commented on this passage in my Blog:  http://lasallehs.blogspot.com/2013/07/who-is-my-neighbor.html). In that parable, Jesus asks the central question that goes to the heart of Christianity: “Who is my neighbor?” There isn’t enough space to recap the answer to that question, save that it includes the man who stopped to give aid to the one left for dead. Then, Bishop Silva posed this rhetorical question: “In the Ebola epidemic, who is the neighbor?”  The obvious answer is the medical professionals who have responded to the rapid spread of this deadly disease.  Sounds a whole lot like Father Damien and Mother Marianne!  But Bishop Silva pushed us to consider a more complicated perspective with respect to this question.  Father Damien and Mother Marianne were utterly ordinary people (indeed, both were immigrants) who, when confronted by an extraordinary challenge, simply said yes.  What fascinates me about Mother Marianne - to this day - was her speedy and uncomplicated commitment to a destiny not her own. Bishop Silva challenged us to look at ourselves from the perspective of Father Damien and Mother Marianne: as ordinary individuals who - at one point or another - are (and will be) surprised by God’s invitation to be neighbor to someone else.

            As I spent five hours on my return flight from Hawai’i, I had time to consider the challenging perspectives my visit to Moloka’i forced me to consider with regard to my own life. I thought about Bishop Silva’s challenge to constantly ask myself the question: “Who is my neighbor” and somewhere, over the middle of the Pacific, I realized that this is the exact same question we ask the students of La Salle (and all Lasallian schools) when we challenge them to: Enter to Learn and Leave to Serve. At La Salle, everything related to the activities of Student Life, of the Retreat Program, of the various drives to respond to the needs of the homeless and the marginalized are designed to inculcate in the students entrusted to our care a sense that anyone who is in trouble needs a neighbor.  Like Father Damien and Mother Marianne, we need to listen to that “still, small voice” that is God challenging us to figure out who we need to be neighbor to - and then - to act on it.

 

The road to Calvary

          

  A friend recommended that I go see the movie, Calvary. It covers seven days in the life of an Irish priest serving in an isolated parish on a windswept corner of County Sligo.  The film opens with the priest, Father James, hearing confessions.  A man enters the confessional and reveals to Father James that he was abused from the ages of 5-7 by a now-dead priest.  He intends to extract retribution by killing Father James seven days hence. “No point in killing a bad priest,” he says. I’m going to kill you because you’ve done nothing wrong.” The penitent wants the world to know the trauma visited upon him and, in his mind, what better way than to kill an innocent man?

            It’s easy to see the parallels between the movie title, Father James’ predicament and his journey of seven days. Father James’ “road to Calvary” takes a week to complete and is filled with the flotsam and jetsam of encounters with a variety of unruly, unappealing and often unlikable parishioners.  Father James deals with each of them with a mixture of patience, righteousness, humor and even, sometimes, anger. Needless to say, this parish priest is respected, but is not popular.

            Father James’ isolation in relation to his parishioners caused the recovering English teacher in me to focus on two moments in the film which paralleled scenes in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar and Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn (hang in there).  With respect to the former parallel, there’s a scene in the film where the Pub owner, smarting from a losing encounter with the priest, says to one of his customers: “(Father James) needs to be taken down a bit.” His words reminded me of Cassius - who had his own issues with Julius Caesar - when he said to Brutus:

“Why, man he doth bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus, and we petty men / Walk under his huge legs and peep about.”

Later in the film, having acquired a gun for the purpose of defending himself on the seventh day, Father James wrestles with his conscience - he had just chastised a parishioner for thinking there are exceptions to the fifth commandment - and pitches the pistol into the stormy waters of the Atlantic ocean, thus committing himself to the final confrontation with the man who intends to kill him. That scene echoed the words of Huck Finn - “All right then, I’ll go to hell” - when he commits himself to freeing his friend, Jim, the slave.  I won’t act as a spoiler for the rest of the film, should you decide to see it; but I do want to comment on the theological and ethical elements in Calvary which should, I think, resonate with what we try to do here at La Salle for the students entrusted to our care.

The word and the place of Calvary are synonymous with the Christian understanding that Christ’s death represents the sacrifice of an innocent man in order that the sins of the many can be forgiven.  I’ve always struggled with the cause and effect of this core element of our Christian faith. It seems so incredibly outsized as to be incomprehensible. And yet, having watched Calvary, the priest’s belief that he will be able to convince his potential murderer to abandon his malign goal makes sense to me (especially after he throws the gun into the sea). In short, innocence forms its own moral compass. The film reinforces this point when, in a debate with one of the other characters about the difference between recrimination and forgiveness, Father James blurts out this blockbuster:

“We have too much talk about sins … and not enough about virtues, I think forgiveness has been highly underrated.”

It is all too easy for organized religion to dwell on sin more than on virtue - we see this played out in the news headlines on a daily basis, it seems. Rarely, though, do we devote as much time to the Gospel virtue of forgiveness…hence Father James’ comment. This is particularly problematic during the stormy adolescent years of high school. Confrontation - not forgiveness - is often the dominant social paradigm among teenagers. At La Salle, we seek to tilt the scale towards forgiveness by surrounding our students with adults who are also on a journey towards becoming more forgiving.  We don’t always get it right, but we know that our goal to produce good students and good people necessitates that we keep trying - just as Father James kept trying to win over his recalcitrant parishioners to more fully embrace Gospel values.

I suppose I will always wrestle with the magnitude of Jesus’ sacrifice; but in watching Father James’ journey to Calvary, I have a better idea how to encourage our students to imitate Christ’s example, who, at the time of His Calvary, forgave his persecutors.

The Don Draper Problem in Real Life...

I must admit that I have never liked Don Draper.  I tried liking him in Season One of Mad Men; largely because the critics said I should like the brutally honest way in which the hugely popular TV show portrayed the rough and tumble, testosterone fueled battle for gender and career dominance in the decade of the sixties.  After having watched about a third of Season One, I realized that, contrary to the critics’ perspective, not only did I find Don Draper repulsive (irrespective of the later revelation of his traumatic childhood) in his personal and his professional life, but I also found him “unwatchable.” By that I mean, even for this recovering English teacher there is a certain level of verisimilitude which deserves to be ignored; if only because there are aspects of Life that don’t require imitation by Art.  In the case of Mad Men, Don Draper’s odious treatment of women, including his - then - wife, is all too much still with us in the second decade of the 21^st Century. I’m not at all clear as to why any thinking person needs Television to remind us that Draper’s aggressive, self-absorbed and misogynous persona continues to haunt the halls of corporate America some fifty years later.

These musings surfaced after reading a Blog entry by New York Times writer Michael Port entitled:  The Don Draper Problem: Root Out Your False Narratives. His column makes the case that Draper, the protagonist in Mad Men (actually, he’s the antihero of the show), is ultimately undone by the, rather farfetched, back-story in which Draper assumes the identity of an Army buddy killed in the Korean War. Port’s column highlights the brutal price Draper pays decades later for (literally) burying his secret identity.  What irritated me about Don Draper’s character (and to a lesser extent, Port’s deconstruction of it) is how little attention was focused on the price paid by family and friends who unknowingly suffered because of the (unacceptable) ways in which he compensated for his secret past. However, Port uses Draper’s dysfunction to make the case for personal authenticity in our every day adult interactions.  He explains his point this way:

 

“A great deal of the literature around "authenticity" really comes down to this question (do) we have the courage to talk about who we really are, not just who we want others to think we are.”

 

Don Draper’s fatal flaw, in effect, was his creation of an identity that was at odds with who he really was. And while Draper’s dramaturgy is an extreme case - even for the most credible of viewers - Port’s point is well worth considering.  He hit home with me when he posed this, all too common, scenario:

 

“Think about how some of us add on layers of personae to gain others' approval while hiding parts of ourselves that we think are embarrassing.”

 

Of course, we all do this to some extent. What our family knows about us is not necessarily the same as what our friends know about us (and some times, vice-versa). Port isn’t suggesting that we should become completely transparent in all situations - that would spell disaster for most of us; but he is making a compelling case for the value of being vulnerable in front of others, especially with respect to those aspects of our lives that keep us from being our best selves.  As evidence for this  never-ending challenge, Port sites Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's success as the author of the bestselling book Lean In as an example of someone who was willing to name her internal conflict around intimacy, marriage and having children.

 

            At La Salle, it is not our role to encourage teenagers to be vulnerable (they are often able to accomplish that in highly unattractive ways all by themselves); but it is our role to nurture authenticity in their public and private behavior. Adolescents are fully capable of hiding their weaknesses from themselves and others. What they need to learn - and what Don Draper learned too late in life - is that personal authenticity (and its cousin, integrity) is strengthened when they allow themselves to be vulnerable in the presence of those who care about them - their parents, extended family and, at La Salle, their teachers and coaches. I have been privileged over the last 16 years to observe our students blossom because of the trust they placed in a teacher or coach who challenged them to be their best selves.

            So, I suppose that Don Draper’s character is worth paying attention to, if only to remind ourselves that a lack of authenticity - and integrity - can cause any one of us to walk down a path we didn’t intend and probably won’t result in a life well-lived. As our teenagers gear up for another school year, its worth noting that the most important outcome of their journey through their four years at La Salle is that they become good students and good people.

Together and by Association...

I recently received an email from a La Salle alum who is an undergraduate student at the University of Southern California, inviting me (and others) to follow his Blog he had created to chart his summer internship at the Hong Kong outpost of USC. On many levels, he’s a remarkable young man. As a high school student, Roque regularly achieved a 4.0 GPA (or higher), was on our track and field team, involved in Student Life and was a Student Ambassador; oh, and he was a San Miguel Scholar as well. Most members of the La Salle community know that the School provides nine San Miguel (full tuition) scholarships to incoming freshmen from Catholic elementary schools who demonstrate financial need and academic potential. Over time, they have proved to be an impressive lot - earning an average GPA of 3.1 - similar to that of their tuition-paying counterparts at La Salle. Even within the talent pool of the San Miguel Scholars, Roque is unusual.  His drive to achieve in and out of the classroom was evident from the first moment he stepped on campus. He embraced life at La Salle with a gusto that is rare among young adolescents.  So, it was no surprise to me that Roque was awarded a full-tuition scholarship to attend USC’s Marshall School of Business.

Having just completed his junior year at USC, Roque’s enthusiasm for learning opportunities didn’t begin with his journey to Hong Kong. He had already served as a Fellow at a marketing firm based in New Jersey and he was one of ninety students selected last summer to intern in Taipei for two months through the University-sponsored Global Fellows Internship Program. Now he’s in Hong Kong assisting in the launch of the University’s international academy this summer. This internship is highly competitive and Roque was one of two USC students selected to participate.  All this while excelling in his course work and being selected as captain of the USC Trial Advocacy Team…and now he is blogging about the experience.

As I thought about how much Roque has accomplished in three short years, it occurred to me that, in addition to his intellectual talent, intense commitment to the task at hand and amazing resolve, there is an additional factor, rooted in the culture of La Salle that, as the Marketing Committee of the Board of Regents likes to remind me from time-to-time, is often obscured by our tendency towards modesty in celebrating the accomplishments of our students. That factor - embracing diversity as an educational end in itself - pushes our students to become their best selves in the four short years they spend with us. Embracing diversity has been at the center of the philosophy of Lasallian schools across the globe since Saint John Baptist de La Salle founded them over 300 years ago. As one commentator once observed: 

“La Salle believed that rather than undermining society, the education of the poor and working class would lift all of society.” 

Indeed, so successful were his schools that middle class and affluent families were soon attracted to them. Brother Gerard Rummery, a prolific educational philosopher on the unique value of Lasallian schools framed their contribution this way: 

“The counter to this (schools segregated by wealth and class) was the school which "ran well" (a frequent expression of De La Salle), where all children could come irrespective of their social status, and where all could obtain the basic education which made them capable of obtaining useful steady employment, thereby enhancing their human dignity.” 

In short, Brother Gerard notes that “La Salle made it possible for the poor boy and the better off boy to sit on the same benches.” This was a key element of De La Salle’s educational genius and continues to characterize today’s Lasallian schools located in over 83 countries. By making it possible for wealth and class to become irrelevant in the school, De La Salle made it possible for teachers and students to learn from each other - “together and by association.”

            At La Salle, we celebrate the rich dynamic that is created when students from all walks of life gather together in the same space.  We know that the bonds of friendship - of association - nurtured in an ethnically and economically diverse world benefits everyone and makes it possible for students to become their best selves. At La Salle, Roque’s story is impressive, but not unique. We expect every student, regardless of background, to seize opportunities as they present themselves, to stretch the limits of their imagination and to look to their peers for lessons that only a diverse student body is capable of producing.

            I asked Roque if I could share his Blog with the readers of this space. He was happy to give me permission: 

https://roquehk2014.blogspot.com/ 

Oh, and by the way, he just made the second round cut for a position next year as a White House intern.

 

 

 

 

Be careful what you ask for...

           

It never occurred to me when I was teaching American Literature in New York during the early 1980’s that, twenty years later, I would end up living in the land that became the focal point of John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath.  I still vividly remember teaching my students the various symbolic elements of the novel’s climactic (pun, intended) conclusion in which the Joad family, having escaped the drought-impacted plains of the Great Midwest for the more temperate climate of California, encounter a week-long downpour of rain that floods their temporary encampment, and forces them to seek higher ground.

            The plight of the Joads was brought home to me in a meaningful way on the first weekend of March when Southern California - finally - experienced a proper winter storm. In the course of 72 hours, five inches of rain fell on Los Angeles; this - not surprisingly - led to flooded conditions in various Foothill communities and mudslides in Glendora and Asuza.  Prior to that weekend, California was headed into what many climatologists believe could be the worst drought in the state’s recorded history. 

            The “recovering teacher” in me takes note of the irony inherent in the Joads’ fictional predicament and our own, modern-day dilemma, in which the admonition: “be careful what you ask for - you might get it” is in play. The Joads sought relief from drought, only to experience an even worse calamity - floods. In a similar fashion, Southern Californians prayed for rain, only to have our prayers answered with a vengeance.  Unlike the aftermath of the 2009 Station Fire, however, in which 43 homes in the hills above Glendale were damaged by mudslides triggered by the 2010 El Nino weather conditions, the recent March storm resulted in only minor residential damage.  Still, nearly 1000 homes were subject to mandatory evacuation orders during the three-day storm.

            It’s tempting to jump on (or off) the environmental band wagon when events like the Station and Colby Fires inevitably lead to flooding and mudslides…and yet, it was ever thus here in the Golden State. Scientists have recorded soot on pre-historic cave walls here in Southern California which suggests that pollution and climate change have always played a factor in the encounter between humans and the environment.  That having been said, still, it is worthwhile to consider what, if anything, we ought to be doing to avoid (or cope with) the inevitable cycle of fire and flood which appears to be the only constant in Southern California weather patterns.  In point of fact, the question is really larger than that; and it is underscored by the experience of the Joad family.

            Through no fault of their own, and, in order to survive, they escaped one environmental disaster only to be confronted by a different - and equally devastating - weather event. The novel ends with a rather mysterious - and controversial - moment in which Rosaharn, the Joad daughter who just lost her newborn to the excruciating conditions of extreme heat and lack of food and water voluntarily ministers to an emaciated and starving stranger sharing their constrained patch of dry land. Steinbeck’s message is inescapable: human beings are responsible for how we react to environmental disasters and, even more so, for the generation of hope in the face of implacable and arbitrary threats to our existence on this planet.

            I’m reminded of this imperative whenever I discover stories of our alums who look to make a difference in their particular corner of the world.  The Spring issue of Lancer Magazine, for example, features a piece on Ryan McEvoy ’96 who, without intending it, pioneered the introduction of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) principles here in Pasadena.

As we gear up for a capital campaign to build a practice gym, aquatics and fitness centers, I am mindful of the precarious state of California’s water and energy supplies - as illustrated by the March climate events. It makes sense to me that we need to ensure our new buildings are as energy (and water) efficient as possible…if for no other reason than because the cost to operate these buildings will only increase pressure on raising tuition, going forward.

That having been said, it’s the inspiring example of alums like Ryan McEvoy ’96 who remind me that the Joads' picaresque journey to California not only represents “art imitating life”, but that their story of grit, determination and - yes - heroism can teach us a great deal about how to respond to life’s twists and turns - especially when it comes to things we can’t control - like the weather.

 

 

Boston Strong

           

I was in Boston visiting family for the Easter Break. I arrived on the afternoon of the Boston Marathon, fortunately, by the time I got out of Logan Airport, the last of the runners had crossed the finish line on Boylston Street in the Back Bay, so the City was (for a change) relatively congestion free and, in the West End, where I was staying, there was little evidence of the historic follow up to last year's tragedy, save the occasional reveler celebrating in one of the ubiquitous Irish pubs found throughout "Bean Town" and more than a few satisfied hurtlers with completion badges proudly displayed around their neck.

            I have to admit to a small amount of reluctance in making this trip as its proximity to the anniversary of last year's bombing, like the anniversary of 9/11 brought the tragedy a little too close to home for comfort (see the November entry of my Blog at lasallehs.blogspot.com). Readers of this space will remember that my brother, who works in New York's City Hall, which is blocks from Ground Zero, was impossible to contact until late in the day on 9/11. Ironically last year's Boston Marathon found two of my cousins, cheering on the athletes, just blocks from the finish line.  Fortunately they were far enough away that they were out of harm's way; but who really understands that in real time?

            So, as it got closer to my departure day and the news stories on the anniversary of the Boston Marathon tragedy began to multiply in frequency and in depth, I found myself turning off the radio during drive time. I wasn't sure how to feel, much less what to expect when I arrived in Boston, but I was fairly confident that it would be unusual. What I found, upon landing, was a city determined to prove to the world that a random act of terrorism was not going to detract from their pride in and support of the Nation's oldest continuously operating marathon held in a city that they loved. Someone made a lot of money on tee shirts, as everywhere I went people were wearing the slogan "Boston Strong."  Even when I got together with my cousins, there was hardly a mention of their connection to the bombing (and, trust me, my cousins talk a lot). It was only then that I began to understand the concept of resilience.

            A common definition of resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. It echoes the virtue of prudence from the Twelve Virtues of a Good Teacher, the 18^th century treatise written by Brother Agathon, the fifth Superior General of the Christian Brothers.  He defined prudence as a virtue which makes us understand what we need to do and what we need to avoid. My cousins, proud - and resilient - Bostonians, weren’t about to dwell on a painful moment in time, but wanted to talk about the next family reunion, while I was turning off the radio because I didn’t want to be reminded of that awful tragedy.

In a recent interview on Face the Nation, the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, commented on the anniversary of the Boston Marathon tragedy by claiming:

It's an Easter story... Boston has risen up from carnage, from death…at an event that brings people together. They've risen from that…the whole Boston community, has reminded us once again of the message of Easter. Life is stronger than death. Hope is stronger than despair.

             I suppose, in the end, Cardinal Dolan’s approach is not only the message we need to emphasize when life delivers overwhelming difficulties; but we must also embrace his Easter notion that life is stronger than death and hope is stronger than despair.  I must admit that it was abundantly obvious to me, during my short sojourn, that Bostonians - even those who were victimized by the bombing - were committed to the virtues of resilience and prudence. I learned a lot from my cousins and from the city of Boston about how to confront life’s realities, however positive or negative, and, why Easter continues to matter.

            My Easter resolution is to read Brother Agathon’s Twelve Virtues of a Good Teacher a little more deeply so that my resolve to be resilient and prudent will shape how I handle the vagaries of life.

 

 

What "WWW" means for our students' future...

           

March 12^th marked the 25^th anniversary of the World Wide Web.  Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee proposed the concept to CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in 1989. More than one news outlet mistakenly used the term Internet in reporting the anniversary. While, today, we might consider the terms interchangeable, twenty-five years ago, the difference between the two terms was an essential way of distinguishing between the scientists who created the first computer-to-computer messaging system (Arpanet) in 1969 and the every day user who, 44 years later, would use the internet via the ”WWW” acronym for tasks as mundane as directions to a high school soccer game. Berners-Lee’s concept translated arcane computer “language” (code) into user-friendly symbols that made it possible for you and me to communicate with each other on-line without having to earn a degree in computer technology. The World Wide Web not only made it possible for us to do our Christmas shopping on-line, it also democratized the Internet so that anyone, regardless of economic status could access communications channels that were heretofore unforeseen since the day Alexander Graham Bell uttered those immortal words in 1876: “Mr. Watson,  come here, I want to see you.” Email, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are now more commonly used by teenagers and adults alike than the post card or handwritten letter. Where folks of my generation would spend hours on the (rotary-dialed) telephone each evening, today’s teenagers use various “social media” tools for the same purpose. It was ever thus.

            Today the Internet is accessed by more than a billion users monthly. As the US Postal Service and print journalism have become painfully aware, there is no escaping this future…which is why schools across the United States have inexorably embraced the “1:1” environment (one computing device per student) in their classrooms.  And, while I have often noted, La Salle will be “the second school in” on any educational innovation, we are about to do the same.  It has been a challenging task. The first Monday of each month has been a half day schedule for students so that teachers can take the time to learn the basics of a 1:1 environment, engage in curriculum mapping exercises (a technology tool that will enable teachers to see how common educational skill sets can be supported across disciplines) and master the opportunities of “Blackboard” software which will facilitate teacher-student-parent communication regarding educational progress in a real-time environment.

            All of which is exciting and intimidating at the same time. Parents have a right to expect teachers to be experts in their discipline and its delivery; yet we are experiencing a transition in educational technology which mirrors William Goldsmith’s famous observation about Hollywood: “Nobody knows anything.” When we put iPads in our students’ hands next August, we will get many things right and some things wrong (unfortunately, we won’t be able to predict the latter). We won’t, however, make the mistake of assuming that the fact of a 1:1 environment is superior, in and of itself.  What we will assume is that all of us can learn by doing in this brave new world.

            One of the benefits of the technological horizon that is upon us, not unlike Bell’s transformative imperative of 1876, is the recognition that how we will communicate, going forward, will be unlike anything we relied upon in the recent past. This dynamic will change how students learn, are held accountable and collaborate with their peers in a world where knowing information will be less important than the skill of producing information that is relevant to the task at hand.

            In his commentary on the 25^th anniversary of the World Wide Web, one technology expert noted that the Internet is still in its adolescent phase - meaning that today’s teenagers will encounter a technological horizon beyond our comprehension by the time they reach our age. The best we can do, now, is to give them the skills - and the values - to leverage those opportunities to fashion a better world than the one we will leave them.

The universal destination of goods...

          

  I must confess that I am hooked on the Netflix series, House of Cards. In a way, I knew I would be as I was absolutely enamored of the original 1990 BBC series of the same name in which an unscrupulous Member of Parliament schemes his way into being elected Prime Minister.  The American version follows a similar trajectory in which Kevin Spacey, playing Francis Underwood, the House Majority Whip, plots revenge on his political enemies in order to position himself - eventually - as a candidate for President. Both the British and American versions borrow heavily from Shakespeare - particularly Macbeth - in which the wife mirrors Lady Macbeth, a co-conspirator, with her husband, in the murder of the king. The American version of House of Cards, however, differs from its British inspiration in its characterization of Underwood’s wife, Claire, who heads a non-profit organization focused on providing clean drinking water in third world countries. She is, however, no less complicit than her British counterpart in providing crucial support for her husband’s schemes (there’s a marvelous scene in which she criticizes her husband not for using her to attack a political enemy, but for doing so unsuccessfully), but her character is much more highly nuanced in straddling the good vs. evil divide. There are two scenes in Episode Six, for example, in which she encounters a homeless person outside her place of business. In the first scene, she notices him but walks by.  In the second, she walks by, stops, turns around, and gives him money, telling him that there is a Deli around the corner.

            I found these two scenes fascinating, not just because they illustrated a highly-nuanced moral depiction of a corrupt politician’s wife; but because they illustrated - at least for me - the principle of the universal destination of goods which is a cornerstone of Evangelii Gaudium (“The joy of the Gospel”) Pope Francis’ first apostolic letter to the world’s Catholics. 

            Now, stay with me, folks, this will make sense (I hope) momentarily. The “universal destination of goods” is a uniquely Catholic concept which asserts that God’s creation is destined for all people to take advantage of and improve upon so that everyone benefits. The Catholic principle of the “universal destination of goods” assumes that private ownership is the primary means by which individuals assist those who struggle with poverty and/or homelessness. It is the principle upon which the virtue of charity is exercised by those who have been blessed with abundance on behalf of those who struggle to make ends meet.  In other words, as Catholics, the Gospel demands that we share our largesse with those for whom life has handed less than a full plate. The corrupt politician’s wife in House of Cards is exercising the Catholic principle of the “universal destination of goods” by giving money to the homeless man.

            This scene impressed me because of her compromised morality.  In other words, her momentary generosity stood out precisely because it was unconnected to her willing participation in her husband’s morally questionable political schemes.  This is where Evangelii Gaudium becomes relevant.  For me, one of the most remarkable statements in the Pope’s apostolic exhortation is this one in which he asks why:         

"it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?"

The simple act of giving to a homeless person can be understood as charity, guilt or noblesse oblige…none of which addresses Pope Francis’ rhetorical question about the newsworthiness of the death of a homeless person.  And, I suppose, we know exactly why the question is rhetorical: a change in the stock market directly affects us in ways that will never be true for the death of a homeless person.  And yet, it is probably the case, that all of us, at one time or another has given money or food to a homeless individual. Rarely, however, do we think about why we do so. In Evangelii Gaudium, the Pope makes clear why we engage in charitable activities - to advance the universal destination of goods - so that all may benefit from His creation. For some, this may seem to be a terribly inefficient method of ameliorating the social costs of inequality; but, as the Prophet Isaiah reminds us, God’s ways are not our ways.

            Every student at La Salle knows that service is an important priority in their educational development - it is another method of effecting the universal destination of goods.  And, just as Claire Underwood stopped to think about assisting the homeless man in House of Cards, we want our students to be intentional with respect to their acts of charity now and in the future.

 

Why we need Black History month...

I suppose it’s fair to say that, on Saturday, January 18^th, very  few households in America knew who Richard Sherman was or what he did for a living; but, on Sunday, the next day, it took exactly 34 seconds for Seahawk Cornerback Richard Sherman to become a household name (at least in households with ESPN). Having tipped a touchdown pass out of the hands of 49^ers rival, Michael Crabtree in the final moments of the game that would determine which team would advance to the Super Bowl, Sherman was asked by Fox Reporter Erin Andrews one of those innocuous “game over” questions that poses for breaking news in the NFL. Only Sherman didn’t respond with one of those innocuous answers which distribute praise to those on and off the field. Rather he did what any one of us would do when overcome by the stress and pressure of high expectations, an undoubtedly over-the-top endorphin rush and, I suppose, more than a little exhaustion - he threw a tantrum.  Only when any one of us throws a tantrum, it’s highly unlikely that there will be a camera and a microphone to record the scene for endless views on YouTube.  

Within the NFL Richard Sherman is viewed as, perhaps, the up-and-coming young Cornerback.  He is also known as the NFL’s bad boy du jour - or more precisely - as the League’s resident “trash talker.” He is, of course, the most recent in a long line of trash talking NFL players.  What makes this particular incident noteworthy isn’t what Sherman said in those 34 seconds but what was said (or more precisely, posted and/or tweeted) about what he said…and it wasn’t pretty. Within a mere 24 hours, the Internet was pulsating with anti-Sherman remarks; some so vile and degrading that it felt as if the Nation had been transported back in time to the ante-bellum South. One particularly troubling Tweet that was picked up by the news aggregators asserted:

Someone needs to introduce Richard Sherman to George Zimmerman.

From my perspective, there can be no sugar-coating the dark intent of this message - which not only conflates two unrelated, if equally race-laden, situations with the author’s obvious implication that Zimmerman had done society a favor. Richard Sherman’s response to these on-line race-inflected taunts was haunting in its simplicity:

"I thought society had moved past that."

How ironic, then, that the tantrum and its race-infused backlash occurred over the course of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend. The irony, however, isn’t limited to these two overlapping events; but to the holiday itself.  Only students of history will necessarily remember that it took over 15 years, nine million signatures on two different petitions and a House defeat (by 5 votes) in 1979, before Congress finally passed a Bill authorizing a Federal holiday honoring Dr. King. At the time, only 27 states and the District of Columbia implemented the holiday and it wasn’t until 1992 that Arizona adopted it.  The last state to adopt the holiday - South Carolina - did so in 2000, the same year it permanently lowered the Confederate flag from its statehouse dome.

            February is Black History Month. Since 1976 every US President has issued a proclamation acknowledging its significance.  Many schools devote whole weeks to the study of race relations and African-American issues. So, when I asked my Mentor Class whether we still needed a Black History Month, I took note of their lack of concern (interest?) in the topic - this took place before Sherman’s MLK tantrum and backlash. In that conversation, I came to realize that, for today’s young people, Black History Month is exactly that - history; not something that necessarily touches their present situation - as opposed to those of us past a certain age who remember the marches, lunch counter sit-ins and Birmingham Sheriff Bull Connor’s water cannons blasting away at protesting men, women and children.

            Our society may have moved past the physical violence prevalent in the South during the Civil Rights era (and in the North during court-mandated school desegregation plans in the 1970’s); but this year’s Martin Luther King weekend will be remembered for the intellectual violence that spewed veiled and not-so veiled racial vitriol across the Internet in response to a testosterone-fueled tantrum by a young African-American athlete.

Boston Globe Columnist, Christopher Gasper, got it right, I think, when he wrote:

The real loud and clear statement made by Sherman’s post game comments is that stereotyping African-American males is still an American pastime.

The events of January 19/20, when Richard Sherman became a household name in ways that proved to be unbelievably unattractive, suggest that society hasn’t gotten past it’s fixation on race. Our young people still need to care about the polarizing effects of racial animosity.

 

I think it will be quite awhile before the imperative behind Black History Month will no longer be necessary.

Honor, Courage, Commitment

            I found myself choking up a bit during our recent Veteran’s Day Assembly; which was odd, for me, as this “Army Brat” was raised to have a stiff upper lip and a mandate to conceal one’s emotions at all times. There were three distinct moments in the Assembly where I realized that even cynical New Yorkers can discover that they are proud of their country and their fellow citizens. The first moment - believe it or not - occurred when our Advanced Band and Chorus performed a magnificent rendition of the National Anthem. An over sized American Flag was projected on two 20 foot screens as 800 Lasallians stood and tacitly acknowledged the patriotic values that are enshrined in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights; as well as the importance of their protection, which was symbolized by the presence of nearly 20 Alumni Veterans standing at attention in the Duffy Lewis Gymnasium.

La Salle alums & staff who serve/have served in the Nation's Armed Forces

The second emotional moment occurred during that portion of the ceremony in which photographs of every alum who had ever served in the Armed Forces were being projected on the two giant screens facing the assembled students and which ended with a tribute to deceased Lasallian vets and the introduction of those alum vets who were in attendance that morning. Not surprisingly, our students were wonderfully appreciative of their presence that morning and spontaneously gave them a standing ovation. My emotion emerged out of two dynamics which were subtly present during this part of the ceremony.  The first was a function of the substantial number of alumni from the Sixties whose photographs flashed across the screens - reminding me - as is only possible for adults belonging to a certain age demographic - how much unintended havoc the Vietnam War imposed upon one generation of adults, - and which lingers even to this day. The second dynamic was the spontaneous - and supportive - reaction of our students to the service of their alumni forebears. The “received wisdom” of media pundits and commentators is that today’s adolescents are more or less self-absorbed, unconcerned about wider social issues and focused almost exclusively on material advancement. And yet, here were 700 teenagers leaping to their feet to acknowledge the service of those Lasallians who had gone before them, and who had dutifully accepted the possibility of paying the ultimate price to defend our shared freedoms. In that emotional moment, I realized how profoundly transformative is La Salle’s Mission to Nurture - Inspire - Challenge - Motivate the students entrusted to our care. In ways that we adults can only dimly appreciate, they get the significance of the contribution their alumni forebears gave to serve, protect and defend their country. They may not appreciate the emotional consequences of that service; but the spontaneity of their standing ovation persuades me that they are internalizing the School’s motto to Learn - Serve - Lead.

            My final emotional moment was in response to the background music that was being provided by our Advanced Band as the photographs of La Salle alums who had served in the Armed Forces were being displayed on the giant screens facing the assembled students. Megan Foley, faculty member in charge of the Instrumental Music Program, had arranged a medley of patriotic songs which the Advanced Band (and, at particular moments, the newly formed String Ensemble) executed with a seamless effort one would ordinarily associate with professional musicians.  As I marveled at their successful negotiation of a variety of key and tempo shifts, it suddenly occurred to me that these are teenagers who are executing this enormously challenging arrangement of patriotic music. And, it was at that moment that I realized this is why, fifteen years after arriving at La Salle, I am fortunate enough to be the School’s “Salesman-in-Chief.” The “magic” our faculty perform on a daily basis in support of the students entrusted to our care is not just phenomenal, it is real and transformative. 

And, it was on display at our Veterans Day Assembly - but not just there. Back-to-back League championships in Varsity Football and four consecutive League championships in Varsity Girls Volleyball, not to mention a national recognition for the Cheer Program and increasingly higher rankings for Mock Trial demonstrates that not only is the Mission of La Salle High School alive and well, it is thriving, in no small part, because of your commitment to the values of nurturing, inspiring, challenging and motivating the students entrusted to our care.