Today, I want to share with you a very powerful quote from Haim Ginnot. It’s a great reminder that ultimately the individual teacher plays an incredibly important and central role in the lives of every student. What we bring each day as educators has an incredible impact upon the young people that God places in our lives. There is no bigger influence on the character and tone of a Catholic school than the teachers themselves.
Transcript
Well, Hey everybody.
Speaker:Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome friends to the Catholic teacher daily podcast.
Speaker:Hope you're doing okay.
Speaker:You know, yesterday was special.
Speaker:We've been enduring a very cold, very wet winter here in Australia.
Speaker:Let alone all the oppressive atmosphere of lockdowns and, uh, Everything
Speaker:that's been going along with that.
Speaker:But yesterday was one of those breakthrough days where spring kind
Speaker:of made a special guest appearance.
Speaker:I think it's going to go away again in a few days, but, uh, we just had
Speaker:the most beautiful, blazing sunshine.
Speaker:And you know, that feeling you get when you sort of been.
Speaker:When it's been bleak for a long time.
Speaker:The sun comes out.
Speaker:Isn't that a great feeling?
Speaker:It reminds me of that, uh, those scenes in the lion, the witch and the wardrobe
Speaker:film, the, uh, the recent version where, you know, winter begins to break.
Speaker:And summer starts to break through.
Speaker:It's almost like these deep stories are buried deep in human,
Speaker:the human psyche aren't they?
Speaker:That.
Speaker:That, uh, life always triumph over death, light over darkness, summer,
Speaker:eventually overpowers winter.
Speaker:And I think it's about hope.
Speaker:It's about faith.
Speaker:It's about knowing that no matter how difficult things get.
Speaker:That God is with us and will bring about his purposes.
Speaker:And player's a little diversion there, but I did want to share.
Speaker:Just how much I enjoyed that.
Speaker:And our friends were going to.
Speaker:Jump straight in today with a great quote from Haim, Gino Haim.
Speaker:As you know, I came across this today and wanted to share it with you.
Speaker:Because it touches upon some of our, one of the great themes that comes through the
Speaker:church documents on Catholic education.
Speaker:And this quote is simply this.
Speaker:He says, I've come to the frightening conclusion.
Speaker:That I am the decisive element in the classroom.
Speaker:It's my personal approach that creates the climate.
Speaker:It's my daily mood that makes the weather.
Speaker:As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a student's
Speaker:life miserable or joyous.
Speaker:I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
Speaker:I can humiliate or humor hurt or heal.
Speaker:In all situations.
Speaker:It is my response that decides whether a crisis.
Speaker:We'll be escalated or deescalated and a student humanized or de-humanized.
Speaker:So friends, let's just unpack a little bit of that.
Speaker:I liked that opening line.
Speaker:I've come to the frightening conclusion.
Speaker:I think that's really interesting because I think there really is a sense
Speaker:that if you understand the richness and power of your vocation as a Catholic
Speaker:teacher, it can be quite confronting.
Speaker:Because we, you know, there's so much busy-ness.
Speaker:In our daily educational lives that we can really stop to reflect and think
Speaker:this is quite an extraordinary thing.
Speaker:That's happening here.
Speaker:I have this role in front of young people all day, every day.
Speaker:For the bulk of the year, I am the main sort of adult.
Speaker:Communicating to them.
Speaker:These significant matters around education and human life and spirituality
Speaker:and all these different things that are essential to a Catholic school.
Speaker:Of course, this doesn't diminish in any way, the primary role of parents, but
Speaker:let's be honest, you're up there day after day powerfully present in the lives of
Speaker:every single young person in your class.
Speaker:So that's this idea of a frightening conclusion that it's kind of now in
Speaker:a humanist sense, this would be very frightening because it would all be on us.
Speaker:We would be individually completely responsible.
Speaker:for everything that's happening.
Speaker:But the great news about a Catholic education vocation is
Speaker:that you are not completely on your own in any sense you are.
Speaker:Resourced and empowered and directed by the holy spirit.
Speaker:And it's a very simple idea that the deeper we go in relationship
Speaker:with Christ, the more that the holy spirit works through us.
Speaker:And the more it's truly a direct partnership between you and God.
Speaker:In building the kingdom in the hearts and minds of every young person.
Speaker:So do not be afraid.
Speaker:It's not all on you.
Speaker:Uh, the smartest thing that we can do is.
Speaker:Uh, Bishop Peter from Boise, Idaho used to say is we need to
Speaker:stop making Jesus unemployed.
Speaker:We need to stop making Jesus unemployed.
Speaker:There are a couple of other things here in this quote, he says, it's my personal
Speaker:approach that creates the climate.
Speaker:It's my daily mood that makes the weather.
Speaker:And we are obviously homeschooling here under lockdown.
Speaker:I've got three young children.
Speaker:So here I am.
Speaker:And noticing the.
Speaker:You know, the intensity of it, all the demands and, uh, just how important
Speaker:it is to try and show up each day.
Speaker:In a good space with a good positive attitude.
Speaker:So you're wanting to bring the best you can to your students.
Speaker:My students just happened to be my own kids at the moment.
Speaker:So I'm very aware that we create the weather.
Speaker:We create the climate.
Speaker:You know, I kids the children and yes, we can have expectations and want the best.
Speaker:We want our kids to grow and develop.
Speaker:But they're still children.
Speaker:And we're adults.
Speaker:So we have this more powerful role in, I guess, creating the climate, creating
Speaker:the weather in the classroom, whether the classroom is a traditional classroom
Speaker:in a school, or whether it's, uh, my dining table it's, um, it's up to us
Speaker:to create the weather and the climate.
Speaker:And that concept of climate comes through constantly in the church
Speaker:documents on Catholic education.
Speaker:Those of you who use the going deeper program.
Speaker:That we developed.
Speaker:We'll know how often we talk about that idea of climate.
Speaker:That if you take the teachers out of a school, You still have a
Speaker:building, you still have desks and chairs and tables, but you don't
Speaker:have a Catholic school climate.
Speaker:You don't have a particular pastoral climate.
Speaker:You don't even have a particular spiritual climate.
Speaker:So it's really the teachers that set that it's really, it's a powerful idea
Speaker:to get your head around because you know, if you've got, as I often say, so
Speaker:you've got 20 teachers in your school.
Speaker:I know some of you will have bigger high schools, but let's say
Speaker:there's 20 teachers in the school.
Speaker:If 19 of those teachers.
Speaker:Uh, not really people of faith and they don't practice their faith and they don't.
Speaker:Sort of go deeper in their relationship with Christ.
Speaker:You're going to get one kind of climate in that school.
Speaker:Not saying that people are bad, not saying that they're
Speaker:not committed to young people.
Speaker:I'm just saying you're going to get a specific kind of climate.
Speaker:Now if you flip it the other way and then say, you have say 19 teachers in that
Speaker:school who are in deep relationship with Christ, they're becoming saints there.
Speaker:They're practicing their faith and allowing the spirit to work through them.
Speaker:You're going to get a different kind of climate in that school.
Speaker:So it's not complex.
Speaker:Is it?
Speaker:It's that?
Speaker:As individuals as we go deeper in quest to become more dependent
Speaker:on Christ, we pray, we seek.
Speaker:The helps of our faith.
Speaker:We practice our faith.
Speaker:We.
Speaker:We attend the sacraments.
Speaker:We grow and change.
Speaker:And as we do the school around us grows and changes.
Speaker:You know, so often in schools, we can be obsessed with programs and.
Speaker:And the latest educational technology or the latest idea.
Speaker:I remember when I was teaching.
Speaker:Years ago, we began to bring in all these fancy student pastoral care
Speaker:software programs where, you know, every time a kid sneezed, you had
Speaker:to log it into a computer system.
Speaker:And what did it do?
Speaker:Of course it created a huge amount of extra work for.
Speaker:For teachers, it made some software companies rich and it often made
Speaker:educational leaders think that they were living on the cutting edge.
Speaker:Now maybe there's a place for them.
Speaker:I'm sure.
Speaker:In a complex, you know, large school, maybe they got their place, but.
Speaker:You know, what's probably more effective as a deep pastoral heart from individual
Speaker:teachers who love their students.
Speaker:And want the best for them, even if that means discipline and talking
Speaker:to parents and all sorts of things.
Speaker:But you can see that more than anything else, more than any technology, more
Speaker:than any system, more than any ideology or program, what shapes the school is?
Speaker:The holiness of the teachers.
Speaker:No, that's not a burden.
Speaker:That means it doesn't mean.
Speaker:You know that, that you have to just get stressed out thinking, you
Speaker:know, this is, this is God's work.
Speaker:This is his work.
Speaker:Our only job is to be available.
Speaker:Our only job is to have faith and to be dependent.
Speaker:So friends.
Speaker:What a great quote from Hames, you know, here, you know, this last line and all
Speaker:the situations, it is my responses.
Speaker:That decides whether a crisis will be escalated or deescalated and a
Speaker:student humanized, or de-humanized so lots to think about there, but let's
Speaker:just remember this kind of paradox.
Speaker:In a human sense.
Speaker:Yes, it's on us.
Speaker:It's what we bring each day.
Speaker:It's the energy, the health, the wellbeing.
Speaker:That matter.
Speaker:But behind that is the spirituality that we carry.
Speaker:It's the dependence on Christ.
Speaker:The belief that he, the belief that he is the answer to the
Speaker:deepest longing of every student.
Speaker:So pray for me.
Speaker:I'm going back into the homeschooling classroom today.
Speaker:We haven't lost anybody yet.
Speaker:I was joking with Karen the other day.
Speaker:I said, can you expel your own children?
Speaker:Is that wrong?
Speaker:So, uh, pray for me today.
Speaker:I'll be praying for you guys.
Speaker:I always do.
Speaker:And I'm just hope this is a blessing for you.
Speaker:Look the housekeeping as always, please make sure you've subscribed.
Speaker:Just to hit that subscribe button, wherever you're hearing this.
Speaker:And I'd love it.
Speaker:If you could leave a comment, that stuff can be really helpful.
Speaker:So if you have a chance on your laptop or desktop today to jump onto whatever
Speaker:podcast app you use, find the Catholic teacher daily podcast and leave a
Speaker:review that could be incredibly helpful.
Speaker:And Diana, many of you were just sharing the podcast.
Speaker:So please continue to do that.
Speaker:Just email it to other teachers, put it on your social media feeds.
Speaker:And finally.
Speaker:Uh, you can find me on Twitter at J D Catholic at J D Catholic.
Speaker:Just jump on Twitter at J D Catholic.
Speaker:Doing my best.
Speaker:To, uh, make Twitter a little less evil.
Speaker:Is a dark place.
Speaker:It's like, uh, So that's why I love Catholic Twitter sometimes because there
Speaker:can be some really positive stuff there.
Speaker:So find me there at eight at JD Catholic.
Speaker:And of course on Facebook, just do a search for one Catholic
Speaker:teacher, O N E one Catholic teacher.
Speaker:And you'll find the Facebook pages there, come and join us.
Speaker:And, um,
Speaker:The last thing, as I say, each day, go across to try going deeper.com.
Speaker:Try going deeper.com.
Speaker:If you've got to try going deeper.com, you can grab a three episode free
Speaker:trial of the going deeper catholic stuff, inspiration motivation formation
Speaker:education program so go do that going deeper or try going deeper.com.
Speaker:all right friends god bless you god bless you god bless you thanks
Speaker:for listening into the catholic teacher daily podcast and i'll have
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