I Writes the Applications

For those of you who I haven't been able to catch up with, I am moving back to Chicago this summer. My girlfriend, Katherine, is starting graduate school at DePaul's School of Nursing. I will be starting a part-time MA at Catholic Theological Union. As part of this transition, I have leave my wonderful job as a campus minister/theology teacher/coach out here in California and look for my next wonderful job in Chicagoland. As I assemble materials to submit to high schools, universities, and parishes, I have had to do some serious reflecting to articulate who I am, what I believe, what I love and am passionate about, etc.

Below I share with you my responses to some questions I've answered for job applications. Hopefully, some of my amateur insights resonate with you in some way...

Identify two to three skills or tools you view as essential to being an effective educator. Provide reasons to support your response.

Compassionate patience: As a theology teacher at a Catholic school, I find students to be skeptical and critical of me by default. They seem to have a generational inclination toward doubting the benevolence of organized religion. They cling stubbornly to the fallacy of relativism. They see people misusing, abusing, and otherwise poorly practicing their religions. I have to work with/against this. Deep down, I hope they will find resonance with the teachings of the Church and feel inclined toward Catholic faith. Realistically, I am just aiming to communicate Catholic values to them in a way they can understand; I frequently tell them, "I don't need you to agree with this, but I need you to understand it." Hoping for faith and working for faith/religious literacy in the midst of skepticism requires a lot of patience and great compassion. It does not mean I should let them think whatever they want. It means I must move gently, challenge their faulty understandings, their flimsy opinions, and their ungrounded objections with grace.

Relatability: I have to be credible. If students view me as being out of touch, as not understanding what they are going through as teenagers, as people living in this time and place, then I am discredited. If I dismiss them too readily or hastily, I am intolerant and heartless. I have to remain human, real; I cannot in any way become a cardboard cutout, a stuffed shirt just looking to execute a lesson and evaluate their academic performance in exchange for compensation. I have to show feeling, show my doubts, show my humor. I have to be in on the viral videos, the pop songs, and the trending hashtags - and not in a token way, because teenagers can detect phony-ness with incredible sensitivity. Ultimately, I must remain an adult while relating intimately to their status as teenagers. I love the challenge, and I am deeply consoled when students tell me I am like a loving big brother.

Given today's culture, what values are critical to teach our young men and women? Extrapolate on why these values are critical to teaching at a Catholic, Jesuit and college preparatory school and why they are important to you.


Faith: In an increasingly secular culture, we are told that it is ok to be spiritual-but-not-religious. This is a fallacy. People who lack religion lack community. Humans are inherently social creatures; we function better when we work together around meaningful causes that we share in common. Atheists, nontheists, and "nones" sometimes band together but do so loosely and often solely on social media. Religion is the social, communal force that enfleshes our beliefs and values, the things we think are so important, that fuel us to prioritize family and love in our lives. We need to encourage teens to retain faith, to take ownership of what they believe, to challenge and doubt and discern the faith of their parents and family and make it their own rather than disavow it. Teens can be incredible role models of faithfulness, spirituality, and religiosity. If we can show them its value, they can teach it to each other and help stem the tide of secularism and SBNR's.

Communication: As social media proliferate and we become more interconnected, the temptation increasingly becomes to downplay face-to-face interactions and keep our eyes glued to backlit electronic screens. The solution to this trend is not to liquidate social media; it is to teach ourselves and our young people how to use them well. Social media ought to be a supplemental means of communication. We should use Twitter and Facebook to increase our connectedness to each other so that we can have more to our relationships than ever before. The problem comes when social media become the primary means of communication and relegate phone calls and in-person contact to the sidelines. We need to reinforce the value and superiority of in-person conversation and highlight the reductiveness of communicating solely by texts, tweets, instagrams, and Facebook posts.