Allow me to illustrate to you, if you’re willing to put up with the incoherence that results from spending virtually all of your time with teenagers, a loose idea of what life is like as a first year teacher.
I staggered home last Thursday, deliriously, gloriously, triumphantly exhausted.[1] After spending the last two months alternately trying to get my students to love me and trying to convince them I didn’t give a crap what they thought of me[2], I have survived, and quite possibly—dare I say it?—thrived as an educator of 15-17 year olds.
I arrived in Salt Lake City in early August, about as far out of a cultural and topographical comfort zone as a Catholic kid from Iowa can get. I was sent westward as my placement in Echo, a graduate program that falls under the infectiously joyful umbrella of Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life, after spending the summer on campus in what I’m pretty sure is the most rigorous academic environment in the world.[3] This preparation included a three-week crash-course in “How to Not Totally Suck at Being a Theology Teacher,”[4] as well as a variety of other theology masters-level classes scrunched into six straight weeks of basically sprinting a marathon.
This is all to say that even though I was as well prepared as humanly possible for the task of walking into a classroom full of thirty teenagers six times a day, I was still woefully unprepared for the task of walking into a classroom full of thirty teenagers six times a day.[5]
When people have asked me how life is going out here in Utah, my general response has been, “I love teaching. It is soooo hard!” The shy and the politely disinterested will offer a kind but ignorant smile. The fellow teachers offer a nod of understanding that ranges from You, too, huh? Cool. to OHMYGOSHIKNOWISNTITWONDERFULLYTERRIFYING!?!?![6]
But my favorite people are the brave, possibly-unaware-of-what-they’re-about-to-get-themselves-into souls whose eyes light up and who ask why? Because it’s not hard for the reasons you usually hear about.
Yes, lesson planning is a brain-frying, time-draining process in which you try and take everything you know about a topic and condense it down into 45 entertaining minutes. And yes, grading quizzes and tests is probably what Judas, Brutus, and Cassius are doing in the ninth circle of hell. But that’s not why teaching is hard.
Teaching is hard because it’s one of the most vulnerable things I’ve ever done, and I do it six times a day, five days a week. Teaching, especially teaching theology, is about being okay with failure[7] and unafraid to share your whole, raw self with a group of people who are desperate for that kind of human interaction, and aren’t really capable of reciprocating it. It’s an impossible balancing act, because I wasn’t just making a joke up there—I really can’t care what my students think of me even though I really do desperately want each one of them to love me.
Let me see if I can give you an example of this high wire act. I have one particularly brilliant and inquisitive student who often comes in after school to ask questions about Catholicism. Let's call him Carlos.[8]
Carlos was raised Catholic, but has reached that dangerous point of adolescent self-awareness where he has discovered that he's brilliant. With this newfound awareness, he's decided it's important to start thinking critically about his faith, which is absolutely wonderful. We've spent hours discussing Church teaching and sharing bits and pieces of each of our own faith journeys. It's great, but also incredibly time-consuming and sometimes super frustrating.
The other day, after our latest round of discussion, Carlos got up to leave, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. I exhaled, relieved that on this day I had actually been able to answer most of his questions. But as he reached the door to the hallway, he paused and turned around.
“Mr. Goodale,” he said, “would you be interested in hearing what I really think of you?”
Crap baskets. “Uh... Sure, Carlos.”
“I think you're really smart. And usually I don't think Christians are very smart. But clearly there's something going on between you and this Jesus character, and I guess I'm trying to figure out what it is.”
It took me a moment to collect myself enough to not break down crying there at my desk, but then I managed a simple, “Thanks, man. You have no idea how much that means to me. See you tomorrow,” and he left.
And he probably doesn't have any idea. And he probably never will.
I couldn't find the exact quote, but I'm almost positive that Fr. Robert Barron writes in Bridging the Great Divide that one of the hallmarks of true Christian discipleship is living your life in a way that wouldn't make sense without Christ. To have a student unintentionally quote that in his description of me basically validated my entire life, and it also perfectly encapsulates the impossible balancing act of being a teacher. Because, on the one hand, his simple observation made my year. But on the other hand, I felt like I couldn't really let him know how much I valued his opinion of me. And I'm not entirely sure why.
My man C.S. Lewis[9] has a jaw-dropping image of what being made into a saint is like. It’s sort of fun at first, and then all of a sudden a load-bearing wall gets knocked down:
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.[10]For Lewis, God is basically Shang from Mulan, only instead of making a man out of you, he wants to make you a saint. And the irony is flipped: you’re already a saint. You might not know it, but He does. And he’s going to make you swing sticks around, catch fish with your bare hands, and climb poles until you realize that you were capable all along. You just had to get a little stronger… and start using the weights the right way.
In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis talks about wanting a Church that is bruised, hurting, and dirty. His vision is a Church full of disciples who roll up their sleeves and get to work! And this is what I feel like I’m doing out here at a Catholic high school in the heart of Mormon country.
Teaching—at least for me—is simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying because it’s about being a saint. This is what the saints do.
I spend every day on the front lines, demonstrating the faith (to best of my limited but God-given ability) to a group of people starving for truth, goodness, and beauty. I limp home every evening bruised, hurting, and dirty, deliriously exhausted and feverishly joyful.[11] And I get up every morning ready to do it all over again. And sure, it’s only been a couple of months, but if I can hang on to even a fraction of this feeling, the feeling of being on fire with the Holy Spirit, then I am lucky enough to already have figured out, at the tender age of 23, how I am called to serve the world.
__________
[1] Most of the staggering was due to exhaustion, and not the fact that I stopped for an after-school drink with my mentor, who also happens to be my department chair. Sometimes teaching is the bomb.
[2] Both are entirely true… sorta like Jesus’ humanity and divinity. #paradox.
[3] 14 credits in six weeks. I do not wish it on my worst enemy. Actually, that’s not true. Echo is wonderful, and you should all consider applying!
[4] It was actually called “Pedagogical Theology,” but I like my name better. Hope Todd and Megan agree with me.
[5] #paradox, back again.
[6] These are the people you want to be friends with.
[7] And I mean, down in flames, crash and burn in front of real live human beings failure.
[8] Because, bad jokes be damned, Carlos was always my favorite Magic School Bus student.
[9] If you’ve never read anything else I’ve written, it ALWAYS has something to do with C.S. Lewis.
[10] That’s from Mere Christianity. If you haven’t read it, stop reading this right now and go read it. Seriously. Stop reading this footnote.
[11] Actually, now that I think about it, all joy is just a little bit feverish—it’s contagious, you know.
Rob Goodale grew up amid the cornfields of Iowa and graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2013. During his time at ND, Rob spent two summers as a mentor-in-faith with the Notre Dame Vision program and was an RA in Keough Hall during his senior year. After spending a glorious post-grad year interning with ND Campus Ministry, he is now in his first year of Echo, a two-year graduate program, working on a masters degree in theology and teaching sophomore and junior theology at Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper, UT. If you found his trademark combination of wit and pomp not totally insufferable, you can find more of his writing over at his blog or contact him at rgoodale@nd.edu.
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