"Not for Ourselves Alone" - a piece by John O'Malley

This morning begins professional development for me and the Core Writing program in the English Department at Fairfield University. I am happy about this, because earlier this week I hosted 75 teachers from a local high school for their own professional development. When I settled in last night I picked up the first article I was assigned to read, "Not for Ourselves Alone": Rhetorical Education in the Jesuit Mode with Five Bullet Points for Today" by John O'Malley, S.J., and I found the content tangent to my own thinking.

No. I'm not religious.

Yes. I am spiritual.

Yes, I teach at a Jesuit University.

Yes, I was drawn to the mission statement, sans the religiosity, for the work I hoped to do in my new career - to serve others and do what is best for communities that need support. For me, this means teachers and students in our K-12 programs who are at the whims and fancies of politicians.

The Jesuit tradition is student-centered and intellectual, which reminds me a lot of the Brown School with a much greater separation of church and state. I worry that schools have become anti-intellectual and anti-student in the age of accountability and that is why I appreciated this short article published in Conversations. The five points O'Malley hits home are:

1. The teacher's first job is to help the student to unravel their own shackles and escape their own shelters (I couldn't help but think of the Allegory of the Cave).
2. All learners are a product of their past and only can be who they are because of what came before them (UBUNTU)
3. We are not born to be selfish. We are born to look out for others. We must find a purpose for ourselves.
4. Perfect eloquence - there's an art to communicating (here's where I wanted to argue with the author, only because language has been used to ostracize and oppress people, and those who use it most perfectly and eloquently, I attest, are those I fear most. The concept is tied too closely to eugenics and the hegemonic nature of today's global worlds. There are many forms of perfection and many forms of eloquence - some are LESS valued by the academy)
5. Language traps us and our ways of knowing and needs to be understood for its finesse and representation of what we think we should know. (It's a Gordian Knot. Our job, unravel best we can)

And so, I will enter today's 7 hour session with something to say (and a laptop to work in case things get ridiculous and out of hand).