I was invited to speak at the Immaculate Conception School gala in Clarksville, TN about the importance of Catholic education. These are my remarks.
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| Hogan Bryant, a graduate of Immaculate Conception School and JPII, now at Vanderbilt, also spoke to the gathering. |
I am a product of Catholic education, as is my entire
family. I attended St. Ignatius K-6,
Most Pure Heart of Mary 7-8, McGill Toolen Catholic High School, Notre Dame as
undergrad, Notre Dame for grad school, then became a teacher in a Catholic high
school for four years, became principal of high school for 12 years, then president
for 7 years, and then moved to Nashville to become headmaster here at JPII,
where I’ve been for six years. All of my children have gone to Catholic schools
in K-12, my three oldest have done to ND as undergrads, my oldest son also
received a Master’s degree and now teaches in a Catholic elementary school, my
wife went to Catholic schools K-12, and she now teaches Math at JPII. Suffice
it to say we believe in Catholic education!
I once knew a junior girl; let's call her "Christy". Christy was smart, but her life was unraveling--I think she had become sexually
active and was dabbling with drugs. She started acting out, getting into trouble, a result of being unhappy with her life. I called her into my office, and she entered, sulkily, expecting a lecture. Instead, I told her I needed her to
tutor a freshman girl. She was struggling in math, I said, and she needed help, but what she really needed was a friend and mentor. Christy hung her head, ashamed. "I’m probably not
the right person,” she said, looking down, "you don’t really know who I am." I looked right into her eyes. “I know exactly who you
are," I said, "and that’s why I chose you. She needs you. Will you help her?
“ She straightened up some, even smiled a bit. “Yes, “ she said, and that was
the beginning of her recovery back. She turned out to be an excellent tutor, but was an even better
mentor, and the more she gave of herself, the more she re-discovered herself in
the process. When Christy graduated, I handed her the diploma and whispered to
her, “I am so proud of you.” Those are moments you live for as a principal.
The second example is my third child, Aaron. Aaron was a rising junior when we moved to
Tennessee in 2008. He was smart, affable, popular, and well adjusted, but he
wasn’t a particularly good student—up until then, he made decent grades without
much effort. He HATED that we were moving (On the admissions essay, “Why do you
want to attend JPII?” his initial response was “I’d rather digest pine cones” until
his mother made him rewrite it), but his life changed quickly once enrolled, so
much so that by his senior year, he was leaving the house at 6:15 a.m. to go to
tutorials for his AP Calculus classes. He wouldn’t be at Notre Dame were it not
for JPII.
I am committed to Catholic schools because they change kids’
lives for the better. Our kids need Catholic schools—they are living in a world
of accommodation which believes self-esteem is buoyed by cheap praise instead
of hard work and achievement, and they also live in a world that is deeply pessimistic
of kids, a world which tells kids over and over that they are incapable of
virtue (Safe Sex movement says, in reality, we’d don’t think you’re capable of
living as you should, so be safe about it).
Catholic schools tell them that they can virtuous lives—and
if they mess up and sin, God is there to forgive them, but also call them back
to holiness. The truth is, our kids want
to live for something other than themselves, and Catholic schools call them to
that, and tells them that a good life, and even a holy life, is possible for
them.
Most of my life, I’ve worked with teenagers. They’re a lot of fun.
The world is opening up to them and they're seeking their own voice. An important
piece to that search is whether their faith is going to be an artifact from
their childhood or something that will become integral to their life as adults.
Discipleship, if it's not to become like the 'seed planted in shallow soil', is
part of a life long conversion, involving the whole person--mind, body and
spirit.
Catholic schools immerse students in a community where scholarship
is highly valued, where the faith is lived explicitly--with frequent
opportunities for worship, prayer and service to others--and where the moral
life is honored. By attending Catholic schools, then, kids are encouraged to
integrate their faith with their learning, their daily living and their social
relationships in a way that has long-term, lasting effect.
But our schools are not only important for the
future of our Church; they are critical to the present. Vibrant
parish schools beget vibrant parishes! Parents, many of whom drift away from
the Church during their young adulthood, are pulled back into the life of the
Church via sacramental preparation for their children, through attendance at
PTO meetings, school plays, athletic contests and school galas. Their kids’
emerging spiritual life encourages them to become more active in the Church as
role models and as “primary educators.” Our high schools inspire diocesan pride
and a common identity, as the Catholic community comes out to support “their”
high school in athletic contests, theater performances, or academic
events. Catholic schools build real
communities of faith that change families’ lives for the better.
I was invited by Mrs. Zeller, your principal, to spend a day at
ICS this week and did so on Thursday. Afterwards, she asked me what I thought
about the school, and I told her I thought it was wonderful—there’s great
virtue in being a small school, like the theme song from Cheers, a place “where
everybody knows your name. “ And, too, I got a good vibe about the
place—outside, well groomed, clean hallways, students passing by the chapel
genuflected (a powerful testimony to the school’s Catholic identity); inside,
kids seemed happy, the teachers comfortable in their own skin, there existed a powerful sense
of family.
I know you want to be bigger. But like those optical illusions
where you see a face the first time you look at it, and then re-look at it
and flip your perspective so that you see another face, I suggest seeing the negative
as a positive. There’s been a lot of research on small schools, , and the
research is pretty consistent: Small schools out-perform larger schools in
student achievement in every measurable curricular outcome, and graduates from
small schools are more likely to go to college and persist in college. There’s
a tendency for those of us who work for Catholic schools, either as principals
or Board members, to measure everything by enrollment, as if bigger is always
better, but it isn’t really. So aim for more enrollment, but in the mean time,
extol being small! Some of ICS classrooms have 10 kids in them, with one
teacher, which really provides an amazing opportunity for families in this city
to receive a first rate education. It’s
really the best deal in town, if you think about it. And by the way, your graduates prove that point most eloquently. Some
of the very best students we've ever had at JPII come from ICS—Hogan Bryant, speaking tonight, is a case in point.
I’d like to share one final thought with you, and I’d like
to use JPII as an example of what I am thinking.
JPII has students from 48 zip codes, 10 counties and two
different states. In addition to a bus we send up to Clarksville each morning
and afternoon, we also have a bus that picks up in Bowling Green, another that
goes to Mount Juliet, and a fourth that goes into West Nashville, all the way
out to Old Hickory. Really, if you look
at the size of the North Nashville schools within the shadow of Hendersonville,
St. Joseph School has only between 30-40 8th graders, St. John
Vianney has just 10—we have no business being a school with 160 freshmen and
600 overall students.
So why, then, is it larger than it “should” be?
Well, you might guess it’s because of good results—95 AP
Scholars, as an example, was the highest or second highest total in the state
last year. Or you might point at the teachers—three teachers in our schools’ 12
year history, for example, have been named Tennessee Science Teacher of the
Year. Three coaches on our staff played ball in the NFL. Our academic dean, Mrs.
Phillips, was Southeastern AP teacher of the year.
Those stats obviously don’t hurt us, but I don’t think
that’s the reason enrollment swelled at JPII, because people were coming in
droves to JPII when it opened in 2002, long before we had any results to share
with people.
I think it was something deeper, something that was decided
upon before the school even opened. It was our founding board’s vision of what
a Catholic school could be. They wanted JPII to be different—a place of
audacious optimism in kids, and in what kids could achieve if you created a
culture of high standards, with committed teachers, structures of support,
pastoral care and community.
You see this in so
many ways at JPII: Most students earn 26-28 credits in four years of high
school, at JPII, they earn 32. Most schools require a year of the Arts, JPII makes every
kid take at least 3 years. Most schools might require a year or two of language, JPII
requires 3. We’re just 12 years old, but we have three exchange programs
with Catholic schools in England, Germany and France.We play in the highest level of athletic competition in
Tennessee, Division IIAA. We host a Distinguished Lecturer series, in which we’ve
invited George Weigel, Governor Haslam, Bishop Flores, and this year, a Jewish
Scholar, Dr. A.J. Levine, to discuss matters of importance to our faith and society….
And I say all that, not so much brag on JPII, but to
illustrate the audacity of JPII’s self-understanding—to illustrate its vision. And I think that’s why people are willing to
send their kids so far to come there, why Clarksville families put their kids on a bus for a school that is an hour away—because they want a school that inspires
kids to think the same way about them selves, and because optimism is
contagious.
So here’s the thought I want to share with you. Don’t think
small at Immaculate Conception. Think bigger, dream higher, imagine new
paradigms.
I did a little research on Clarksville. It's the 5th largest city in Tennessee (behind Knoxville,
Memphis, Chattanooga and Nashville.) Even more impressively, it's the 5th fastest growing city in the United States
with population over 50K,
No, I am not suggesting that Clarksville should build a couple more
Catholic schools and create competition for ICS! I am saying
that if you are willing to re-adjust your expectations and vision, that
Clarksville is plenty big enough to support a much larger Catholic elementary
school than the current facility will even allow.
When times are tight, the tendency is to hyper-focus on
infinitely small details. That’s not a bad thing, because details matter,
but only to the extent that it doesn’t prevent big picture thinking. There’s a proud history here— St. Mary’s school was one of
the first Catholic schools in Middle Tennessee and served this community for
100 years before closing in 1968. But Catholic education is so important to
this community, you re-opened the school in 2000 . I find that remarkable--very, very few of the 7,000 Catholic schools that have closed in the last thirty years have been resurrected! My guess is
the thinking then was to get something started again, and build for something
more down the road. Don’t lose that big picture —I see no reason this
community couldn’t support a school of 400+ students if it had the building and
grounds to do so.
Andy Dufresne, the main character in the movie The Shawshank
Redemption (which Internet Movie Dbase lists as the best movie of all time),
says famously. “We can either get busy living, or get busy dying.” The greatest gift this Catholic community can
give its children and its children’s children, is a healthy, vibrant Catholic
school. You have made a really good beginning. Build on that! Think big, Dream big, not small, and ask the
Clarksville Catholic community to dream with you.
Thank you for all you guys do to support Catholic education.
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