Catholic Schools in a Post-Covid World

The virus will pass. How quickly we find a vaccine is an open question, but we’ll find one, we’ll inoculate ourselves, and we’ll be able to return to school without the immediate worries we’ve been living with since March, 2020. 

But we will not return to “normal.” 

To begin with, there were will be far fewer Catholic schools. According to Tim Uhl, superintendent of Montana Catholic Schools, we closed 148 Catholic schools in 2019-2020, most but not all Catholic elementary schools.  Were it not for the extraordinary allocation of monies through the federal PPP program, the number would have been higher. But we won’t get that money in 2021, and schools with significant enrollment loss simply won’t have the resources to continue. Will we have another 200 schools close next summer? 500? More? 

Second, the schools which remain, even if they preserve their present “form,” will incorporate technology in a way they never have before.  For the most part, our use of technology prior to Covid didn’t challenge paradigms;  it was used, rather, to make us more efficient in doing the same things we’ve always done: word processors to write essays instead of type-writers, using online research instead of using the library, emailing instead of writing letters, averaging grades by software instead of by hand, etc. I suppose one might argue those advances were so great in degree that they ultimately differed in kind, but I’m not terribly persuaded by that argument.  Having been a high school principal since 1989, most of these changes have simply allowed me to do the same tasks more quickly, ironically making me busier than I ever was.  Instead of typing a nice letter in 45 minutes and using white out to correct mistakes, I now crank out 10-15 emails. Is that progress? I’m not so sure. 

But the communications technology we’ve all used during the Covid19 virus will now challenge paradigms. We taught students virtually for three consecutive months last spring. We are now teaching in “concurrent classrooms, “ with most of our kids present in classrooms, but with a significant minority using “Google Meets” to participate in that same classroom from home.  It is almost as natural now for teachers and students to interact online as they do in person. 

That’s gotta change us. As I try and pierce the veil of the unknown future, let me offer some possibilities, from least to most radical:

First, it’s going to open up new possibilities for person to person interactions. For the last 20 years, if you caught me at the wrong time in the spring, you might have heard me moan about the lack of parent involvement in anything we ever tried to do in the spring. PTO attendance in the spring is abysmal. I’ve tried offering talks with nationally known experts in raising teenagers, famous theologians to speak on matters of ethics and public policy, local drug enforcement agents to speak about what the teenagers are using—it didn’t matter. The parents didn’t come. Frustrating! But I never made any changes in approach until Covid. Last April, on five consecutive nights, I hosted “Zoom” sessions for senior, junior, sophomore, freshman and incoming parents—just a question/answer session. We had nearly 70% attendance, which was astonishing. 

So there is opportunity here. As an example: at the end of our first quarter this year, we’ll do parent-teacher conferences over Zoom, and allow parents to sign up for those conferences via “signup genius.” Just this week, we had to rethink our “club expo,” in which students were invited to the cafeteria to go around to booths, staffed by club presidents, each pitching their club for new members. Social distancing wouldn’t permit that, so we asked each club to create it’s own video, and invite students to watch the video and sign up using google forms. Some of the videos were fantastic, giving student life here a whole new vibe (here’s our sailing club video, as an example). 

Second, for years we’ve had the technological capacity to offer distance-learning opportunities to our students to augment the curriculum, but we’ve never had enough proficiency or urgency to do so. But I can foresee a “class period” in the very near future where students come to the same classroom, take out their laptops, plug in their earphones, and each take different classes—Chinese, perhaps. Or advanced engineering. Or coding. Or a virtual geography class which allows them to “travel” all over the globe in 4D detail. The adult in charge of the classroom guarantees order and proctors tests, but need not be the expert. Students are on their own to do the learning. 

Third,  as our schools close, and then some rise from the ashes, re-purposed by a set of entrepreneurial educators, what form might they take? Could a diocese use a recently closed elementary school as the hub for a diocesan-wide “virtual school?” Could these virtual schools be staffed by “subject specific” teachers in grades K-2, 3-5 and 6-8 (a math teacher, for example to teach K Math, then 1Math and 2Math),  rather than by generalist teachers, expected to teach all subjects in a grade level? Could that virtual school be “scaled” by adding teacher assistants to welcome 30, 40 or 50 kids per subject? Could it invite students from rural areas in the diocese, who’ve never had access to a Catholic school, to join up? For that matter, could it welcome students from anywhere? And could this virtual school create hybrid options, whereby, for example, the core subjects were taught on line from 8-12, but from 1:30 to 3 p.m, families could opt for face to face tutoring?  Do we need to stay in an 8-3 school day? Could students complete some core requirements for the year over the summer, giving them more flexibility in their schedules during the year, allowing them to work at jobs in the early afternoon? 

Frankly, the options are endless, and I believe what has happened, in light of the “free form” of the last five months, is they no longer sound like science fiction, but ideas worth trying.  If Catholic education is going to flourish over the next decade, we’re going to need to be creative, entrepreneurial and daring. 

May God give us the wisdom and grace to navigate the winding roads ahead! 

We Need Artists!

I read that porn star Ron Jeremy was indicted for 34 counts of sexual assault. I don't know if he's guilty, but it doesn’t seem like a giant leap to imagine that a 67 year old man who has been featured in films that degrade women for the entirety of his adult life may be tempted to do the same in his actual life. 

One of the vanities of youth is to believe we are all powerful, lord commander over our passions—that we are “captain of our souls.” But as we age, we begin to better understand our creatureliness, that our vices often hold us hostage, that it’s easy to drink too much, eat too much, give in to jealousy or lust,  become judgmental, or succumb to thinking sexist or racist thoughts. We find ourselves confessing the same sins over and over again in the confessional box. 

With age comes the humility and sobriety to better appreciate Paul, who admits that: 

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing" (Romans 7:15, 18b-19)

Catholic anthropology teaches us that we are fundamentally good, but flawed. We are graced with Christ’s presence within us, capable of virtue,  but flawed by a primordial, original sin that pulls us to vice. Understanding these dueling impulses has kept our Church realistic in its theology. We have the freedom to choose Christ, but at the same time, the temptation to reject him. As an antidote to any utopian idealism, the Church proclaims that God’s kingdom is “already, but not yet” here. 

This realism also explains our Church’s sacramental theology—our need to “see” and “feel” God’s presence and his love through physical signs. “ God is love” is an abstraction without much power to move us,  unless we can experience God’s  love through others, making his love concrete in the here and now. We are not capable of living saintly lives without celebrating the saints who have gone before us, or by experiencing sanctity in the people we live with. Rituals with incense, bells, and water point to supernatural realities we cannot deduce from pure logic or reason. 

It’s also why we need we need to immerse ourselves in what is beautiful, to “think about things,” again with Paul, that are “true, noble, and right” and “whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, excellent or praiseworthy” (Philippians 4:8).  Paul understands that all that is truly beautiful draws us to reflect upon the Creator of such beauty.  

More commonly today, we are immersed in the opposite—our social media and television celebrate what is ugly and vulgar, appealing to our lesser angels,  the voyeuristic part of us that wants to “rubberneck” the “wreck” of other people’s lives. How else to understand shows like Jerry Springer, or most reality television, or movies that feature the truly macabre? 

“Art imitates life.” That’s true, no doubt, but the converse is also true, and more frightening:  that “Life imitates art.” The technological know-how to produce stunning HD video, the ability of advertisers to manipulate our emotions through images, colors, sound, and music, the use of headlines to provoke us to “click” on a link —all conspire to manipulate us. Our attitudes and values are "artfully" shaped by those who wish to sell us something, creating a culture that sweeps us and everyone else downstream. 

This cultural current can not be resisted merely by force of will. We need God’s grace to overcome our creaturely vices. But we also need beauty—to see it, to adore it, to immerse ourselves in it. That’s one of my worries about declining Mass attendance. Without this weekly opportunity to “enter in” and to fix our eyes on “higher things,” I fear our gaze will sink to more earthly, cruder matters.  

But our world doesn’t need more mud wrestlers! We need artists, sculptors, directors, film producers, thespians, musicians, playwrights, dancers and  to elevate our gaze. We need good liturgy to pull us out of the here and now and to worship and adore. We need the witness of saints and holy people to inspire us.We need reminding of that which is wholesome, good, and joyful, yes, but also that which is painful and causes mourning.  Such is the mystery of living and dying that makes life an adventure—indeed,  that makes life beautiful.