A Big Picture of Learning: How Do You Educate the Whole Person?
“Jesuit education is a call to human excellence, to the fullest development of all human qualities...a call to develop the whole person.”--Peter Hans Kolvenbach
Below is a drawing I did for the Visiting Scholar class in Spokane in early 2012. I am using it to facilitate my understanding of how to educate the whole person. I will integrate it with reflections and applications to other resources in order to more fully appreciate the implications of our studies this semester. Visiting Scholar, Dr.Deanna Dannels’ reflection on my application
We appreciate your ability to capture and re-present the world in drawings. It was provocative because the concept of a sponge is typically used to denigrate passive learning but your drawing and paragraph challenged this commonly used trope in productive ways. It made both of us rethink the easy conceptualization of a sponge as a metaphor for passive learning. Thank you for that.
In their native environment, sponges depend on the constant flow of water through their pores and channels to assimilate food and oxygen and to push out what is not needed. This simple digestion plan works well for these primitive animals. They thrive, and grow for hundreds of years immersed in their marine home in a continuous rhythm of assimilation, intuitive discrimination of what is necessary and helpful, and, finally, pushing out what is unnecessary into the economy of the sea. The sponge is a suitable metaphor of Jesuit pedagogy and the elements critical to inciting and sustaining it. Away from its saltwater home, the sponge is dry and tough, but it is profoundly transformed and reconstituted when given an opportunity to absorb water again. Originally created for continual growth (created to absorb), if it is hindered by environmental deprivation, reconstitution is ever reasonable and possible. When the sponge is saturated once again, it is useful in numerous ways in its new environment; some of those functions require part of the water to be squeezed out. Metaphorically, this necessary squeezing of the excess is illustrative of learner overflow in engagement with others and of the tension of learners’ relational dialectics as they negotiate differences producing a mutual and synergistic learning. It is also illustrative of the Jesuit mission to serve others and seek positive change in the world.
Environmental Factors and Instructor Engagement
A range of environmental influences, both positive and negative, are described in the three resources used for this reflection. Rebecca Nathan (2005) presents an ethnographic study of life as a college freshman in My Freshman Year. The students she studies are constrained by cultural ambivalence, financial pressure, and social conformity. The Italian film, Ciao, Professore! is a story about a professor among tiny student ruffians caught in an economic and social conundrum. In contrast, is Delderfield’s (1972) To Serve Them all my Days, where students are immersed in a life of active learning, attentive instructors, freedom from financial constraint, ample opportunities, and only occasional hindrances.
“Cura personalis—personal care and concern for the individual—is a hallmark of Jesuit education and requires that teachers become as conversant as possible with the context or life experience of the learner” (Kolvenbach, 2005, n/a). Professore’s experience in Cosovo presents images of this kind of care for students. He proactively and physically gathers them from their individual contexts to bring them to the classroom; he and chubby Nicola share their mutual weight problem; he inadvertently discovers the legitimate reasons for Gennarino’s dozing in class; he involves himself in a proactive outrage and concern for Raffaele’s mother. His intuitive response to the “shit” (Wertmuller, 1992) in his chair and the object lesson emerging from the slapping episode with Raffaele, contribute to the positive forming of these emerging learners. David Powlett Jones embraces the students of Bamflyde. The boys are immersed in an evironment where teachers serve as surrogate parents. He functions as teacher, comforter, counselor, disciplinarian and friend. Nathan’s (2005) year long study asserts instructors have a significant impact, but that largely, “Student teacher relationships play a relatively minor role in the experience of undergraduate life in a large university” (Nathan, 2005, p. 140).
The Possiblity of Education… “For Others”
“An Ignatian pedagogical paradigm can help teachers and learners to focus their work in a manner that is academically sound and at the same time formative of persons for others.” (Kolvenbach, 2005)
Reflecting on the sponge as it relates to “educating the whole person”, I see the students of the Professore were clearly beginning to morph from their “dry and tough”condition as they immersed in his attentive tutelege. The viewer is left hoping the process will continue, but realistically, given administrative controls and other powers-that-be and with Professore gone, it’s difficult to imagine that the nascent learners will experience significant continuity in growth. The Bamflyde boys are in a more fortunate position. The bedrock of their school paradigm is the conviction that information cannot be “hammered into” (Delderfield, 1972, p. 40) students, that discussion promotes original thought, cooperation is supremely important, and instructors are like potters at the wheel. In a spirit of release, after the the hard nurturing work is done, Algy states, “All the best of us can do is to teach boys how to educate themselves between their time of leaving here, and their time of crossing the Rubicon” (Delderfield, 1972, p. 142). In the present-day university, Nathan’s (2005) research offers hope through an active understanding of students, stating, “Student culture has a depth and complexity, which often hold the key to its engagement” (Nathan, 2005, p. 142). Investing time intentionally and actively engaging this student culture in innovative ways is akin to wetting the sponge.
Stretching the sponge metaphor further,we find that there must be immersion before there is a possiblity of excess for others. The vision of this explodes in me; I am smitten with the ideals of Jesuit pedagogy. I am also tempered by realism; the task is immense. Professore is gone and replacements are doubtful. Engaging student culture in the university is not so easy as it is at cloistered Bamflyde. My ideals are clouded when I consider my frequent experiences of ambivalent college students. I observe the discouragment of my teacher/husband with his decades in BIE schools working with young Native American ruffians. I feel we are fortunate simply to leave a bit of moisture on the “dry and tough”in hopes they will run with it as we imagine the emerging Raffaele could do.
References
Delderfield, R. (1972). To serve them all my days. Naperville, Ill: Sourcebooks.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York, NY: Touchstone
Jesuit.net (Director). (2012). Competency Assessment in Distance Education [Motion Picture].
Kolvenbach, S. (2005, September). Jesuit education and Ignatian pedagogy. Retrieved April 30, 2012, from Jesuit Distance Education Network: http://www.ajcunet.edu/Jesuit-Education-and-Ignatian-Pedagogy
Nathan, R. (2005). To serve them all my days. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
Wertmuller, L. (Director). (1992). Ciao, Professore! [Motion Picture].
