I want our students to be good people.
More times than I would like, I have been asked or coerced to share some manner of my philosophy of education. I blogged about my latest experience with this earlier in this volume of Teach and Serve when I was asked by the faculty of my new school what my goals were for the coming academic year.
I do have answers. I think they are fairly good answers, well reasoned and based on more than a handful of years of experience in the field.
When I sift through all of the people and events that have influenced my philosophy, I center on one that I do not believe I have written of in the past.
When I came to Regis Jesuit High School as a teacher in the fall of 1994, I was part of a very large group of new faculty. One of that cohort would become a fast friend. He and I were both English teachers and we were thrown together as co-moderators of the Student Council. John had his PhD (which he had achieved at a very young age), was a few years older than I, and already had a daughter. I was just beginning my family. My wife and his were pregnant at similar times, her with her second child and my wife with our first. They were born months apart. Both were boys.
Sometime later, sitting around the Student Council office and dreaming as young fathers do about their sons’ futures, we discussed what were our hopes for them.
After what I am sure was some high-minded chatter, John said: “No matter what, I just want him to be a good man.”
How could I do anything but agree that this is what I wanted for my son as well.
Because it was.
Because it is.
And this is truly what I want for all three of my now adult children. It is also what I want for the students in my charge, whether as a classroom teacher or a high school principal.
I want our students to be good people. If they are also educated as the world understands the term, so much the better.
There is a philosophy by which I can stand.