Today, I want to share with you a great insight from C.S.Lewis who reminds us that as educators we can do a great deal to bring the waters of truth, beauty, goodness and wisdom into the lives of our students.
Transcript
Well, Hey everybody.
Speaker:Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome friends to the Catholic teacher daily podcast.
Speaker:Really great to have a few moments of your company.
Speaker:It's a great privilege that you would, I guess, lavish the gift
Speaker:of time upon this humble podcast.
Speaker:I, the older I get, the more that I think that the real commodity I'm convinced
Speaker:that the real commodity in life is time.
Speaker:Uh, we can generate all sorts of other resources and access,
Speaker:all sorts of other resources.
Speaker:But the great limiter in life, uh, is it not true is time that, especially in this
Speaker:season, so we're in lockdown here still.
Speaker:So once I get out of the studio, it's homeschooling for me, three kids.
Speaker:And, uh, getting back to my teaching roots as I worked through a, uh, a whole bunch
Speaker:of stuff with each of them each day, we're doing times tables with my younger kids.
Speaker:And, uh, I have a boxing background, believe it or not.
Speaker:So I've got the boxing gloves on with the kids.
Speaker:And, uh, the boxing focus pads, and I'm doing times tables with boxing.
Speaker:So it's like, you know, Just got, they're getting their punch combinations on
Speaker:while learning the, uh, the times tables.
Speaker:So that's what I'll be doing in a few hours.
Speaker:I want to share with you today.
Speaker:Really great quote from CS Lewis, you know, the.
Speaker:The longer I leave again, he's he really is a giant.
Speaker:He really is one of those.
Speaker:Communicators thinkers, philosophers.
Speaker:Theologians that really has had a profound impact.
Speaker:You know, I think he's real gift.
Speaker:Was that not only was he intellectually brilliant?
Speaker:But his ability to make his ideas accessible.
Speaker:Uh, you know, just, you've obviously got the Narnia Chronicles in his
Speaker:fiction writing, but, uh, he was able to take these incredibly rich ideas
Speaker:and make them accessible to people.
Speaker:You know, and he's a guy that also lived with a lot of suffering.
Speaker:You.
Speaker:I had a lot of loss in his life.
Speaker:Um, ACO.
Speaker:He was not.
Speaker:Immune to the difficulties and challenges of a human.
Speaker:Human life.
Speaker:But I want to share this beautiful quote that I came across this morning.
Speaker:He says the task of the modern educator.
Speaker:That's us guys.
Speaker:The task of the modern modern educator is not to cut down jungles.
Speaker:But to irrigate deserts.
Speaker:The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
Speaker:I think that's a really.
Speaker:Interesting observation, this idea of irrigating deserts.
Speaker:And as I first read it, I was drawn to the thought.
Speaker:That much modern curriculum and much modern schooling is very instrumentalist.
Speaker:It's very utilitarian.
Speaker:I've been saying this for a very long time that we.
Speaker:We have compressed the human experience of education into its
Speaker:instrumentalist goals, which means.
Speaker:Our schooling systems and I'm not specifically, or my Catholic education.
Speaker:You're talking about the broad education landscape.
Speaker:Has been.
Speaker:I guess.
Speaker:How would you sort of it's it's not being allowed to flow widely
Speaker:in a broadly human concept of.
Speaker:What it means to be human, that encounter with truth, beauty,
Speaker:goodness, knowledge, wisdom.
Speaker:It's become very much about shaping young people to be inputs into the.
Speaker:I.
Speaker:I guess the college and economic system so that our school systems are
Speaker:shaped to basically get children the highest possible grades so that they
Speaker:can get into the best possible courses.
Speaker:And then.
Speaker:Get the best possible jobs.
Speaker:And I know some of you listening will go, well, what's wrong with that?
Speaker:Isn't that a good thing that people can learn what's necessary for
Speaker:our society and get good jobs.
Speaker:I go absolutely.
Speaker:It's a very useful thing.
Speaker:The ability to be able to work and to provide for the needs of life
Speaker:is a really crucial thing, but let's not dilute ourselves that
Speaker:that's all education is about.
Speaker:Education in a Catholic context is discipleship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker:It's coming to understand what it means to be fully human.
Speaker:It's learning about truth, beauty and goodness and wisdom.
Speaker:And, um, you know how to live the, the spiritual life.
Speaker:So there's a much wider landscape.
Speaker:See with me, I'm saying that we've probably lost that wider
Speaker:Vista of education in some sense.
Speaker:And made it more instrumentalist and utilitarian.
Speaker:Now that's why I like this idea from CS Lewis.
Speaker:The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
Speaker:My thesis this morning is that there is many deserts in the lives of our young
Speaker:people, desserts of knowledge, and where this has come up for me recently is I'm
Speaker:teaching my daughter here under lockdown.
Speaker:One of my daughters.
Speaker:She's about, uh, 11.
Speaker:And we've been working through this beautiful history book.
Speaker:And we've been, I said this yesterday, studying.
Speaker:Uh, the ancient civilizations.
Speaker:So we're looking at Sumeria.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, the early Semitic tribes of, uh, Mesopotamia and all
Speaker:this stuff, and she is just alive.
Speaker:She's just so interested and engaged.
Speaker:With what she's learning.
Speaker:And, uh, it's an awareness that there's this kind of desert in many young
Speaker:people have all this information and knowledge and history that is just.
Speaker:You know, often not being explored.
Speaker:So I want to encourage you today to think about.
Speaker:The potential deserts in the lives of your own students.
Speaker:Now, these could be deserts of faith, of beauty of joy.
Speaker:I remember teaching once and.
Speaker:Uh, playing, uh, Tchaikovsky's 18, 12 overture on full volume, as we were
Speaker:talking about, I think Russian history and, you know, just this ability
Speaker:to blast incredibly famous pieces of music into their consciousness.
Speaker:You know, it was a joy to kind of.
Speaker:Bring something into their awareness that they hadn't thought of before.
Speaker:So think about.
Speaker:Your own students, where do you think there might be some desserts
Speaker:in the lives of your students?
Speaker:You know, what art do they not know about?
Speaker:What music have they never heard?
Speaker:What.
Speaker:Spiritual practice of they never encountered.
Speaker:And I really think that Jesus can use you powerfully in that context.
Speaker:So, yes, we need to teach the syllabus.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:We need to teach the curriculum.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:We need to give them literacy and numeracy skills.
Speaker:I'm not for a moment discounting that those are important things.
Speaker:You know, as I've been suddenly having to teach maths to my own kids.
Speaker:I've been aware that, you know, just a simple thing, like you
Speaker:cannot do mathematics as a child without times tables.
Speaker:And I'm sure there's all sorts of fancy ways to do it, but
Speaker:really it's rote learning.
Speaker:And so I've learned that there isn't a huge.
Speaker:A huge need for structure and for aspects of rote learning.
Speaker:So again, you hear me, I'm not discounting that we need to teach
Speaker:these important fundamental skills.
Speaker:But we must not lose sight of the much bigger Vista of what it means to be human.
Speaker:So friends, can I encourage you today to pray upon the irrigation of
Speaker:deserts in the lives of your students?
Speaker:Where is Jesus calling you to bring life giving water into the
Speaker:lives of your students today?
Speaker:Take a risk, do something, you know,
Speaker:Usually, if you, if you just focus on the areas that you're
Speaker:passionate about, you'll be fine.
Speaker:Whatever lights you up, you'll be able to communicate with energy.
Speaker:I think that's a simple thing to say, whatever lights you up, you will
Speaker:be able to communicate with energy.
Speaker:So that's it from me.
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Speaker:Uh, Twitter, you can find me at J D Catholic at J D Catholic
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Speaker:And finally, listen, I've been saying this every day, go
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Speaker:And, uh, I think that could be a huge blessing to your school community.
Speaker:Try going deeper.com.
Speaker:All right friends.
Speaker:I really enjoyed doing this that I hope it's a blessing to you.
Speaker:Thank you for what you're doing in Catholic education.
Speaker:May the Lord carry you today?
Speaker:May the spirit guide you.
Speaker:It may Mary, the mother of Jesus intercede for you and your family at all times.
Speaker:Well, there you go.
Speaker:My name is Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:This has been the Catholic teacher daily podcast.
Speaker:Go Acosta.
Speaker:Try going deeper.com.
Speaker:And I'll have another message for you tomorrow.
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