Dear Brothers,
Below is a reflection from Christen Coughlin, English teacher and Campus Minister at Villa Angela-St. Joseph High School in Cleveland. She responds to the question, “which characteristic of Marianist Education has significantly impacted your classroom?”
Educate for Adaptation and Change
In my classroom, I am obsessed with the idea of discipline. As I explain to the kids, discipline is doing what you need to do when you don’t want to do it. Or, in the quote that I use so often, “I will not always be motivated, so I must learn to be disciplined.”
Even though I teach English, I think I spend more time guiding my students through explorations of their character than of Prince Hamlet or Scout Finch. I don’t do this to avoid teaching the subject matter or to create diversions around content the kids struggle to understand. I do it because learning self-discipline allows people to adapt and change through any challenge encountered in their lives. I teach self-discipline explicitly and repeatedly, to the point that students roll their eyes when I recite the above quote for the umpteenth time as I remind them of their homework.
Discipline is a skill and a tool. It is a learned behavior and a topic. It is something we are born with but must continually develop over a lifetime. I believe that by asking students to constantly reflect on their lives, habits, likes and dislikes, thought processes and performance, they build self-discipline slowly over time and realize that it is simultaneously something you will always need and something you will never completely master.
The need for students to adapt and change will always be present in the school setting, whether it is adapting to something as life-altering as a pandemic or as innocuous as moving up a grade level. As adults, we understand that three things in life are unavoidable: death, taxes and change. But students do not inherently understand this. Change is shocking to them, and they often expect life to stay the same. In my classroom, I try to make sure students expect change in their lives because I have found that when we expect change to come, we are far more likely to successfully navigate both its pitfalls and unexpected joys.
English is important. Writing is essential. Reading skills are crucial. But ultimately, I believe the quality of being adaptable and the ability to embrace change come from developing self-discipline and understanding oneself authentically and deeply. This is what teaching in a Marianist school means to me, not only honing my potential to adapt and change but also deliberately passing that ability on to our students today, tomorrow and always.
