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This
issue continues to take a look at the everyday work that Lasallian educators
undertake with their students. We visit with three educators in the District:
Annie Johnston from La Salle High School in Pasadena, Marshall Foletta
from Justin-Siena High School in Napa, and Brother Camillus Chavez from
Saint Mary's College in Moraga. These classroom leaders continue in our
tradition that emphasizes the famous "Twelve Virtues of a Good Teacher".
It is the challenge of all Christian teachers, in their everyday work,
to engage their students and fulfill the Lasallian goal: to provide a
"human and Christian education".
Annie
Johnston || Marshall
Foletta || Brother
Camillus Chavez || Twelve
Virtues of a Good Teacher
Annie
Johnston:
The Sublime Dedication of a Master Teacher
Annie
Johnston is a formidable personality. But then, she has to be, to deal
every day with the likes of Sartre, Camus, Kafka, and other literary heavyweights.
She is the Chair of the English Department at La Salle High School in
Pasadena, and her passion is introducing her students to great books.
Assistant Principal John Ring says she has "that quality that the rare
master teachers have -- an unwillingness to accept that students cannot
succeed, and a sublime dedication to their welfare, which is expressed
in challenging them repeatedly to think, to analyze."
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Though
she is known as a strong teacher, having won both the Educator of
the Year award voted by her colleagues and the Signum Fidei award
voted by the Student Senate, Ms. Johnston says that of the Twelve
Virtues of the Lasallian teacher, the "core virtue, the one that
underlies all the others, is Gentleness. Knowing when to press and
when not to press is the mark of a good teacher. I'm kind to students,
I think. I'm not their friend, note. But I am kind. My mother was
a teacher, and she gave me advice that fits in perfectly with De
La Salle's: 'Never corner a student.' I always remember that."
A teacher
for ten years before coming to La Salle High School five years ago,
she has found the Lasallian philosophy of education to be both profound
and practical. "The Twelve Virtues," she says, "could go right into
any teacher training program." She is a member of the Lasallian
Leadership Institute now completing its first 3-year cycle, and
she says it is "fantastic. The Brothers are visionary in bringing
to their associates the charism of De La Salle. In a time of fewer
vocations to vowed religious life, the Brothers are ahead of the
curve in spreading their legacy to their Partners."
Ms.
Johnston has thought long and hard about the Twelve Virtues. Silence?
She laughs, "I couldn't describe myself as 'silent'. I see it as
keeping calm, not raising my voice. A calm teacher is a powerful
and effective teacher." Prudence? "Extremely important, and it comes
with experience." Zeal?
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to
be nobody
--
but
yourself in a
world which is doing
its
best, night and
day,
to make you
everybody
else --
means
to fight the
hardest
battle which
any
human being can
fight
and
never
stop fighting."
--
e.e. cummings --
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"I'm
zealous about my subject and about the students' engagement with it. The
question for me is always: 'Are their minds more expanded when they leave
my class than when they arrived?'" Vigilance? "It's crucial, it's preventative,
it means seeing problems while they're small, catching trouble early."
Piety? "I'm very Catholic, and I have a deep faith. I don't press it upon
the students, but of course it comes up naturally. The books we read inevitably
bring up the deepest questions of faith and freedom, of purpose and meaning,
and I push the students to really examine these things."
[Editor's
Note: J. A. Gray is a 1967 graduate of Saint Mary's College High School
and works as a writer and editor in Berkeley. ]
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