'Doing Austins' With Myself Part I

An Augustinian Examiner ( Austin Friars in UK)

" . . .However, there does not seem to have been any 'proper' exams at Oxford for a degree during Medieval times. A student would be presented before his college chancellor and would then have to swear on oath that he had read certain books on his subject and then nine tutors had to testify on each student's ability within his subject. The student would then have to argue on an academic subject before a Master of Arts - usually an Augustinian monk, thus giving the process its nickname 'doing Austins'. " Medieval Studies

Austin examiner -What is your idea of a Catholic school?  Specifically, What is your vision for a gender specific Catholic college preparatory high school?

Me - Well, to your initial and more general question, a Catholic school tends to be one of the following -

• a parish school dedicated to the immediate member congregation and operated with revenue from tuition - usually but not always an elementary school
• a central high school ( co-ed or single gender)operated with subsidies from the Archdiocese*, tuition and substantial fund-raising through institutional advancement activities
• a religious congregation endowed school/academy supplemented by significant tuition costs and an extraordinary and sophisticated institutional advancement operation
• An Independent Catholic school/academy endowed by individual Catholics of great wealth and open to largely affluent families with some scholarship opportunities for the financially challenged, but again operated via tuition and substantial fund raising activities
• Innovative and imaginative religious congregation and corporate sponsored work/study schooling, the San Miguel and Cristo Rey models of the De LaSalle and Jesuit orders

To your second question, I would like to see the development of an endowed Independent Catholic high school open to students from struggling and financially challenged families - a school where the revenue pie chart indicates a larger donations wedge than the tuition slice indicates on Catholic school financial graphs. I believe that young people from the inner city's working classes of all races and creeds deserve a Catholic school opportunity.

Austin Examiner - Please explain what you mean.

Me - Sure, This summer I wrote a wonderful column for the Irish American News.

Austin Examiner - A 'wonderful article,' you say?

Me - Delightful, really.  Do go to my link and enjoy the whole piece, but, in essence, let me summarize the salient point with this passage, When Catholics departed the ( inner City and plagued by violence) neighborhoods, so did the Protestants and Jews. White flight became the all too simplistic neologism that helped further polarize races. Black folks attended smaller, non-institutional churches that did not have the economic infrastructure to provide social outreach for poor people. The big churches were deconsecrated and became real estate blight.
For example, when the Irish Christian brothers parted ways with Leo High School, the monastery on the south west corner of 79th & Sangamon Street was abandoned and became a danger to the community. Leo High School’s President Robert W. Foster ordered the demolition of that building, when it had been broken into, looted of brass, copper and other marketable metals, wiring, wood and stained glass to avoid injury or assault upon our neighbors. It cost Leo High School a great deal of money to do the demolition.
Leo High School also raised money from the Alumni and a few foundations and acquired one whole block of neighboring buildings that had been abandoned as well and developed a recreational field open to the community and used by the school’s athletic teams.

Leo High School remains open, a Catholic institution, because of the grace of God and our Alumni and friends. It is costly, but Leo High School educates wonderful young men who turned the brass door knobs embossed with Christ’s cross. Leo President Dan McGrath raised more support revenue in the last two years than at any time in the school’s history. Most of that revenue went to tuition support and capital improvements. Leo’s revenue pie-chart is upside down – fund raising revenue far exceeds tuition revenue. ( parenthetical my own)

Austin Examiner - Delightful . . .somewhat

Me - In our times, a Catholic central high school  for boys, can serve the families of a thriving neighborhood according to the old financial  template, but with greater difficulty. Catholic schools must constantly raise tuition costs on families in order to stay competitive with elite Magnet and Charter public schools. Taxes allow those two challengers to traditional Catholic schools to offer more 'bells and whistles' in curriculum and activity choices.  While tax revenue to public education bleeds everyone, Catholic and private school families lose an extra quart.

Austin Examiner- Must you be so sanguine? Sorry, just trying to lighten the moment.

Me- (with generous wave of my generous palm) Not at all Frater, as Magne Pater Augustine chanted, 'Qui cantat, bis orat.'

Austin Examiner - That will about do -now, continue, please.

Me - Hey, look Hard Collar and Hood, you started the waltz with your quip about my metaphorical conceit.

Austin Examiner - Yes, yes,  "I started a joke / Which started the whole world crying / But I didn't see / That the ...

Me- Hey, cincture belly!  Level off!  Hey,  . . .well, take this up later. Calm down, Man.  Here, drink this. It's Canfields . . .Seltzer . . lime.   Sorry about the Bee Gees number everybody. . .no really.  Can't stand them Brothers Gibbs. . . .




 * Subsidies ended during the episcopate of Cardinal Bernardin

School: What Works With Young Gents in a Catholic High School

 

Among the students thronging into the lecture-rooms there was
one student, conspicuous by his tall and bulky figure, and completely
failing or refusing to be conspicuous for anything else.
He was so dumb in the debates that his fellows began to assume
an American significance in the word dumbness; for in that land
it is a synonym for dullness. It is clear that, before long,
even his imposing stature began to have only the ignominious
immensity of the big boy left behind in the lowest form.
He was called the Dumb Ox. He was the object, not merely
of mockery, but of pity. One good-natured student pitied
him so much as to try to help him with his lessons,
going over the elements of logic like an alphabet in a
horn-book. The dunce thanked him with pathetic politeness;
and the philanthropist went on swimmingly, till he came
to a passage about which he was himself a little doubtful;
about which, in point of fact, he was wrong. Whereupon the dunce,
with every appearance of embarrassment and disturbance,
pointed out a possible solution which happened to be right.
The benevolent student was left staring, as at a monster,
at this mysterious lump of ignorance and intelligence;
and strange whispers began to run round the schools.  from Thomas Aquinas by G.K. Chesterton

I like to say, " Policy is for Pussies."  Though I am able to and might put a far less shockingly sexist spin to the weave in my web of words, I choose not to in order to undo the passive aggressive tendencies among American educators to obfuscate.

Zero Tolerance is such a  neologism and happens to be a redundancy.  Zero Tolerance means Intolerance.  Intolerance is so negative, people.

Sorry.  No really.

Schools are bullied into anti-bully PC Intolerance.  Hitting, touching, kissing, shouting, running, eating, and fighting are Zero-ly Tolerated.   Thus,  pedagogical decision making  is obsolete.

Catholic schools are no less guilty of such gutless Intolerance, as Public Schools.  Catholic schools for some perverse reason want to mirror public schools in so many silly ways -teaching to the test, PC censorship of great books, equivalency ethics, gender agenda patty-cakes, and even adopting Marxist manuals for Social Justice education classes.

However, we are not as far gone as our pubic sector brethren and sisteren.

Real pedagogy is un-measurable.  Can't be tested, weighed and evaluated.  Sorry.

You can assign a numerical value to anything, but that does not make it right. Like this "100% of our teachers are Illinois Certified!"  Wow, you mean unlike the dumbasses at Phillips Exeter, Choate and Boston Latin who merely hold advanced degrees - IN THEIR DISCIPLINES?  100% cool.

Example:  Consider a white male teacher who takes a job at an inner-city Catholic high school for boys and contracts with the school to teach science. The teacher is scared poopless of his charges, but he also has merely a patina of knowledge about botany, the periodic table of elemenst, Boyle's Law and thinks Mendel was only a closed high school in Roseland.  He is fully certified K-12 by the State of Illinois and has transcripts top-heavy with Education Courses ( Jolly Number 101; John Dewey G-Man- a Tutorial; Tests and Measures; Diversity Long-Division Street & Studs Terkel; Bolivarist Kindergartens; Jonathan Kozal's Mosaic Code for Funding Sabbaticals; Jane Addams the Father of American Labor & etc.)  

Teacher is confronted with less than a Baker's dozen of willful, proud, athletic, witty, sloppy, challenging, horny, scatological humor addicted young men of Color,  Black kids, African Americans.  After a week shouting, threatening, insulting, evicting and 'writing up' every kid in his class.  Mr. Chips males a Separate Peace.  He tells his young charges read the assignments in class, do the hand-outs, be quite and it will be cool.

Mr. Chips is armed only with K-12 Certification, Virtus Training & Certification. I mean after all there was no sense that Mr. Chips had a family of five in his basement freezer. He was thus thoroughly vetted and found welcome according to Policy.

Empirically?  Not so good.

Speraking subjectively, Mr. Chips has no intellectual curiosity, no leadership skills, fewer social skills and the personanality of a dial tone.

"Well, that's Hickey's opinion and who's to say?   He looked good on paper and the school had an open slot -should we have hired him?  Policy says he meets the standards."

At semester Mr. Chips fails 12 of thirteen.  Boy, he is one tough grader.  He replies, " These kids are incapable of learning. I get no support from the coaches who only want them for sports and they never follow through on my threats to get even with them for making fun of me!  That's serious disrespect!  I am a certified teacher!"

Yep,  You are all that and currently working in new field endeavor until a sweet posting pops up somewhere else in Chicagoland schools.

Did you know that Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, Catholic teachers all, dominated Western Intellectual thought for 1,000 years?  It's true.  Ambrose was the Bishop of Milan in the 4th Century and had been a major political player in the waning days of Rome under Gratian. Ambrose was lawyer, judge and Governor of Trier in Germany for thirty years before he gave away all his money and became a monk.  Soon, because of his administrative skills and gifts he was made Bishop of Milan - the Capital of the Empire. He taught Emperors, administrators and the clergy how to operate efficiently.  Ambrose is the First Doctor of the Church.

Doctor comes from the Latin infinitive docere: ' To Teach.'

Jerome taught the Roman world to read. He translated the Bible from Hebrew to Greek to Army Camp Latin - The Vulgate.

Augustine taught the world to think through Plato all the way up to and through Luther, Calvin and Zwingli.

After a thousand years, Aristotle's writings were rediscovered through the Muslims and were taught at the University of Paris by the The Dumb Ox Himself.  Aquinas is still the core of Catholic teaching and philosophy.

Dewey showed up at the end of 19th Century and loused up American thought, teaching, morality and politics to our current condition.  God is out of the public education business, even though Western Civilization had a pretty sweet run, and Policy sits in his chair.

Here's what works with young people - let's say teenage Mannish Boys.  A teacher must understand the following.

Rule Number One - Man is Body and Soul.  A body without a soul is a corpse and soul without a body is a ghost.
Rule Number Two - A Soul can be broken
Rule Number Three - See Rule Number Two.

Now, here is what works.  Recognize that boys and girls not the same.  Boys are kinetic bags of grab-ass impulse wanting to learn how to be productive, thoughtful, impressive and still fun human beings.
That said, spare not the metaphorical whip of discipline for one minute.  They must be seated in a chosen desk from August to June's last Final Exam. A teacher can not teach a ghost.

Young People -boys in particular as group - will test, measure and evaluate Mr. Chips from get-go and these initiation rites begin when Chips says, " Sit anywhere, Chill." Without a seating chart, Chips will not know who is in his classroom for the appointed lessons.

Thus!

" Where Daishaun?" chirps Chips
" That's pronounced, Davy, Man.  What are you racist or something?  That's Davy, G."
" Are you Davy?"
" No I am Jamal Thompson that s K.little c,Big Z Ay, M Z - Jamal!'
" Jamal where is Davy?"
" In his locker, N#$$Ah!"  ( peels of scornful laughter universal!!)
" THAT"S DISRESPECTFUL!  To . . .  GET OUT OF HERE . . ."  ( Hoots, Hollers, Imprecations and Maledictions.)

All such confrontations can be avoided by referring to Rule # 3,

Next - Know your subject and communicate what you know with patience, humor, humility and fierce determination that snickering little bastards will master what you teach and value the lesson and the teacher.

It is not brain surgery - teaching is much tougher.

Therefore - Prepare for Class!  Do your homework!  Correct and return papers immediately.  Never teach to the test.  Test to the lessons taught.  Give essay exams, even in Math and science, as often as possible.

Classroom Management and Discipline will take care of themselves.

Make no promises. Make no threats.  Fail none.  Reward all.

Punitive grading - taking points earned away from students for disciplinary matters is criminal and all too often the policy of pussies.

I am intolerant of policy - even my own.

St. Monica - August 27th is Her Feast Day!

St. Augustine - 'Jesus, Ma! That Hurt! You hit me in the Throat!

St. Monica - 'Watch your language, Austin! Now, say you're sorry.'

St. Augustine - 'Sorry.'

St. Monica - 'You want a fresh one, boy? Like you mean it! Now!'

Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Monica!

St. Monica was a girl from Roman Tagaste, North Africa. She was a Christian, but her parents married her off to a Pagan by the name of Patricius ( Paddy Boy) and from all accounts was a gold plated jerk in many ways - he teased his wife about her charity works and her piety. Paddy Boy had a lousy temper to go with his dissolute life style - " I'll be home in an hour -What? Two Beers for Crissakes -What . . .I can't hear you. It's about work. Kiss the kids."

Monica bore this mope three children and one of them was Honors student and Dad wannabe Augustine (Austey).

The old man took a dirt nap for keeps when Austey was 17 and Monica did all she knew how to drag the kids up right and in the Faith. The Old Man had not been a great help and now Austey was off to school in Milan and found himself - he became a Manichean -kind of like the Scientologists of 6th Century Rome in Decline.
Austey was like many of our contemporary soul-patched Arabica youths who believe -nay know - that they are absolutely correct on all matters -not unlike President 'It's Distraction' Obama:

I still thought that it is not we who sin but some other nature that sins within us. It flattered my pride to think that I incurred no guilt and, when I did wrong, not to confess it... I preferred to excuse myself and blame this unknown thing which was in me but was not part of me. The truth, of course, was that it was all my own self, and my own impiety had divided me against myself. My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner. (Confessions, Book V, Section 10)

Monica was no harpy, but prayed for the wee lad to snap out of it.

He did. Along with his teacher of rhetoric and mentor Ambrose, Monica brought the smart-ass around to where he began - in faith. His sins are his own and life is obligated to others. When Austey woke up, he went to work with a will.

St. Monica endured a crumb of a husband and know-it-all- jerk of a son. She did so out of love for both men and in communion with her Faith in God. We have several Monicas in the ever expansive Hickey Family and they all tend to be gems.

We have more than a few Pats/Paddys/Patricks/Padgrigs and some of us (including yours truly) seem not unlike the guy St. Monica got saddled with - no Augustines - yet.

Perhaps, St. Monica might interceded and send us an Austin/Augustine/Gus; but if not, more Monicas will do very nicely.

George Will - Irony's Sycophant a Swell Contrast to St. Augustine

Unlike the radicals on the right who want to upend American traditions, Will seeks to conserve them. Despite his habitual caution, however, even Will seems to have made at least one concession to modernity that may leave some of his admirers reeling. The bow tie has vanished. For the cover photograph of “One Man’s America,” he’s donned a necktie. New York Times Review of Books by Jacob Heilbrunn

Heck George, Tucker Carlson did that years ago!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/books/review/Heilbrunn-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&oref=slogin

George Will is Irony's Sycophant - wordy parser posing as an authentic voice. Shoot Will required research assistants, from what I hear, to scoop up baseball facts and figures in an attempt to become 'a real fan.' Now that's ironic. Today George Will worms his words through the loam of the new Washington, D.C.- the New Athens built from the Spartan helots of Daley's Chicago. Will wants in.

The door might be open to a parser. Thus, Will explains conservative America rotting like the corpse of a Marine gunned down in the surf off Tarawa in 1943:

More irony: September's financial storm probably sealed Obama's victory by raising the electorate's anxieties while lowering its confidence in Obama's opponent. John McCain's responses -- suspending, sort of, his campaign; ratcheting up his rhetoric about Wall Street "greed and corruption" -- suggested a line spoken solemnly by the Capitol Steps' George W. Bush impersonator: "Uncertain times call for uncertain leadership." But the storm's aftermath -- $1 trillion or so of government resources siphoned away -- will severely constrain Obama's presidency. So, this year the conditions conducive to the election of liberals, with their baroque plans and rococo dreams, have put a polar frost on most such ambitions.

Indeed, Obama's first problem will be drawing lines to circumscribe bailout promiscuity. The Bush administration, having executed a swan dive, or perhaps a belly-flop, into the financial sector, now seems to be flinching from extending the interventions into the industrial sector. Democrats in Congress, feeling their oats and hearing clamors from local corporations, will be Obama's first affliction.

Some of the Republicans' afflictions are self-inflicted. Some conservatives who are gluttons for punishment are getting a head start on ensuring a 2012 drubbing by prescribing peculiar medication for a misdiagnosed illness. They are monomaniacal about media bias, which is real but rarely decisive, and unhinged by their anger about the loathing of Sarah Palin by similarly deranged liberals. These conservatives, confusing pugnacity with a political philosophy, are hot to anoint Palin, an emblem of rural and small-town sensibilities, as the party's presumptive 2012 nominee.

These conservatives preen as especially respectful of regular -- or as Palin says, "real" -- Americans, whose tribune Palin purports to be. But note the argument that the manipulation of Americans by "the mainstream media" explains the fact that the more Palin campaigned, the less Americans thought of her qualifications. This argument portrays Americans as a bovine herd -- or as inert clay in the hands of wily media, which only Palin's conservative celebrators can decipher and resist.

Which George Will offers to. . . to offset, with milquetoast oil, and usher in a backdoor to principle! The Lap Dog's Return! George Will is seaching for a warm lap and a comfy chair. What a jerk!

George, the bovine herd? Well, Will there are herds and hoards. Hoards sweepin change. Herds remain static until herded, or is it lead? Ironic, that.

In Roman Hippo, a suburb of Carthage, the Bishop worried about Change and Hope as the Vandals and the Goths swept out the corruption of Old Rome. Augustine was no George Will. Augustine, was rooted in conservative principles that outlasted the Vandals and the Goths and took a hard look at political change as merely a vanity.

George Will is all about vanity. Augustine wrote:

CHAP. XVII. -- NEVERTHELESS THERE IS TIME PAST AND FUTURE.

22. I ask, Father, I do not affirm. O my God, rule and guide me. "Who is there who can say to me that there are not three times (as we learned when boys, and as we have taught boys), the past, present, and future, but only present, because these two are not? Or are they also; but when from future it becometh present, cometh it forth from some secret place, and when from the present it becometh past, doth it retire into anything secret? For where have they, who have foretold future things, seen these things, if as yet they are not? For that which is not cannot be seen. And they who relate things past could not relate them as true, did they not perceive them in their mind. Which things, if they were not, they could in no wise be discerned. There are therefore things both future and past.

George Will denies these points. The Irony being - that is a very good thing.

Keep yapping Georgie, someone will pick you up!

N.B. - Speaking of Principles and parsing for wiggle room: Nancy Pelosi, one of the Goths in Congress tried to parse St. Augustine over Abortion and received a clip on the snout from Bishop Chaput.

In the summer of 2008, this aspect ( condemnation of abortion) of Augustine's thoughtt (i.e., the gravity of abortion vis-a-vis the ensoulment of the fetus) was used by the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, in defence of her pro-choice political stance. She quoted one of his works, in which he wrote:

"The law does not provide that the act [abortion] pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation.'[64]

In the week following her comments, she was corrected by numerous American bishops, such as Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver, who wrote: "In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn child might be animated or "ensouled." But none diminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself..."[65]

Now, That's Ironic!