JOURNEYING WITH YOUTH
By Fr Chris Middleton SJ, Rector, Xavier College Kew
The Canadian author Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013, wrote: “There are no such things as big and little subjects. The major things, the evils that exist in the world, have a direct relationship to the evil that exists around a dining room table when people are doing things to each other.”
Mother Teresa was even more blunt: “Every evil in the world starts from the family home”. In other words, in our words and actions, however small at times, and for good or ill, we help shape our human story by playing our part in it through the choices we make.
At a recent Rector’s Assembly, Arnie, one of our Seniors and a student of colour, shared honestly the impact of banter around race and of racist expressions, and how, throughout the years, these have impacted adversely his confidence and self-esteem. Sometimes we need to hear some tough words to grow our awareness. The presence of our Indigenous boys at Xavier provides wonderful firsthand experience of our First Peoples and provides us with a more relational understanding of the ongoing challenge of national reconciliation. It begins with truth telling as a nation and as individuals, and with an acknowledgement that we are called to walk alongside our First Peoples as enunciated in the theme of National Reconciliation Week, we commit to “bridging Now to Next”.
At that same assembly, Henry, our Prefect for Student Wellbeing, noted that:
I see friends of different ethnicities.
I see friends of different sexual orientations.
I see friends that spend all day studying and working as hard as they can to achieve something special with their studies.
I see friends that spend their mornings and afternoons working as hard as they can to succeed in their sport.
I see friends that are extroverted, able to get along with everybody, and be confident as they walk through the halls.
I see friends that struggle to fit in.
Henry went on to say: “As someone’s classmate, or their peer, you have a lot of power. You have the power to affect how they think, of others and of themselves.”
Coping with difference is one of the ongoing challenges in that human story. We human beings often tend to characterise people through their differences. In the big picture, the way we deal with, or don’t deal with differences – be they racial, ethnic, religious or political in nature – can result in conflict, horrific communal violence or even civil war. In the smaller, personal context of our lives, the violence present in the big picture can find resonance in the ways that fears and prejudices can play out in bullying, or in exclusion, or in an unthinking humour that isolates, demeans and denigrates another on the basis of some identified difference.
Our world is one where the experience of difference is increasingly evident, and where tools such as social media can enable so easily an unthinking comment. Fear of being different, and our human need to belong, even at the risk of conforming in a way that is not authentic, are powerful forces that can act on all our lives. In this context, education plays such an important role, one that demands reflection.
The first reflection is that words do indeed hurt. Even an accomplished professional sportsman can be hurt by words, as evidenced in the story of Adam Goodes, who remains unreconciled with the game he loved. And as Alice Munro wrote, the big issues that divide us have their roots so often in what we accept or don’t accept in our own personal world – demeaning racial comments; using sexual identity as an insult; puerile, smutty banter about girls; and so on. The shared challenge for our students is to stand up for a culture at Xavier that calls out and rejects any form of hate that is based on sexuality, gender or race. And such a culture is achieved where our students are true to their best selves.
The second reflection is the value we need to place on the virtue of tolerance and inclusion. All of us can be touched by the temptation towards intolerance. All can wear the various faces of intolerance: cynicism, apathy and indifference, hostility, and prejudice. The young are particularly vulnerable, either as victims (be it because of physical, cultural or religious difference, or because of gender, or sexual preference), or as offenders, who can so easily target difference, or stand by while others do it.
The positive value inherent in tolerance needs to be highlighted. We need to see and accept difference as a good. Empathy, or standing in the shoes of another, is a powerful experience. Moreover, there is a disposition that St Ignatius was fond of, one that stresses that we should look first for the good in the other, rather than to look for the bad. It is important that we build a school culture that encourages talking and listening as ways of understanding self and others, both such powerful factors in wellbeing.
And so, there is a role for faith in contributing to wellbeing. Good spirituality and good psychology should walk hand in hand. This link is seen strongly in key experiences offered at Xavier. The openness with which some of our Senior boys speak so personally of the challenges in their lives at student voluntary Masses, and the respect which is accorded to them by hundreds of boys listening intently, is linked to God’s space in the Eucharist.
Similarly, in our retreat programmes, and especially in the Kairos retreat, attention is given to boys being able to speak and share from their deepest selves, being vulnerable and being heard, again in an explicitly religious context. Boys are brought to the realisation that each has a story, and that these stories often carry a weight that can be largely unknown or unsaid. This awareness should inform deeply how we see others. Opportunities for service, and cultivating a generosity in use of our gifts, are also protective factors in today’s world. This is a reason why Ignatian service has such a value at Xavier. Both from the perspective of boys’ education, and from the importance of talking and listening as a key to meeting wellbeing challenges, the faith life of the College provides some unique support.
In all this we need to focus on the virtue of global solidarity or adopting the world view of seeing the entire human race as one family, with every brother and sister responsible for every other. Pope John Paul II articulated well this principle of solidarity. Limiting solidarity to one’s own kind, according to him, was a kind of sacrilege, an offence against the deep religious conviction that every human being on the planet is equally loved and valued by God. Our commitment as a College community to help shape “men for and with others” stems in part from the realisation of our essential solidarity as human beings in our increasingly globalised world. It extends to our commitment to our common home in our responsibility to care for the environment.
The challenge, then, is to deepen our awareness of self and of others, to reject prejudice and to keep challenging ourselves to be in the image and likeness of God. The challenge we put to the boys is that they do this in the small things around the kitchen table, on the sports field, in the yard and change room, on Saturday nights. They can do this by savouring the word respect, by cultivating understanding, and in appreciating diversity and difference as enriching their lives, by being gentle with themselves and with others, and by remembering that all have a story.
Banner image by Elena Mozhvilo, Unsplash.
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