Isn’t it interesting she was born on the feast of the Annunciation?

Also, for fellow-nerds, it’s the day the Ring was destroyed.

Amy Welborn is a great resource on Flannery, if you want to learn more, and I am sure you do.

I really resonate with what Welborn says here:

I’ve written quite a bit about Flannery over the years.  As far as I’m concerned she’s a saint and maybe even a doctor of the church, to really ramp up the hyperbole.  When I feel befuddled and know some clarity is in order, I head in one of two directions: Flannery and Ratzinger. Sometimes both.

Me too.

I wrote another piece for America Magazine (with the help of my friend St. Thomas Aquinas). Check it out below!

“”In these ambiguous cases, we often feel paralyzed because, though we know we are not consciously choosing something sinful, we nevertheless see the range of possibilities and wonder whether there is a perfect option that we could be missing. But I have come to realize that the idea of the perfect is a deception from ‘the evil spirit,’ as St. Ignatius would say, trying to hinder us from choosing at all.”

Read it all here

We sometimes think of our literary heroes as springing fully formed onto the landscape, miraculously endowed with talent and genius and grace. But they, like us, were on a journey and often relied on the help of others in the unfolding of their vocations. It was a surprise to me to discover that much of O’Connor’s thought on the nature of fiction and how to write it was in turn shaped by another, rather more obscure literary figure: Caroline Gordon.

In The Letters of Flannery O’Connor and Caroline Gordon, the editor Christine Flanagan gathers an admirable collection that traces the fascinating relationship between two women committed to both their Catholic faith and the craft of fiction. Yet unlike much of O’Connor’s correspondence with others, this one stands out as a kind of student-teacher relationship in which O’Connor, at least in the beginning, is the gifted student and Gordon the seasoned, exacting teacher.

Read my recent article at America Magazine.

I have a friend who is blogging about teaching in a Catholic school. I’m looking forward to learning from him!

The origin of Catholic education was not college preparation for the social elite. If we look at the history of Catholic education, we find that it is rooted in the dream that especially the poorest and most oppressed members of the human race need a sense of Hope that they are more than what the rest of their society may tell them they are. It is a Hope rooted, not in mastery of academic sciences or arts, but in relationship with One who Loves perfectly and without exception.

Theology of Catholic Pedagogical Theory

For some reason as I was considering returning to blogging and reflecting on the past few months and what I might say about them, I thought of Samwise Gamgee at the end of LOTR as he returns from the Grey Havens, having said goodbye to Frodo and Gandalf and the journey:

But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.
He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.

Tolkien, The Return of the King

There’s nothing like stating the obvious when you have a lot on your mind and don’t know quite what else to say, Sam.

Of course I haven’t been to the Grey Havens or Mordor or anything so dramatic–but I did go to World Youth Day in Poland this past summer as a chaperone for some of my students, and I began a new position at my school this fall as an instructional coach, in addition to teaching junior American Literature for the first time in years and tackling a brand new course: Christian Authors.

I’ll start with that last part, and maybe work in some reflections on the other developments in my teaching life if they seem like they would be helpful to other teachers to share.

One of my biggest challenges this past semester was developing the curriculum (that’s a fancy way of saying “making stuff up on the fly”) for a new course I had never taught before. It was a senior elective called “Christian Authors”, and I am teaching it again this semester to a new group of kids (some juniors and sophomores as well). Really what I had to go on was the title of the course and the sense I wanted to expose the kids to a blend of theology and literature that they would not be getting from their core classes.

Lots of people said to me as I was worrying about it this past summer, “But Maura, this course is perfect for you! You get to choose whatever books you want them to read! It’s a way for you, as an English teacher, to teach theology!”

Yet this lack of formal curriculum and the freedom “to choose whatever books I wanted” was the overwhelming part. And since so many of the authors we explored are very near and dear to my heart, I was a lot more emotionally invested in the student responses than I usually am. In the core classes, it does not particularly cut me to the quick if the kids don’t like essay writing or reading the Romantics.

But if they hate Flannery O’Connor, well….

The other complication is that although this course is an elective, many kids who sign up for it do not do so out of a desire for literature and theology–they take it because nothing else fits in their schedule due to our limited elective offerings this year. So you have kids with extremely varying interest and skill levels taking a course that, ideally, should demand a lot from them. And most of them are seniors. Many of whom have a strange idea that their senior year ought to be easier than the legendarily brutal junior year.

So I had to take all that into account when making up the course.

But there was a lot that went very well last semester–and I am planning on learning from my mistakes and making some significant changes for this semester.

I am keeping the general structure. I organized the course around three big ideas–or really, what I called “persistent concerns”–issues that most Christian authors of merit need to wrestle with in their works:

Unit 1: The Sacramental Approach to Reality

Unit 2: Metanoia and the Ladder of Love

Unit 3: The Problem of Pain

Then I tried to begin each unit with an enticing question that the kids had to wrestle with that tied into the big idea of the unit–and that they used the texts we read to help them answer. That approach worked particularly well in Unit 3.

My next few posts will be unpacking those units and how they went–and how I plan to improve them for this next group.

Christian Authors round 2 begins on Monday. Stay tuned!

I think one of the hardest things about being a teacher is that moment you realize that you care WAY more than your students do.

The kid you have been pulling aside all year long, who doesn’t know how to study, and who you beg to come in for extra help? You care more than he does.

The girl who rarely comes to school and always comes to your class late, who misses so many lessons and therefore fails almost every assessment? You care more than she does.

The kid who always wants to put his head down, who always wants to go to the bathroom, who wants to do anything to avoid interacting with you or the other students? You care more than he does.

At least, you think you do.

That’s what it feels like when you are a teacher.

And yes, you get it. There are all sorts of reasons – valid reasons! – why a lot of kids don’t care about school.

But after a while you want to throw in the towel. Why should I care about Jake failing more than he does? Why should I spend all this time making retakes and practice assignments when half of those kids never show up for extra help anyway? Why should I even bother trying to make my lessons engaging? Why should I assign this essay or write this sample? Why should I put all this effort in?

I’ve been feeling this way a lot (as I often do at the end of the year). It’s a hard time for everybody.

Today I passed back yet another test which an alarming number of students failed. I showed them the study guide side by side with the test–the study guide I had assigned for homework before the test that many of them decided not to do. There were murmurs of surprise when they saw how similar the study guide was to the test, and how the homework was clearly aligned to the assessment and was clearly meant to help them.

And I felt like saying (loudly), “SEE? SEE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN DOING THE HOMEWORK AND DOING BETTER ON THE TEST? DO YOU SEE IT NOW? WILL YOU ACTUALLY TRY DOING THE STUDY GUIDE NEXT TIME?”

But instead, I just said to them, “Some of you did a great job on this test, and you have been working hard all year, and I see you and I am so proud of you. Some of you really struggled on this test. Maybe it was because you are not giving yourself enough practice outside of class. Maybe it’s because you’re confused and you needed to ask for some help.

“But here’s what you really need to know: I gave you this study guide because I care about you. I offer retakes on every assessment because I care about you. I stay up late and plan lessons every day, even though I’d rather go to bed or do a million other things, because I care about you. I do everything I can to help you be successful because I care about you. I push you and challenge you because I care about you.

“It’s not too late to learn and grow. It’s not too late to walk out of the dark woods and ask Virgil to help you. It might feel like Virgil is leading you through hell, but you have to do the hard and scary stuff in order to make progress.” (We’re reading Dante’s Inferno right now, so they get the allusion.)

“I care about you and I want you to succeed. That’s my job. Let me know how I can help.”

And I saw on their faces that some of them were moved  to hear that.

And I realized, I need to say that phrase – “I care about you” – a lot more often. Because sometimes they don’t hear that phrase as often as they should. And sometimes they can’t make the connection between what you do for them and how you really feel for them.

As with everything else in good teaching, you need to be clear. You need to say what you mean. Of course it seems obvious to us, as teachers, that we care. But it may not be obvious to your kids.

So, if you’re a teacher, insert “because I care about you” into your correction of a misbehavior.

Insert “because I care about you” into the consequence you give.

Insert “because I care about you” after you give some tough feedback on an assignment.

And see what happens.

They need to hear that phrase. All the time. And maybe if they do hear it all the time, over and over again, in big ways and small ways, verbally and silently, through actions and words, the message will hit home.