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CHARACTERISTICS OF LASALLIAN SCHOOLS
Thomas M. Brady
When I first began to prepare an examination of "Association" as a major characteristic of Lasallian schools, I thought the task would be relatively easy. After all, I have been associated with the Brothers and their schools for nearly thirty-seven years -- the last twenty-five years as teacher and Vice Principal at Saint Mary's College High School in Berkeley, California. During this time I've formed numerous friendships with lay colleagues, Brothers, students, parents, and alumni. I thought I had a fair understanding of, but admittedly not a deep experience of, my friends' commitment to gospel values and prayer life. Thus, I felt I was on comfortable and familiar ground when I first read "Part II: Association" in the Ninth Preparatory Draft of the Characteristics of Lasallian Schools. La Salle's metaphor of "Union in a community" being a "precious gem" seemed to reflect the ideal all of us have struggled to achieve in our educational apostolates with our students. I'm also certain we have experienced varying degrees of success in our personal and collective quests to base our apostolates on gospel values. God knows we have also experienced desert periods - failure, ennui, and isolation -- in which association and gospel values seem remote. Most of us are aware of the many fine programs developed in our schools and districts that challenge us to incorporate gospel values into our relationships with students and each other, our teaching and administrative strategies, and the structure of the curriculum itself. Finally, many of our schools have reduced the conflicts between faculty and administration and between Brothers and their lay associates by implementing more democratic governance and decision-making structures. Yet, when I read a story in the Wall Street Journal last week about the struggle Black Catholics have encountered in recent years integrating Black culture, music, and spiritual style into their liturgical experiences in previously all-white parishes, I immediately remembered the years of strife, distrust, and the absolute lack of association before the locus of decision-making gradually shifted from the hushed deliberations of the old community council to the democratic decision-making structures prevalent in our schools today. But, more than anything else, this transition has been gracefully facilitated by our willingness to temper our differences in style, backgrounds, and levels of commitment by mutual exchanges of hospitality and friendship. Coming together to play, celebrate, relax, party, reflect, dine, and pray at birthdays, feast days, anniversaries, baptisms, weddings, funerals, school masses, and retreats has helped us to console, heal, and care for each other. What a gift we have shared, this pearl of Lasallian hospitality! We must continue to treasure and share it. As the ad says, "We've come a long way, Baby!" But, we still haven't reached the promised land of full association. La Salle's challenge to his first teachers is ours today.
Not only does God will that everyone come to the knowledge of truth, but he wants everyone to be saved. He cannot truly desire this without providing the necessary means, without giving children the teachers who will assist them in the fulfillment of his plan. St. Paul says that God has a field which He cultivates, a building which He is constructing, that He has chosen you in this work by announcing to children the gospel of His Son and the truths that are contained in it! (1)
So, the more I reflected on the Draft definition of "Association", the more I became uneasy with the vague reference to "a common acceptance of gospel values and on a shared desire to foster these values in their own lives and in the lives of students." (2) I began to wonder what "Union" or "Association" meant to La Salle, who equated it with a "precious gem, that if lost, all is lost." (3) I had the sense that Lasallian teaching which has fired the imagination of thousands of Brothers in the last 300 years is based on a more demanding new testament theology, spiritual vision, and prayer life than was hinted at in the Draft statement. I have no doubt that our schools will become more effective instruments of the Spirit if Brothers and their lay associates can "work in mutual charity, that is, with tolerance, generosity, patience, humor, and humility ... and cooperate with each other in order to make possible a collegial style of administration and decision-making." (4) But, many of us, Brothers and lay associates, only give lip service to gospel values, just as we, as Americans, casually assent to the Jeffersonian ideals so beautifully expressed in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (5)
The real acid test for us as religious educators, as it is for us as citizens of this great country, comes down to deepening our understanding of our primary beliefs and carrying them out with conviction and courage in our daily lives. We all should know at the outset the specific gospel values upon which La Salle's sense of Association is based. Then, we can clearly make a conscious choice about the degree to which we can assent to and carry out these values in our apostolic work. Honesty will prompt some of us to leave the work of the Lasallian school because we cannot, in conscience, respect, affirm and live out these values with our associates and students. The real danger to the Lasallian school comes when the Brother or lay associate fakes his commitment and stays on because the job simply provides an income, security, or companionship.
I wanted to get a clearer idea of Lasallian spirituality, especially as it relates to the concept and experience of association, so I took three days off from my professional responsibilities for finance and development at Saint Mary's and headed for the Christian Brothers Retreat House in St. Helena, California, to examine and reflect on La Salle's history and writings. Again, as in the past, the gift of hospitality from Brothers Brian, George, Ken and Richard opened up my mind and enlivened my heart about La Salle's spirit of faith and zeal in our educational apostolates. Particularly helpful to me were La Salle's Meditations for the time of Retreat; Jean Pungier's Minsters of Grace and If I were to Re-Write "how to Run Christian Schools" Today; and Malachy Broderick's "Founder: Institute Roots, Charism, and the Poor." It didn't take long for me to discover in these sources the major themes of Lasallian spirituality and a good sense of La Salle's experience of association, "the glue which keeps His Institute together." (6) Malachy Broderick, in his reflection on the Founder, states unequivocally that:
The God of De La Salle is a personal, provident powerful presence ... This God is a God who is persona l as Father, provident and present in Jesus, and powerful in the outpouring of the spirit of Jesus. He is a loving God, a saving God, a relating God ... Not a God who is powerful because he dominates, but a God who is powerful because he relates ... This Holy Spirit is the gift of the Father/God given by the Son/God precisely so we can share here and now in the life of God who is present in our history. This Holy Spirit is the Charism of the Founder; the Charism of the Institute. (7)
And when did La Salle really come to discover and embrace this God? Finally, when he heard Christ's call in the earthy language of his first teachers to live as poorly and as insecurely as they lived. He gave away his fortune to feed the hungry and "turned toward God by turning toward the poor." (8) Thus, La Salle, at his personal moment of truth, clearly embraced the cross as he followed the God who revealed Himself "as a messiah who is poor and suffering ... His concept of association is a paschal concept; it develops from his personal encounter with poor men together for poor children. For La Salle, "association is the vehicle for meeting the poor and the crucified Jesus." (9) And, this encounter is but a temporary prelude to the resurrection Jesus promised those who would take up his cross.
La Salle strongly believed in the power of personal and communal prayer to strengthen the apostolic work of his Brothers. In that marvelous metaphor of Jacob's ladder, La Salle holds his Brothers to daily encounters with this God in prayer.
It is your duty to go up to God every day by mental prayer to learn from him all that you must teach your children, and then come down to them by accommodating yourself to them to their level in order to teach them what God has communicated to you for them -- as much in your mental prayer as in the holy scriptures which furnish you with the truths of religion and the practical maxims of the holy gospel. (10)
In Lasallian spirituality "prayer and work are distinguishable, but not separable." (11) The daily prayer of teaching ministers in association is a "contemplative life stance wherein Brothers (teachers) authentically experience, know, and choose the world ... and such prayer leads them "to love and embrace poverty with the contemporary poor; to hunger for justice with contemporary victims of violence and oppression; and to admire and seek the beautiful and true in contemporary culture and learning. (12)
Although Lasallian spirituality should be the basis of a deeper sense of association, there are some equally powerful countervailing forces operating within our lives and schools. First, all of us from time to time, including Brothers immersed in this spiritual tradition since their novitiate days, have experienced falls from grace. Our spiritual vision often gets distorted when we get so absorbed in our work, pleasures, hobbies, friendships, and even our apostolic work, that we cut ourselves off from our spiritual roots. Surprising? No! Discouraging? Yes! What to do? Hang in there! Taking time daily to pray and reflect, as well as scheduling longer periods of prayer and recollection with our associates, families, students, and communities, will guide us back to a spiritual vision that strengthens our primary love relationships and apostolic associations. Jean Pungier reminds us of La Salle's wisdom in setting aside time in our daily schedules for prayer and in teaching us what constitutes a spiritual life:
Not time for prayer, but a true encounter with God and an intimate communion with His will, His "secret";
Not time devoted to our ministry, but a true encounter with our pupils.
This encounter with the Lord sends us back to the pupils and their needs; the true encounter with these young people sends us back to the Lord and to His plan of salvation. (13)
Second, it's presumed that currently employed lay teachers possess the requisite professional and personal qualifications for their jobs, but a fair number of them are not practicing Roman Catholics, or even Christians. Additionally, many come from a wide variety of religious, philosophical, or ideological value systems. Only a few, I suspect, hold beliefs or value systems directly contrary to gospel values. I also believe most lay employees can work with other faculty and students in mutual charity. But, satisfying that criterion doesn't necessarily mean a person has the Spirit of Christ or is fully committed to gospel values. I strongly believe that the school can reasonably expect its employees to participate in programs designed to inform them about the character of Lasallian spirituality and how these values might be incorporated into a number of school programs. But, finally, faith is a gift of the Spirit. I believe it immoral and imprudent to compel beliefs. We owe respect, generosity, and hospitality to an associate who knows and respects the Lasallian spiritual tradition, but cannot in conscience give free assent to the gospel values upon which it is based.
Third, the various life styles of lay employees -- single as well as married associates -- mitigate against a total commitment to the goals of the Lasallian school. In justice, responsibility to one's personal and family needs takes precedence at some point over one's commitments to the school and its students.
Fourth, the presence of a labor union representing the bargaining interests of school employees introduces a conflict model of decision making into the fabric of the school culture. Rather than working to foster association and the realization of gospel values among school employees, the labor union, if it's true to its charter, should seek an adversary relationship with the administration in order to attain maximum gains in salary, benefits, and working conditions. In practice, the union and its members and the administration exhaust most of their time and energy in producing next year's agreement. The negotiation process neither leaves time, nor generates the mutual trust and respect required as a condition for nurturing cooperation between lay and religious associates.
Fifth, Lasallian schools that fail to fully involve their lay associates in a collegial style of administration and decision making, especially with respect to questions of salary, benefits, and other conditions of employment, have typically received minimal, or even negative responses from invitations to participate in programs on Lasallian values.
Sixth, from time to time the delicate condition of unity in every Lasallian school has been shattered by teachers and administrators -- Brothers and lay associates -- who have allowed the sins or anger, envy, pride, and revenge to creep into their relationships or to destroy established "good faith" conflict resolution procedures. The incarnational character of Lasallian spirituality and prayer life can be quickly snuffed out by these personal sins. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons and daughters of God!
Today, the dignity of the Christian Brother's vocation is heightened by a new responsibility to share the roots and charism of his spiritual tradition with his lay associates. Together in association they daily encounter young people, not so much in physical poverty as in La Salle's time, but more troubled in mind and heart as they face a world less intelligible, more violent, less caring for human life and all life on the earth, and more unequal in terms of the distribution of wealth and power. What can we teach them and how can we morally guide them as they, along with every other living creature, face the blasphemous threat of nuclear annihilation? Ironically, we and our students are lured to wealth, power, fame, and success even as we try to teach them gospel values about the proper use of such gifts. By "touching the hearts" of his lay associates with the Lasallian spiritual tradition, the Christian Brother can vastly extend the possibilities of meeting the "poor and the crucified Jesus" in the persons of the contemporary students we encounter daily.
But, "touching the hearts" of lay associates is not an easy task. First, the leadership of the Lasallian school must realize that understanding and carrying out the school's programs in accordance with the Lasallian spiritual tradition implies the development of a costly, long-term educational process. Just think of the time, energy, and money that every district has spent on various formation programs for Brothers and the costly attrition factor resulting from the departure of Brothers from the Institute. Another important factor: successful lay formation programs develop only when the level of trust is high among lay employees and Brothers in the school and at the district level. And, the level of trust is, all other things being equal, directly related to the existence of collegial decision making structures and processes in the school.
The leadership of the Lasallian school should understand that the most successful business enterprises allocate a great deal of time, money, and executive talent to inculcate in their employees a thorough knowledge of the company's philosophy. A former President of IBM, Thomas Watson, Jr., has said that "the basic philosophy of an organization has far more to do with its achievements than do technological or economic resources, organizational structure, innovation and timing."
Second, by developing trust and mutual exchanges of hospitality, the leadership of the Lasallian school will draw its teachers together, as does the business enterprise that respects the humanity of its employees.
The excellent companies treat the rank and file as the root source of quality and productivity gain. They do not foster we/they labor attitudes or regard capital investment as the fundamental source of efficiency improvement. As Thomas J. Watson said of his company, 'IBM's philosophy is largely contained in three simple beliefs. I want to begin with what I think is the most important: our respect for the individual. This is a simple concept but in IBM it occupies a major portion of management time.' Texas Instruments' Chairman Mark Shepherd talks about it in terms of every worker being 'seen as the source of ideas, not just acting as a pair of hands'; each of his more than 9,000 People Involvement Programs, or PIP teams (TI's quality circles) does contribute to the company's sparkling productivity record. (15)
Third, once the schools and districts make up their minds, they should immediately set about the task of developing and implementing the program. This means recruiting the best people and providing sufficient funds to implement the programs over the long term. And, the program directors must be willing to take some risks. In the most creative business firms:
The innovative companies foster many leaders and many innovators throughout the organization. They don't hold everyone on so short a rein that he can't be creative. They encourage practical risk taking, and support good tries. They follow Fletcher Byrom's ninth commandment: "Make sure you generate a reasonable number of mistakes." (16)
In my judgment, the Lasallian schools, along with their districts, should regularly review their existing programs aimed at improving the quality of association among their teaching ministers. I would like to offer the following suggestions:
First, the obvious, but not always the easiest task. Involve all of your staff in a process to evaluate the decision-making structure of the school so that together you may establish a governance structure characterized by a collegial administrative style. Everybody has to bring a great deal of trust and good will to this process. Within this structure, listen carefully to the lay employees' expression of their ideas and feelings about salaries, benefits, and working conditions. And then, as a first priority, increase the school's revenue from tuition, fees, and development programs to provide just salary and benefit programs.
Second, provide numerous leisure opportunities for the teaching ministers -- lay and religious -- and their families to re-create their lives: times to celebrate, play, and pray together. Don't fail to recognize milestone events, like birthdays, weddings and service anniversaries. Work and play together toward developing a unique school culture that expects and gets everybody's best efforts. Levering, Moskowitz, and Katz, in their book, The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America, single out certain firms for their ability to motivate employees toward higher levels of achievement and commitment to company goals:
Leo Burnett Company: They push you to do your best.
Citicorp: Plenty of action and high charged people to work with.
Control Data Corporation: It combines high-tech with a touch of social conscience.
Cummins Engine Company, Inc.: A long tradition of social responsibility.
Delta Airlines, Inc.: A family feeling despite its huge size.
International Business Machine Corporation: They make you feel like a giant.
Johnson & Johnson Products: They know right from wrong.
Levi Strauss & Co.: It's a company with a conscience.
The Maytag Company: Working for a company that really cares about quality.
Nordstrom Inc.: You get to set your own goals. (17)
Third, develop a workable profile of the ideal types of persons to employ, including criteria the district can use when assigning Brothers to the school community, ideally, it would seem that good Catholics and other Christians having the requisite personal and professional background and experience would be the best candidates. This judgment doesn't exclude hiring Non-Christians because we know when we're looking for people with the Spirit of Jesus in them that, "We aren't necessarily looking for people who follow Jesus professedly, but for people who live his spirit of generosity, forgiveness, healing and care." (18) But, in fact, a heavier burden will be on you if, later on, the Non-Christian teachers won't commit themselves, at least, to an understanding and respect for the gospel values on which the Lasallian school is based. Our schools should take their cues from IBM, a giant in the business community, when it comes to requiring our teachers to participate in informational programs about the Lasallian tradition and gospel values:
Like any good church, IBM has powerful training programs. IBM spares no expense in the education of its own people. It invests $500 million a year on employee education and training. (19)
Fourth, within each school and district, continue to develop spiritual formation programs in which everyone participates, especially those programs dealing with social justice applications. I refer you to Gery Short's findings in his recently published paper: "San Francisco District Report on Justice and Peace Education." But, like the most effective firms in the business community, we should aim higher and commit ourselves to developing formal orientation and training programs for all areas in the Lasallian experience: history, spiritual tradition, and the management of schools. The very future of the Christian Brothers and their educational apostolates here and around the world ultimately depend on sharing the Founder's vision and 300 year old tradition with their lay associates.
In the first year of a new teacher's employment, require him/her to successfully complete a basic informational course on the history of the Christian Brothers, Lasallian spirituality and gospel values in contemporary social issues. This introductory course, taught primarily by district and school personnel, could be offered by the extended education department of a local Catholic college at satellite locations as part of a certificate or advanced degree program. The use of the latest telecommunications technology could also be utilized to include national and international experts in the program. Currently employed lay associates would be encouraged to participate in this program by linking their tenure and advancement on the salary schedule to successful completion of the certificate or degree program. In addition, the schools and district would cover all of the program costs. Just as successful business firms require employees to complete training programs on company philosophy, customer relations, and technical skills, Lasallian schools must fund and require participation in programs that give lay associates a thorough grounding in Lasallian history, traditions, and values.
Finally, each year the school or district should select a few of the most experienced and committed lay associates to complete sabbatical-type programs in biblical studies and spiritual formation. Others should be selected to travel to international sites to study the impact of Lasallian values on educational institutions and apostolates in other cultures around the world. Just think of the power and influence they will wield in the continuing process of forming teaching ministers for the Lasallian school!
As religious educators, we are charged with the task of moving ourselves from unreflected discipleship to becoming more caring brothers and sisters ministering to the educational, moral, and spiritual needs of our students. Like the curious Zaccaeus, whom the Lord called by name to come down from the sycamore tree, we are called, as Lasallian educators, to follow the Lord in a total Spirit of Faith and Zeal, wherever that call takes us and at whatever price.
FOOTNOTES
1. St. John Baptist de La Salle, Meditations for the Time of Retreat , 1/3, St. Mary's College Press: Winona, 1975; p.48.
2. Characteristics of Lasallian Schools, Part II: Association, Regional Education Committee of the Christian Brothers, Ninth Preparatory Draft, 1985, p.6.
3. Ibid., p.6.
4. Ibid., p.6.
5. The Declaration of Independence, in Great Books of the Western World, #43, American State Papers, Encyclopedia Britannica: Chicago, p.1.
6. Brother Malachy Broderick, FSC, "Founder, Institute Roots, Charism, and the Poor," p.6.
7. Ibid., p.3.
8. Ibid., pp.11-12.
9. Ibid., p.12.
10. La Salle, Op. Cit., 6/1, p.62.
11. Broderick, Op. Cit., p.16.
12. Ibid., p.21.
13. Jean Pungier, If I Were to Re-Write "How to Run Christian Schools, Today, p.87.
14. Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence, Lessons from America's Best Run Companies, Harper & Row Publishers: New York, p.15.
15. Ibid., pp.14-15.
16. Ibid., p.14.
17. Robert Levering, Milton Moskowitz, Michael Katz, The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company: Reading, 1984, pp.35-238.
18. Richard Chilson, The Way to Christianity, Winston Press Inc., Minneapolis, 1979, p.187.
19. Levering, Op. Cit., p.159.
Examination of Part II Association
by
Thomas M. Brady
Saint Mary's College High School
Peralta Park, Berkeley, California
Regional Education Committee of the Christian Brothers Workshop
Hotel Bismark, Chicago, Illinois
November 14, 1985
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