Last month, the church celebrated the 60th anniversary of “Gravissimum Educationis,” the “Declaration on Christian Education” that was promulgated in the final weeks of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Reflecting on that document recently led me to revisit a subject I have found increasingly important in my own teaching career: the matter of educating for hope.
I am not writing here as a theorist or as a church leader or university administrator. Rather, I write as someone who has taught for 41 years in seven different universities in New York, Cambridge, Boston, Manila, Bangalore, Pune and Rome. I want to be specific and practical in what I say.
Let me start with an enduring experience of self-doubt about my teaching—and then a decision to rethink how I teach in theological ethics. It was an experience where I learned to teach my students not only what they need to know but also that they need to learn to act on what they know. Proceeding from this, they need to learn to act both vulnerably and collectively.
I am more and more convinced that vulnerability and collectivity can be signs of hope in these fragile times.
If we truly want to be witnesses to the good news, then let us look to its vulnerable roots and to our collective call to be educators together. If we want our students to learn from one another, we need to teach with one another. By working together, let us learn to teach our students to “go and do likewise.”
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James F. Keenan, S.J., a moral theologian, is the Canisius Professor at Boston College.
With thanks to America and James F. Keenan SJ, where this article originally appeared.
