Q&A with Michelle Gergen

We talked with Michelle Gergen about the genesis of the “What Would You Do?” project, which sits at the intersection of theological concepts, Catholic social teachings and Mayfield’s ongoing effort to weave justice and diversity education into every corner of the curriculum.

How does this class project empower students to become “Actions Not Words” advocates for justice?

Well, I think it echoes what Gandhi and Martin Luther King said: that you don’t become this, you have to practice this. You have to create your own “muscle memory” to be able to know how to do it in a situation. You can’t expect that at the moment of crisis, that we’re going to instinctively know how to do it, if we haven’t practiced it in our mind. And so the fact that we talk about it and say, well, “What would you do?” reinforces that even more.

Why did you have students create a “class code” as the foundation for this lesson?

If we believe in creation—that we’re all born in the image and likeness of God—we believe that everybody deserves dignity and respect, then we have to treat everybody like that. I wanted students to see an alignment between how they behave and what their values are. At 16 years old, there are things that you can’t do, but you’re not without opportunities to be able to act the way you believe. How do we behave in ways that say we value others and that everybody deserves dignity and respect? And so, as we built their personal code, I asked them: As the Class of 2022, how do you want to be known as a group? Do I call out my friend on the fact that she said something mean to a freshman? If you stepped in front of somebody in the lunch line? If you ate somebody else’s lunch? When we talked about the code it was always talking about how that reflects their own personal choices, and then we talked about where codes come from: the Beatitudes, The Ten Commandments, Gandhi’s Seven Social Sins, Native American codes, Mayfield’s Holy Child goals and values—we use all of those as the markers to help determine our whole list.

Were any students able to put this lesson into action outside the classroom? Did you hear of any real-life outcomes?

The best outcome actually! I had a student who told me, “My mom and I went into a Chinese restaurant that we frequent. The waitress came in, who did not know English, and she was trying to help this couple who came in. This woman was being very rude and said, ‘I suppose it’s going to be slow because she doesn’t even know English.’ I turned around to her and said… ‘They work very hard and she’ll be able to help you, but we shouldn’t speak like that about somebody else.’ ” That woman, an older woman... shut down. She stopped. And [the student]

We really want our students, in our curriculum, to work on understanding that they can be part of... changing the way we do things.

— MICHELLE GERGEN, THEOLOGY TEACHER

said to me: “I realized I could do this. I could say this.” She told the whole class and said, “I wouldn’t have known how to do that before we talked about it.” She found out how to be the ally and how to speak up for somebody. And that’s one of the things I am most gratified with in having these micro-moments that we talked about, that they learned language that they can use on how to be a safe 16-yearold [ally or advocate].

This idea of advocacy and allyship feels particularly relevant right now. How do theology and Catholic social justice teachings help students process injustice?

In theology, we’re looking at sin, and you don’t want sin to be “Thou shalt not.” We talked about sin as “the absence of goodness”—when we erase the goodness out of what we do, and our interactions, and what we think. And so when we talk about that, we talk about “social sin,” which is systemic racism, that privilege that goes into that “absence of goodness” that is systemic across our culture and our times in our institutions and organizations. And so we had a chance to talk about that. We cannot ignore what’s happening in our world right now. We are called as people of faith to stand with the marginalized and the outsiders, with the people who are being disrespected. And if we live within the bubble that doesn’t allow us to talk about such things, then we’re losing the very call that we have. So how do we do that? How do we keep the talk about faith and social justice and prayer, and being in communion with others and community with others? How do we talk about that and then bring in the outside world, because it’s happening all around us, and we’re called to recognize it. How do we become advocates and allies and work for systemic change? That’s another part of justice and service. We really want our students, in our curriculum, to work on understanding that they can be part of the change, you know, changing the way we do things.

This is Michelle Gergen’s 40th year in Catholic education and her 10th year at Mayfield Senior School. She continues to be delighted by the grace-filled spirits and enquiring, challenging minds of the young women she works with—“They will surely change the world,” she says. Ms. Gergen earned her B.A. in English and her M.S. in Counseling Psychology from Mount St. Mary’s College, and also holds a Certificate in Catholic School Leadership from Loyola Marymount University.