Dear Xavier Family, At Mass last week, Fr. Joe Dorner from St. Bernadette included an interesting thought in his homily – that our memory of a thing can never match that thing in reality. He was talking about his college, how much he loved it at the time, but how every time he returned after graduation, things had changed. He found himself growing increasingly dissatisfied and his love for the school was replaced with anxiety about how everything he loved was being replaced. As Fr. Joe was speaking, I found myself reflecting on how many times I do that. This isn’t the way we learned when I was in high school. That’s not the way athletics and club sorts worked when I was growing up. We didn’t require all of these special treatments when I was a teenager. Why are we changing things? I mean, it was good enough to produce all of us well-adjusted and productive adults, right? Why mess with what works?
April 2023 Volume #417 In this Issue: Blue & White Week…………………………05 Business ........................................................ 02 Campus Ministry .......................................... 04 Upcoming Events.......................................... 12
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But Fr. Joe’s point wasn’t that change is disastrous. Rather, he was trying to say that time means change will make things different, no matter how hard we try to hold on to the past. Just think about high school. Pep rallies and parades used to be the most exciting parts of Homecoming Week. Now, pep rallies are dinosaurs. We took a class to learn to type (full disclosure – I did not take said class and I am paying for it as we speak). Today, young people learn to type naturally and can’t figure out why anyone would ever need cursive. Are they worse off than we were? I am not sure. It’s different…and I probably make a sarcastic remark when a kid asks if he can print his name where it says “signature” on a form…but I can’t see how my life is particularly advantaged thanks to all of that work with Sister Elva and Mrs. King trying to improve my cursive. It’s hard for us to take a deep breath and see different as acceptable, perhaps even better in some ways. But it’s also a reality. Jesus faces some of the same challenges. When he suggested forgiveness over retribution, he was working against generations of cultural practice. When he spoke to the woman at the well, he faced scorn for changing the standards of the day. Take the Sabbath entirely off, even from serving others? Not necessarily. Restrict the message of God’s love to just God’s chosen people? Apparently not. None of it was what he had grown up with, but that didn’t stop him from finding ways to do what was right for the betterment of those around him. He knew that his saving mission culminated on the cross, but he used his years among the people to create a better place in this world while always keeping his eyes focused on the life to come. I think that’s what’s hardest for us. Things are changing and it feels like it isn’t the world we knew and loved. Why are kids wearing their hair like that? How do you pay more for pants that come with holes in them when we used to wear ours until the holes appeared? What are we ever going to do about teaching young people to write when AI is going to make it so easy to cheat? Calculators, ChatGPT, social media, the internet… so many things that feel like the enemies of learning the way we learned. But the truth is, it’s just different, not worse. Our teachers are tasked with learning to balance the use of these tools with a proper appreciation for when they are inappropriate. We need to find new ways to create assignments and assess learning. I recently read an article from a college dean entitles “The College Essay is Dead.” Pretty dramatic stuff. Also, not a sign of the apocalypse. We adjust, find new ways, and re-package the old to make sure that we are preparing young people for the world they will actually live and work in, not the one that exists in our memories. That’s our jobs as educators, parents, parishioners and loved ones. Let’s pray for one another as we watch change happen, that we can handle it with optimism, hope and love. For God’s Greater Glory,
Xavier High School is a proud member of the St. Francis Xavier Catholic School System, and has been accredited by Cognia (formerly AdvanceED) since 1970.
Mike Mauthe Principal