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Saint Ignatius High School

Climbing into Another's Skin

In this week’s blog, Jim Brennan ’85 emphasizes the importance of quality writing and literature in education, particularly at Saint Ignatius High School. He argues that literature fosters empathy, awareness, and the ability to effect change, nurturing students’ competence, conscience, and compassion.
Climbing into Another's Skin



It’s English Week at Saint Ignatius. 

This week students are being treated to coffee in the English Department, seeing their favorite teachers dressed as literary characters, reading on the mall during formation period, and writing letters of “joy and encouragement” to residents of local nursing homes. They are enjoying the light side of their teachers and the laughter emanating from the 4th floor seems louder and even more ubiquitous. 

The revelry is well-deserved—for students and faculty alike. In the age of Instagram and X, communication of more than a few words can seem, well, overwhelming especially when those words need to be written, not spoken. Being stretched is never easy, but it is especially difficult these days. But as in the old days, the Saint Ignatius English Department is more than up to the task.     

When I turned in my first collegiate paper, it was a five-pager for the history class in which I was enrolled. Submitting it, I remember thinking to myself “[Fr.] Streicher would give me a ‘C’ on this.”  It was a good paper, but not up to the exacting standards the legendary Jesuit set for his students. For him writing was art and science: correct grammar was the tool and imagination was the soul of a well-constructed essay. We needed both—nothing less than our best was acceptable—and even our best might not be good enough. So head down, I submitted my first effort. I got an “A.” I also got a shout-out from my professor: “I bet you went to a Jesuit school.” 

“How’d you know?” I asked. 

“You guys know how to write.”

While my present efforts may give lie to his observation (Fr. Steicher is undoubtedly rolling in his grave over my use of one-line paragraphs; starting sentences with “it,” “and,” and “because”;  and my utilization of contractions), one thing is true: good writing was and is a hallmark of a Jesuit education. Moreover it is, in the words of University of Notre Dame’s fabled teacher, Frank O’Malley, a sign of respect for one’s readers. 

Good writing enables one to also effect change: the written word is a powerful thing. Abraham Lincoln credited Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” with helping spark the Civil War. In his letter, St. James established the foundational belief that both faith and good works were required of Christians. In “Ignatian Pedagogy: A Practical Approach”, the authors note that:

 

[t]he mission of the Society of Jesus… is a mission rooted in the belief that a new world of justice, love and peace needs educated persons of competence, conscience and compassion.


If clear, persuasive, elegant writing helps our students be the competent Men for Others we hope they will become, it is literature which helps sensitize them: giving them the ability, in the words of my favorite literary character, Atticus Finch, to “climb into [another person’s] skin.” It can help them be men of “conscience and compassion.”

I am a white, suburban, middle-class Catholic man. I have been through much in my life, but there are experiences others have had—good and bad—that I will never have. Richard Wright gave me a taste of the effects of racism on people of color in his “Native Son”. John Steinbeck, in “The Grapes of Wrath”, placed me with the displaced Joad family as they took to the road in search of a better life. Victor Hugo showed me the seemingly impossible life of an ex-convict in “Les Miserables.” The hours spent with these and other characters—characters with whom I came to identify and, dare I say, “befriend”—helped me enter into lives I could never have otherwise encountered and see the world through different lenses. Issues like prejudice and economics and criminal justice went from the theoretical to the personal. I was—and am—reminded that behind every issue, however controversial, stand people: people who need love and understanding and to be seen. People who have inestimable dignity.

This hit home for me a few years ago when one of our English teachers had students read a novel written from the perspective of a “gender-fluid” teen struggling through family and social life while grappling with issues of identity. The assignment caused a bit of a stir among some because of its subject matter. (That one of its more unsavory characters was a teacher named “Mr Brennan” gave me pause). Those of us who know the teacher understood that the book was assigned because in the midst of the personal attacks and inflated rhetoric over issues of sexuality and identity we needed to be reminded of the people at the heart of these issues. 

Truth is truth and right is right and the Church has an obligation to proclaim the Gospel “in season and out” (2 Tim 4:2), but compassion requires that when we deliver that truth and counsel for right, we need to be aware of the people with whom we speak. Literature helps that awareness.

Literature also helps illustrate the truths of the Faith. English department member Dan Bradesca ’88 notes that English teachers are de facto Theology teachers. The literature they teach explores themes of life, death, sin, redemption, and relationships to name a few. These are the things which touch on the human condition: the same condition with which our Catholic faith is concerned. This is not lost on our English faculty whose witness to their faith is clear in the work they do.

There has been a movement of late within higher education—even within Catholic colleges—to reduce or move away from core curricula. Gone are the days where students were required to take philosophy, theology, language, science, literature, social science, history, and math before they embarked on their majors. The idea was to educate the whole student. Now it seems the “philosophy” is to focus more on vocational training. As such many young people miss out on the benefits of a holistic education, including that of reading good fiction.

We can be thankful that places like Saint Ignatius High School still find value in literature. We should be even more thankful that it is taught by teachers like those in our English department: women and men of “competence, conscience, and compassion.”

Women and men of faith.


A.M.D.G. / B.V.M.H.