A day in the life of… Geraint Wong

29 May 2015

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Tags: Educators

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Categories: Reflections

A day in the life of… Geraint Wong

Geraint Wong teaches English Language at CHIJ Secondary.

 

Why did you want to be a teacher?
I’ve always found joy in nurturing and developing young people. Plus, after giving tuition and doing relief teaching during my university days, I found I had the gift of explaining things clearly, so teaching became a natural path to take. But – and this may surprise some people – I didn’t quite settle on it till my honours year.

What is the biggest challenge you face as a Catholic educator?
I don’t think being a Catholic educator is any different from being an educator in general, because being an educator entails being a role model to students. In the case of a Catholic, this means being a witness to Gospel values, but in a general sense it means espousing good values – in short, being true to yourself and what you believe in, whether you are Catholic or not. But this isn’t the biggest challenge. To me, the biggest challenge in being an educator is having enough time for my students (which includes preparing good lessons and giving them timely and valuable feedback on their work) in the midst of all the other work I have to do.

What were you doing before becoming a teacher?
University – did my bachelor’s, honours and master’s degree consecutively before I started work. Before university I did a short stint at the front office of a hotel – enjoyed that job thoroughly, but I didn’t stay on because the prospects didn’t seem that great.

What is your fondest memory/experience as a teacher?
There have been so many that it’s difficult to single out specific instances. In general, I’ve always enjoyed the times I’ve worked with students outside the classroom setting – such as meetings with student leaders, training of emcees, even informal chats with students filled with banter and laughter.

Has your faith affected you in your role as a teacher in any way?
Definitely. I am acutely aware of how the Holy Spirit is constantly guiding and inspiring me in my teaching vocation – I would never have achieved what I have all these years without him. I also try to approach my students the way Jesus approached his disciples and the crowds that followed him – with compassion and a deep respect for their personhood.

What are some of your key priorities as a teacher?
My students always come first. Sadly, however, administrative work often cries out for attention and competes for my time – but it’s often a necessary evil.

What is one way you try to inspire your students?
By being true to myself and sharing my experiences, or other stories that I’ve heard or encountered, with them.

Do you try to share your faith with students? How so?
In Religious Education classes, yes, explicitly, by sharing my faith journey and experiences. I’m also in charge of Spirituality in my school, and when we have practices for Masses, I take the opportunity to explain some aspects of the faith or the liturgy with the classes involved (which include non-Catholics). In other contexts, I do so more subtly and indirectly, preferring to lead by example. I think the most edifying thing a student (who wasn’t in my RE class) ever told me was, “You make me want to be a better Catholic.” That was enough of an affirmation for me.

What do you like most about being a Catholic?
Hmmm. I’d say the good balance between “structure” (the Church, the sacraments, the liturgy, etc) and the more personal “unstructured” aspects of the faith (personal prayer, relationship with God). I think God in his infinite wisdom knew all along that we need both in our lives to sustain our faith and commitment.

How do you keep close to God?
Daily quiet time, informal conversational prayer throughout the day, attending weekday Masses whenever possible.

What brings you joy in life?
Accomplishing things. This can range from big things like seeing a project through to its completion, to small things like seeing the look of understanding or enlightenment on a student’s face when she gets what I’m trying to say.

What is your favourite scripture passage?
I have a few. I guess my top two are John 10:10 – The thief comes in order to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come in order that you might have life, life in all its fullness. And Jeremiah 29:11 – I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for. They are my greatest motivations for hope and optimism in life.

If you weren’t a teacher today, how different would your life have been?
I’d likely have a lot more time on my hands! In fact, I did leave the teaching service for 1.5 years, from Jan 2011 to Jun 2012, to work with The Straits Times Schools team. It was a good experience that taught me many things (chief among which was honing my writing craft), but eventually I found that I was lacking the fulfilment that came with the daily interaction with students, so I returned.

Mary, our mother and teacher

28 May 2015

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Tags: Educators

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Categories: Reflections, Saints

Mary, our mother and teacher

As we end the month Mary, let us reflect and remind ourselves again of the important lessons Our Lady teaches us by her example.

 

The special dedication of the month of May to the Blessed Virgin Mary has long been a tradition of the Catholic Church, where the faithful engage in more fervent and loving acts of homage and veneration. In the midst of prayer and deeper reflection, Mary’s May is the opportune time to look once again on Mary’s “yes”, and what her example teaches us.

From the accounts of several saints and from the various approved Marian apparitions throughout history, we see that the Blessed Virgin is in fact, not only a loving mother and intercessor, but also a great educator for all Christians.

There are many great lessons that Mary teaches us, but there are two aspects in which we, as educators, can draw special reflection – Mary’s role as teacher during her time on earth, and the “school” of her Immaculate Heart.

The teacher’s teacher

Learning about Mary from the accounts of the Gospels, it is natural and beneficial for us to view her as our dear mother and guide. However, the Gospels also certainly tell of Mary’s role as our teacher, such as when she instructed the servants at the wedding at Cana, “do whatever He tells you” (John 1:5).

Education was in fact one of the major responsibilities of Mary, albeit lesser known. This is seen most clearly in her duty of teaching Jesus and bringing Him up in this world according to God’s plans.

Though we do not have more detailed accounts of Jesus’ early life, His nature as both fully God and fully man, who went through normal human growth, certainly makes the case of Mary’s role as teacher of Jesus undeniable.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the duty of parents and educators is in fact described as inseparable, as “parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule” (CCC 2223).

Mary has been blessed with the authority to be a worthy enough educator to Jesus because she was filled with graces from the Holy Spirit. When the angel visited her, the greeting started with the famous, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28).

At the same time, it is important to also note that the graces which Mary has been blessed with certainly required her obedience, as she would not have been a teacher at all if she had not responded to God with her perfect “yes”.

From the accounts of the first visitation, all the way to the foot of the cross, and up to her own assumption, Mary had always declared with her voice or by her actions, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

Similarly as educators, do we strive to teach with the authority of the Holy Spirit? Do we allow ourselves to receive the gifts God wants to give us? It is through obedience to God and an openness to the Holy Spirit, that we can be sure we have what it takes to be an educator worthy of the students God brings into our lives.

When we encounter challenging students, broken students, and are put in charge of so many at once that we feel overwhelmed, Mary teaches us that obedience to God’s will and an openness to His Spirit will surely empower us with the gifts and strength we often yearn for.

School of Mary

Besides Jesus, our greatest teacher and the only way through whom we can approach the knowledge of God, and the Holy Spirit, whom brings us toward Jesus, God has truly blessed mankind with the gift of another avenue where we can seek and learn about Him – our Mother Mary.

In an apostolic letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Pope John Paul II described, ““From the divine standpoint, the Spirit is the interior teacher who leads us to the full truth of Christ. But among creatures, no one knows Christ better than Mary; no one can introduce us to a profound knowledge of His mystery better than His mother.”

Right from the beginning when the shepherds visited Jesus in the manger, it was described that Mary “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19). A little later on, the Holy Spirit reveals through the prophet Simeon, “and a sword will pierce your soul too – so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare” (Luke 2:35).

The school of Mary certainly lies within her Immaculate Heart, where Mary kept and pondered on all the mysteries and miracles of Jesus. When she went through her own emotional crucifixion as she watched Jesus being condemned, her own strength and trust in God truly testified to the value of these lessons she holds in the school of her heart.

When we face difficulty and suffering in our lives, we commonly ask God, “why?” But even though Mary faced the most appropriate situation for such a question at the foot of the cross, where senseless violence was slowly killing her son, she did not ask why. Instead, she simply offered Jesus her loving motherly presence, and continued to trust that this is God’s will.

Mary, as human as we are in every way, shows us that a heart filled with God truly makes any suffering bearable, and she lovingly opens this heart for us to reflect and learn from.

“This school of Mary is all the more effective if we consider that she teaches by obtaining for us in abundance the gifts of the Holy Spirit, even as she offers us the incomparable example of her own ‘pilgrimage of faith’,” Pope John Paul II wrote in Rosarium Virginis Mariae.

Mary continues to be our mother and teacher today, whose immaculate heart, so full of invaluable knowledge of Jesus, remains open to us to reach out to. Let us take some time, especially within this month, to ponder again on the lessons we can learn from her.

Living as Spirit-filled educators

22 May 2015

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Tags: Educators, Parents

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Categories: Reflections

Living as Spirit-filled educators

As we celebrate Pentecost, let us remember the gits that God freely blesses us with, and what they mean for us as educators and parents.

 

Have you ever been so absorbed in the busyness of life that you forgot to open a gift? Perhaps a Christmas present you only opened after the New Year? Or that birthday card you only read a month later? As silly as it sounds, many of us do in fact go through life without ever realising we sometimes forget to open the greatest gift we have – the Holy Spirit.

The gift of the Holy Spirit, infinitely good and beneficial to us in so many ways, is indeed offered freely to everyone. But often, we are so absorbed in the activities of modern life that we simply forget to open this gift and use it to its fullest ability.

As we celebrate Pentecost, let us remind ourselves what it truly means to receive the Holy Spirit, and what the significance is for us as educators and parents.

Receiving a gift
The Holy Spirit is offered to you. Whether baptised yet or not, there is no doubt that God unconditionally offers His Spirit to all, because He calls everyone to Himself. “Since all men possess a rational soul and are created in God’s likeness, since they have the same nature and origin, we have been redeemed by Christ and enjoy the same divine calling and destiny,” Pope Paul IV writes in Gaudium et Spes.

All we need to do to attain such an incomparably rich gift then, is to simply reach out for it through baptism. During Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit manifested as tongues of fire and attracted a crowd to the apostles, St Peter had stood up and declared, “Every one of you must be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise that was made is… for all those whom the Lord our God is calling to himself” (Acts 2:38-39).

However it is also important to be aware that receiving a gift does not only stop at acceptance. There is also the next step of actively opening this gift and allowing ourselves to be blessed by it. After all, what sense would it make to accept a present but keep it in its wrapping? Or what sense is there to order pizza but only admire the box and let its contents go cold?

Act1v8!
This is why the term, “Act1v8”, a play on the word “activate” and “acts 1, verse 8”, still holds a truly relevant reminder to educators and parents. Do we remember to regularly activate the Holy Spirit who dwells in us?

Here, the emphasised verse from the Acts of the Apostles is Jesus’ proclamation that, “You will receive the power of the Holy Spirit which will come on you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to earth’s remotest end” (Acts 1:8).

There is an undoubtedly energetic tone as Jesus describes the power that will guide His disciples to witness to even the remotest ends of the earth. And this very same energy truly dwells in us, prompting and guiding us on the same mission – to reach even the remotest hearts of our students and children.

The upbringing of children for God is one of the greatest areas of work in the Church, and teachers and parents are the blessed ones called to this important mission. In the 1997 Vatican document, The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium, teaching is described to have “an extraordinary moral depth and is one of man’s most excellent and creative activities, for the teacher does not write on inanimate material, but on the very spirits of human beings.”

This is why it is important to be aware of the gift of the Holy Spirit we have received (or called to receive for those not yet baptised), and the wealth of graces we can find in this great gift!

When the Spirit manifests
When the Holy Spirit was activated in the apostles during Pentecost, not only were the signs of the Spirit noticeable in the form of tongues of fire and a loud gushing wind, but more importantly, the work of the Spirit through each apostle was so powerful that thousands were converted that very day.

In the Acts of the Apostles, it was described that a crowd of various nationalities gathered upon hearing the gushing sound, and were “amazed and astonished” (Acts 2:7) to see the apostles speaking in their own native languages. A little later on, the crowd were “cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37) as they listened to St Peter explain that this was the work of the Holy Spirit, who was promised by Christ Jesus whom they crucified. That very day, about three thousand “accepted what he said and were baptised” (Acts 2:41).

When we struggle to reach the hearts of our students and children, when we feel as if our words fall on deaf ears, let us remind ourselves that this very same Spirit that empowered the apostles to speak in such a way that cut to the heart of those listening, also dwells in us this very moment.

With this knowledge, we can approach our everyday responsibilities with a renewed strength and joy, because we are truly blessed by God with everything we need to follow His call. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’, it is the Spirit Himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:15-17).

Pope Francis: Parents must “re-assume fully their educational role”

21 May 2015

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Tags: Parents

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Categories: Homilies / Messages, News

Pope Francis: Parents must “re-assume fully their educational role”

At his General Audience yesterday, Pope Francis encouraged parents to not “exile themselves from the education of their children”, but to take responsibility of educating their children, in partnership with schools and teachers.

Continuing his weekly catechesis on the family, the Holy Father focused on the importance of the education of children, “an essential characteristic of the family” and the family’s “natural vocation”. Parents, he said, in spite of challenges – like work and even separation from each other – must put in effort to nurture the child: “It is difficult for parents to educate their children when they see them only in the evening, when they return home tired from work – those who have the good fortune of having work! It is even more difficult for separated parents, who are weighed down by their condition: poor souls, they have had difficulties, they have separated and so often the child is taken as hostage and the father speaks badly to him of his mother and the mother speaks badly to him of the father … they must not be used as hostages against the other spouse. They must grow hearing the mother speak well of the father, even though they are not together, and the father speaking well of the mother. For separated parents this is very important and very difficult, but they can do it.”

The pope lamented the rupture between the family and school. “Today the educational pact has been broken. And thus, the educational alliance of society with the family has entered into crisis because reciprocal trust has been undermined. The symptoms are many … At times there are tensions and mutual mistrust and the consequences naturally fall on the children”. On the other hand, he said, “the so-called ‘experts’ have multiplied, who have taken the role of parents even in the most intimate aspects of education. On emotional life, on personality and on development, on rights and duties the ‘experts’ know everything: objectives, motivations, techniques. And parents must only listen, learn and adapt themselves. Deprived of their role, they often become excessively apprehensive and possessive in dealing with their children, to the point of not correcting them ever: ‘You can’t correct your child’. They tend increasingly to entrust them to the ‘experts’, even for the most delicate and personal aspects of their life, putting themselves in the corner, and thus parents today run the risk of excluding themselves from the life of their children. And this is very grave!” He continued: “Evidently this approach is not good: it isn’t harmonious, it isn’t dialogic, and instead of fostering collaboration between the family and the other educational agencies, the school, it opposes them”.

Pope Francis reminded us that “Christian communities are called to offer support to the educational mission of families”, citing St Paul’s exhortation for the reciprocity of duties between parents and children: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (Colossians 3:20-21). “At the base of everything is love”, he said.

Finally, he lauded the many “wonderful examples we have of Christian parents full of human wisdom”, who “show that a good family education is the spinal cord of humanism”. Asking the Lord to “give Christian families the faith, the freedom and the courage necessary for their mission”, he challenged parents to “return from their exile … and re-assume fully their educational role”.

Read the Holy Father’s catechesis here.

Newly canonised St Ghattas fought to eradicate illiteracy

19 May 2015

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Tags: Educators

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Categories: News, Saints

Newly canonised St Ghattas fought to eradicate illiteracy

Pope Francis‬ canonised four ‪nuns‬ this past Sunday. One of them is Sister Marie Alphonsine Danil Ghattas‬, born in ‪Jerusalem‬ in 1847.

St Ghattas opened girls’ schools, fought for female illiteracy, and co-founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Rosary, an order that boasts dozens of centres all over the Middle East today, operating ‪kindergartens‬, homes for the elderly, medical clinics and guest houses.

In his homily, the Holy Father said that Ghattas understood clearly what it means to radiate the love of God, and to be a witness to meekness and unity. The pope said: “She shows us the importance of becoming responsible for one another, of living lives of service one to another”. The four newly canonised saints, he said, challenge us, by “their luminous example”to ask: how we can bear witness to the risen Christ.

Jordanian Fr Rifat Bader, director of the Catholic Center for Studies and Media in Amman, said that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, St Marie-Alphonsine’s congregation “had a decisive role in the promotion of the Arab woman in the fields of culture, education and teaching” and to eliminating illiteracy in many parts of the Middle East.

Pray for us St Ghattas! Inspire us with your desire to ‪educate‬!

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