La Salle’s challenge

As a Lasallian, I have often wondered how much students empathize with the University’s saint, the patron of all teachers, St. Jean Baptiste de La Salle. Given that majority of the students do not even major in education, and given the fact that theological studies can no longer be taken at the undergraduate level, very few students would actually be able to directly relate the saint to their studies and academic life.

Institutionalized activities such as the LPEP and LASARE struggle to inculcate a familiarity with the French saint among Lasallians; academic programs are encouraged to try and integrate St. La Salle in their courses, with professors left groping in the dark on how to fuse the values of his life into subjects like thermodynamics and game theory.

Perhaps it is difficult to make students relate to La Salle because of the way by which St. La Salle is presented in these endeavors – that is, as the protagonist in a riches-to-rags story of holy mission and lifelong vocation, of self sacrifice and visionary leadership. It is more uncommon to hear of St. La Salle as a maverick, who went against the common thinking of his time and the thinking of the institutions in France. The very fact that he let go of managing the vast estate of his family – now reputedly a leading champagne producing company – not to mention an esteemed and profitable ecclesiastical position in the historic cathedral of Rheims, were tantamount to his radical thinking about society, and what truly matters.

He had a vision for a society that was beyond the prevalent status quo – a society where teachers were respected, where the poor children and ‘scum’ of the streets of Paris were given an education in letters and arithmetic and piety and were empowered to step up the socioeconomic ladder and lead virtuous lives.

He faced a lot of intense opposition during his life, branded as he is as a different kind of thinker. He faced off against the teachers of Paris, who were envious of the success of his free elementary schools. He got into a spat with Church authorities after he resigned as canon in Rheims and as he furthered the dangerous idea of his group of consecrated lay teachers, the Christian Brothers. Within his own ranks, his close compatriot and trusted comrade Nicolas Vuyart deserted the order, and many others who were disillusioned with La Salle’s ‘madness’ left the order of black-clad Brothers. To add to all that, La Salle had completely forsaken family: as the eldest, he was rejected and banished from the aristocratic household whose name he had besmirched, for choosing to dedicate his life serving God and the poor.

He was defiant, as a social reformer, an educator and academic, a leader of men. He met a lot of despair, and midway into his floundering career it seemed like his order would dissipate from all the oppression he faced at every turn of the Brothers’ progress. And yet despite all the opposition he remained avant-garde, developing foundational theories in pedagogy, introducing the concept of technical vocational and night schools, taught subjects in the vernacular instead of Latin, the Simultaneous Method of group learning and clustering students equally according to their learning capabilities instead of letting a star stand out, in addition to other practical contributions that addressed issues in the medieval and generally ineffective teaching methods that St. La Salle so glaringly observed during his time.

And yet many students might fail to see La Salle in their life, even as they recite his prayer in class: “I will continue to do, O my God, all my actions for the love of you.” It is a short request that seems so humble when in truth it is worth a second look: are ALL of one’s actions done for the love of God? That La Salle saw the Sacred in everything he did, he was possessed by a supernatural drive and sense of surrender, that despite daily ordeals and his own doubt in fruitless causes, God would forever provide for His loyal servant. It was a sense of passionate mission and devotion that drove him to keep on striving despite the trials of his life and the order, the frailty of his mission and his Quixotic quest.

Lasallians may be less aware of the niceties of St. La Salle’s life: his struggles and his fears, his apprehensions and his groundbreaking contributions to the field of education. After all, not many teachers succeed in injecting a talk on La Salle in classes on thermodynamics and game theory; even theology classes do not promote a great awareness of who St. La Salle really was. But more than anything, the truth of the matter is that St. La Salle reflected himself in his teachers. He was who his teachers were, and they were disciplined to be virtuous souls who crossed themselves before entering the classroom, never swearing and controlling their temper, trading an angry reproach with compassionate correction, never discriminating against social class and race and religion, open to all new ideas while maintaining a solid, independent, consistent world view shaped by faith and communion.

The best way that St. La Salle can be taught to students is by the example of teachers who lead just and virtuous lives, who by their very action, conduct and speech can be distinguished as followers of the saint who forsook comfortable riches for a chance to change the world and the way that people think. More than anything, it is teachers who have to be transformed by La Salle, and not the students. For it is the teachers who must live his example in class, whether they are teaching theology or thermodynamics or game theory. It is not just his life that must be taught, for such teaching would be hollow if it were not seen in the life of a Lasallian teacher.

It is a difficult challenge for the faculty of La Salle schools. But today, on the feast of his proclamation as patron saint of teachers, may teachers never grow complacent and always seek to challenge contemporary thought, remaining critical and always open to new ideas, mavericks in their own right who never let the small details be too small for them. It is, after all, in each and every action, word, lesson, and interaction with everyone else that they reflect the very Sacred that drove La Salle to change the world.