The obvious answer to this question would be a school founded by Jesuit's, or at least one run by Jesuits. With the number of Jesuits going down, that answer would necessarily imply the decreasing number of Jesuit schools in the future ! However, the adjective "Jesuit" which characterizes Jesuit education goes deeper than just external circumstances. Let me try to find out what are these deep qualities. This may help both teacher and student engaged in Jesuit education to improve their roles in the teaching - learning relation.

Some characteristics of Jesuit education

Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits did not imagine at the time of foundation, in 1540, that many of his first followers would soon become the "schoolmasters of Europe". They were requested to start schoold and quickly they realized that the arts, natural and social sciences, joined with all the other branches of knowledge were an important means to form leaders who would influence and change society. This has given a very precious principle in Jesuit education :"to excel and develop to the fullest all human qualities". The learner in a Jesuit school is called to develop the whole person: head and heart or intellect and feelings.

How did they manage to accomplish excellent results? They ably incorporated the different methods of the time more likely to help them in the formation of the whole person: intellectually, socially, morally and religiously. Methods were adapted or discarded in so far as they help to obtain the desired results. This, in turn, has become an important principle which constantly fixes our attention on the objective we are looking for. And it helps to keep a vigilant eye not to mix up the means with the end.

At first, Jesuits believed that they were called by the Lord to guide people in different walks of life and help them learn what it means to be human beings. In practice this proved to be true not only as far as it regards their spiritual waork. The human being is at the centre of all Jesuit reflection and endeavours. In education, the learner who studies academic subjects is invited to explore or uncover facts, insights, conclusions that bring to light what it means to be human beings.

The desire to keep growing is another characterictic belonging to Jesuit education. New life experiences are opportunities to develop the imafination, feeling, the intellect and conscience. Learners are always encouraged to offer services to others. But what is the outcome? Is this service seen as a personal success which simply gives satisfaction? The learner is rather encouraged to see the service as self-fulfilling : it is done out of a heart-felt need to improve his achievements.

 

The Ignatian Pedagogical Method

 

This is a process by which teachers accompany learners in the lifelong pursuit of competence, conscience and compassionate commitment. The process implies an action over a period of time. It concerns both teachers who are called to improve their teaching and learners who have to find practical meaning to what they learn in the classroom.

This pedagogical method is built around five key words or teaching elements: Content, Experience, Reflection, Action, Evaluation. Each word summarizes the answer to the following five questions:

What needs to be know about learners (their environment, background, community and potential) to teach them well?

What is the best way to engage learners as whole persons in the teaching and learning process?

How can learners become more reflective so they more deeply understand what they have learned?

How do we compel learners to move beyond knowledge to action?

How do we assess learners grosth in mind, heart and spirit?

The three steps in the provess (experience, reflection and action are stages along a circle which goes round, with the risk of becoming a barren vicious circle. This danger is removed if the final step, evaluation is correctly applied, to give a push upwards, transforming at the time the circle to a spiral indicating the ever higher degree of growth and progress as a result of this pedagogical method.

The benefits from this pedagogical method are numerous. Contect, for example, imposes the necessity to take into consideration the particular needs of each individual learner. When teachin a language the first words should help the learner to tell his experience. Such words as "palm tree", "desert",... are to precede other words evident for British pupils. Learners are to be encouraged to reflect about what they learn, not only "theoretically". Feeling is also important. Feeling what it looks like to be on a speeding car, is an essential complement to understand "speed". Acting is a very useful means to let learners express their feelings, appreciations, and ways of doing things. This explains why the theatre and other performing arts are so prominent in Jesuit education. Finally, the assessment of all the process is not to measure how much knowledge the learner accumulated but rather how much he or she was able to grow and become more human.

 

 

                                                                            P. Youssef Mizzi s.j.