DISSERTATION APPROVED BY
_7-7-2020______
Date Scott Walker, Sc.Ed.D., Chair
______
Eileen Burke-Sullivan, S.T.D., Committee Member
Jennifer Moss Breen, Ph.D., Director
______
Gail M. Jensen, Ph.D., Dean
LAY SECONDARY TEACHERS’ UNDERSTANDING
OF THE IGNATIAN CHARISM
______
By
NICHOLAS E. ARGENTO
______
A DISSERTATION IN PRACTICE
Submitted to the faculty of the Graduate School of Creighton University in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Education in Interdisciplinary Leadership
______
Omaha, NE
June 29, 2020
Copyright (2020), Nicholas E. Argento
This document is copyrighted material. Under copyright law, no part of this document may be reproduced without the expressed
permission of the author. iii
Abstract
There was little research about the experiences of lay teachers working in
Jesuit secondary schools from the USA East Province of the Society of
Jesus. The purpose of this phenomenological investigation was to understand Jesuit lay secondary school teacher discernment of the Ignatian charism and whether lay teachers make the Ignatian charism part of their work. There was no research about the experiences with and recognition of the Ignatian charism by lay secondary teachers. This literature review examined charisms of four Roman Catholic religious orders currently advanced by lay teachers. Explanations of each charism clarified complexity and related them to authentic, transformational, and servant leadership types. There were university studies about lay college professors’ manifestation of the Ignatian charism into their work. The aim of this study created an evidence-based set of data to guide Jesuit secondary school administrators in their planning of lay teacher induction and mentor programs in Jesuit schools. This study included interviews with 26 lay teachers who worked in six Jesuit secondary schools located in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus. The study showed a robust intentionality by lay teachers to understand the Ignatian charism. Lay teachers conveyed a developed understanding of the Ignatian charism after at least eight to ten years of teaching in a Jesuit school. They communicated an inconsistent experience with Jesuit school induction programs. Creating a two-stage mentor program and a recorded archive of iv experienced lay Ignatian educators expressing awareness of the Ignatian charism can become a teaching tool for new lay Jesuit school teachers.
Keywords: cura personalis, Graduate at Graduation, Ignatian charism,
Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm, Jesuit educator, lay teacher, mission
v
Dedication
This dissertation is dedicated to all lay teachers in Jesuit secondary schools. Their prayer-filled work carries forth the mission established by the many Jesuit priests who preceded them. Lay teachers nurture the students under their care in the pedagogical spirit of Saint Ignatius of
Loyola. They personify these words from the Book of the Prophet Micah
6:8, “The Lord asks of you only this: to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God.”
vi
Acknowledgements
My family is incredibly generous and loving. I am most thankful to my parents, Nick and Barbara Argento, for their love and encouragement.
Moreover, Paula Argento, Maria Argento Perkins, and Walt Perkins provided me with cherished counsel, support, and care during the writing of this dissertation. My two loving aunts, Kathleen Kelleher and Sister
Paula Kelleher, SSJ, listened, advised, and reminded me to persist as I navigated the various stages of the dissertation process. All of them are wonderful people and I am fortunate that they are my family.
I want to thank my dissertation committee Dr. Scott Walker and
Dr. Eileen Burke Sullivan. Dr. Walker’s guidance, criticism, and dry wit made me a better doctoral dissertation student who enjoyed this process.
Dr. Burke Sullivan’s advice about my research study brought forth an enriching amount of data from the participants. I am grateful to the
Creighton faculty, particularly my faculty advisor, Dr. Candace
Bloomquist whose legendary curiosity helped me frame the aim and purpose of this study. Likewise, Dr. Michael Wardlaw’s heartening advice nurtured the exploration of my research topic. Creighton University has extraordinary people who work there. The people at Creighton
University’s Reinert Library and the Interdisciplinary Leadership Doctoral
Program were immensely helpful and kind during my doctoral journey.
Reverend Vincent Lapomarda, SJ was my undergraduate advisor at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA. He sent me Ignatian vii education materials for my consideration during the dissertation process and I am grateful for his lifetime of advice and counsel. I am grateful to the late Reverend Raymond J. Callahan, SJ as well as Reverend Charles
Allen, SJ who hired me to teach in a Jesuit secondary school when I was young and inexperienced.
The administration at Boston College High School (BC High) has backed my work in this doctoral journey in many supportive ways. I am grateful to my colleagues there for their encouragement and opinion. In
particular the BC High Social Studies Department members, there now
and when I began this program, gave me much salient advice and
suggestions. They are an extraordinarily talented group of lay teachers
whose good humor, knowledge of the subject, and demanding nature
makes me a better teacher each day. I extend my gratitude to all of the BC
High students who I have taught, coached, and moderated while studying
during this program. Their patience and uplifting spirit helped me to persevere.
Finally, I am most grateful to all of the lay teachers from Jesuit secondary schools who generously agreed to share the details about their work and their spiritual understanding of the Ignatian charism. Their candor permitted this research study to occur.
viii
Table of Contents
Abstract ...... iii
Dedication ...... v
Acknowledgements ...... vi
Table of Contents ...... viii
List of Tables ...... xiii
List of Figures ...... xiv
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...... 1
Introduction and Background ...... 1
Statement of the Problem ...... 2
Purpose Statement ...... 3
Research Question ...... 3
Aim Statement ...... 4
Proposed Methods ...... 4
Definition of Relevant Terms ...... 5
Delimitations, Limitations, and Personal Biases ...... 8
The Role of Leadership in this Study ...... 10
Significance of the Dissertation in Practice Study ...... 13
Summary ...... 17
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 18 ix
Introduction ...... 18
The Graduate at Graduation: A Lantern for Ignatian Educators ... 20
Catholic Educator and Ignatian Educator as Minister ...... 24
Calling and School Programs...... 26
The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm ...... 29
Jesuit Charism and Other Catholic Religious Order Charisms ..... 35
Jesuit Charism ...... 37
Sisters of St. Joseph Charism ...... 40
Xaverian Brothers’ Charism ...... 43
Christian Brothers’ Charism ...... 45
Lay Person as Minister ...... 47
Leadership Literature and Charism ...... 48
Leadership Types and Charism Expectations of the Lay Educator50
Authentic Leadership ...... 51
Transformational Leadership ...... 54
Servant Leadership...... 60
Leadership Examples of Other Belief Systems ...... 65
Protestant Schools ...... 65
Islamic Schools ...... 68
Characteristics of a Lay Ignatian Educator ...... 72
Spirituality...... 77 x
Summary ...... 80
CHAPTER THREE: PROJECT METHODS ...... 82
Introduction ...... 82
Research Question ...... 82
Method ...... 82
Research Design Overview ...... 83
Participants ...... 84
Participant Recruitment Process ...... 88
Phase 1: Administrator Notification About The Recruitment of Lay
Teachers ...... 89
Phase 2: How Lay Teacher Recruitment Occurred ...... 90
Phase 3: Adjustment to Lay Teacher Recruitment ...... 91
Data Collection ...... 92
Data Collection Procedures ...... 93
Data Collection Tools ...... 94
Data Analysis ...... 95
Methodological Integrity ...... 96
Ethical Considerations ...... 97
Summary ...... 99
CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS ...... 100
Introduction ...... 100
Purpose Statement ...... 100 xi
Research Question ...... 100
Aim Statement ...... 101
Summary and Presentation of the Findings ...... 101
Coding Results ...... 103
Themes That Came From Participant Responses ...... 104
Teaching in a Jesuit School Became a Spiritual Calling ...... 105
Formative Influence of Retreat and Service Programs Upon ..... 110
Desire to Learn About Jesuit Education ...... 120
Graduate at Graduation Requires Discernment and Prayer ...... 127
Intellectual Competence ...... 131
Loving ...... 132
Committed to Doing Justice...... 134
Openness to Growth ...... 135
Religious ...... 136
Understanding the Ignatian Charism ...... 143
Understanding of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm ...... 152
Lay Teacher as Minister ...... 157
Discussion ...... 164
Summary ...... 171
CHAPTER FIVE: PROPOSED SOLUTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
...... 175
Aim Statement ...... 175 xii
Proposed Solutions ...... 176
Evidence that Supports the Solutions ...... 177
Induction programs in Jesuit secondary schools ...... 177
Mentorship and the Ignatian charism ...... 187
Create an archival oral history record of experienced Ignatian educators
...... 190
Evidence that Challenges the Solutions ...... 193
Implementation of the Proposed Solutions ...... 201
Induction programming expansion, greater formalization, and consistency.
...... 201
Create an archival record of experienced lay teachers ...... 206
Factors and Stakeholders Related to the Implementation of the Solutions
...... 207
Timeline for Implementation of the Solutions ...... 208
Evaluating the Outcome of Implementing the Solution ...... 211
Implications...... 212
Practical Implications...... 212
Implications for Future Research ...... 214
Length of time to understand Ignatian charism ...... 215
Implications for Leadership Theory and Practice ...... 218
Summary of the Dissertation in Practice ...... 219
References ...... 226 xiii
List of Tables Page
Table 1. Overview of Participants and Invited Participants………….85-86
Table 2. Overview of Invitation, Participation, and Declined by Teacher in
Academic Disciplines……………………………………………………87
Table 3. Distribution of Participants by Contacted Schools and Academic
Discipline………………………………………………………………..88
Table 4. Two Stage Teacher Induction and Mentor Program by
Years…………………………………………………………..…..186-187
xiv
List of Figures Page
Figure 1. The Directional Order of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm
Teaching Methodology…………………………………………………30
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 1
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Introduction and Background
Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society
of Jesus are mission driven institutions traditionally advanced by vowed
Jesuit priests who spent ten years learning about and discerning the
Ignatian charism (Buijs, 2005; Currie, 2011). Today there are fewer Jesuit
priests (Currie, 2011; Earl, 2005) and more lay teachers working in Jesuit
secondary schools and Catholic secondary schools across the United
States (Baker, 2016). Lay teachers have the expectation to discern the
Ignatian charism and make the Jesuit mission manifest in Jesuit secondary
schools with a similar zeal of their Jesuit predecessors (Cook, 2001;
Dickel & Ishii-Jordan, 2008; Gleeson & O'Flaherty, 2016).
Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society
of Jesus expend significant resources inculcating their lay faculty about its
charism and mission (Elias, 2003; Shields, 2008). The reliance upon lay
faculty to discern the Ignatian charism and make it explicit when
advancing the Jesuit mission is a distinguishing expectation of lay teachers
in Catholic and Jesuit colleges (Currie, 2011; Earl, 2005). There is little
research examining the secondary school lay teacher experience,
understanding of Ignatian charism, and distinguishing expectations to
advance the Jesuit mission.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 2
Statement of the Problem
This study explored how lay teachers in Jesuit secondary schools
in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus understand the Ignatian
charism and the Jesuit mission. It also investigated how those teachers
incorporate the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm into their teaching practice.
Over the past 35 years, the number of vowed religious women and men
diocesan priests, sisters, and brothers has declined in the United States
(Gleeson & O’Flaherty, 2016; Tagliaferro, 2018). This was also true
generally for the Jesuits in the United States. Vowed religious women and
men have been replaced by lay teachers whose understanding of mission
may or may not be rooted in theology (Fussell, 2016; Tagliaferro, 2018).
Lay teacher understanding of charism became critical to maintain
the vitality of Catholic secondary schools and universities (Murray, 2002;
Puclowski, 2017). Just as importantly, lay teachers’ purposeful
comprehension of the Ignatian charism became equally as critical to
maintain the Jesuit character of secondary schools sponsored by the
Society of Jesus (Earl, 2005; Fussell, 2016).
Lay teachers replaced the functional role of vowed religious
women and men in Catholic secondary schools (Baker, 2016; Tidd, 2009).
Catholic school administrators know it was necessary for lay teachers to
understand the individual religious order’s charism and implant it into
their work (Christensen, 2013). From this expectation, lay teachers worked
to advance a school’s mission through their teaching role in the school. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 3
How lay teachers understood the Ignatian charism and found its presence
in their teaching practice was critical for the future advancement of Jesuit
secondary schools’ missions (Earl, 2005). This was especially concerning
because the number of religious vocations declined over the past thirty
years (Tidd, 2009; Tagliaferro, 2018).
My study examined the relationship of mission and lay teacher
discernment of the Ignatian charism as they made it a living testimony in
their work (Murray, 2002; Van Vuuren, 2017). Lay teachers have worked
at Jesuit secondary schools for a long time. For example, at the Jesuit
school where I work, there was an award named in honor of a teacher who
began teaching there in 1946. So, it is safe to say that lay teachers have
worked in Jesuit schools for at least 74 years. This study examined the
current experience of lay teachers with the Ignatian charism in schools
inhabited predominantly by lay teachers.
Purpose Statement
The purpose of this phenomenological investigation for my
dissertation in practice was to understand Jesuit lay secondary school
teacher discernment of the Ignatian charism while working in Jesuit
secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus.
Research Question
The expectations from administrators to have the lay teaching
faculty better understand the Ignatian charism has increased over the past
35 years at Jesuit secondary schools (Christensen, 2013; Fussell, 2016). It LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 4
is the teachers’ responsibility to immerse the Ignatian charism into their
work as a core teaching practice. Understanding this practice was the
rationale for this study. The following research question guided this
qualitative study: How do lay faculty at Jesuit secondary schools in the
USA East Province of the Society of Jesus integrate the Ignatian charism
into their teaching practice?
Aim Statement
The aim of this study was to create an evidence-based set of data
that guided Jesuit secondary school administrators who have lay teachers
working in Jesuit schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus
and to better understand whether lay teachers make the Ignatian charism a
part of their work. Results from this study showed the understanding of
lay teachers’ intentionality as they discern the Ignatian charism into their
teaching practice and may assist Jesuit school administrators in their
planning of induction programs for lay teachers.
Proposed Methods
This qualitative, phenomenological study recorded the understanding of
the Ignatian charism by teachers in Jesuit secondary schools in the USA
East Province of the Society of Jesus including whether or not they make
the Ignatian charism manifest in their work (Creswell & Poth, 2018). The
study identified key phrases, comments, quotations from the participants.
The actual teacher textural experience of the Ignatian charism combined
with the more structural descriptions from the teachers’ lived work LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 5
situations conveyed their overall teaching experience. Learning whether
the teachers’ understanding of this may or may not have connected their
discernment of the Ignatian charism to lay teacher induction programs at
Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus.
It was an important part of this study (Creswell & Poth, 2018).
I conducted one-on-one, in-person interviews with 26 teachers
from Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of
Jesus. The interviews examined their experience with Ignatian charism
and whether there was deliberate practice to include mission in their work.
Using open-ended questions about the teachers’ experience of charism and
application of mission, the study revealed consistency of mission practice
and gaps in teachers’ understanding of mission.
Definition of Relevant Terms
Here are terms as used operationally in this study:
19th Annotation: It is also known as the Spiritual Exercises in
everyday life. It is a less concentrated version of the Spiritual Exercises.
Retreatants meet weekly with a spiritual director, rather than daily as the
practice of the Spiritual Exercises. The retreatant prays daily for an hour
over many months (Martin, 2012).
Charism: A spiritual and inspirational purpose that distinguishes a
religious community’s purpose (Murray, 2002). A Roman Catholic
charism comes as gift from the Holy Spirit (O'Connell-Cahill, 2018). LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 6
Cura personalis: Created by St. Ignatius of Loyola, this Latin
expression means personal concern (Modras, 2004), or more loosely, care
for the whole person (Martin, 2012). It is a cornerstone of Jesuit education
where the teacher establishes a personal relationship with students to guide
the students’ learning and to develop students’ motivation for their own
learning (Traub, 2012).
Examen: This is a method of Jesuit prayer where the person works
backwards through their day reflecting upon what helped and impeded the
relationship with God (Modras, 2004). Contemporary Jesuit secondary
schools conduct a weekly or daily form of the Examen as one way to form
a prayerful, meditative practice in students (Boehner, 2012).
Graduate at Graduation: Formerly called the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation. It is a goals statement for all Jesuit universities,
secondary, and middle school graduates. It is comprised of five
components: intellectual competence, openness to growth, lovingness,
religiousness, and commitment to doing justice (Martin, 2012; Jesuit
Schools Network Colloquium, 2019).
Ignatian pedagogy: It is a holistic method of teaching used in
Jesuit universities, secondary, middle, and elementary schools based upon
the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Inspired by Catholic faith
and Ignatian Spirituality, it integrates the intellectual, social, moral, and
religious formation of the whole person (Jesuit Institute, 1993; Traub,
2012). LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 7
Ignatian Spirituality: This is the prayerful, discernment made
through the practice of the Examen and the Spiritual Exercises by St.
Ignatius of Loyola. The Examen is a daily prayer which has the participant
discern his or her conscience. The Spiritual Exercises are a method of
contemplation and prayer that commonly involves complete silence,
reflection, and prayer.
Jesuit: A Catholic religious order of priestly men who educate men
and women in Jesuit universities, secondary, middle, and elementary
schools across the planet. Founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1534,
Jesuits live in community with other Jesuits and take vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience. It takes ten to twelve years for a man to become a
vowed Jesuit priest (Lowney, 2005).
Lay educator: A professional educator who works in a religious
school but does not belong to a religious order (Fussell, 2016).
Prelection method: This is part of the Ratio Studiorum when the
teacher previews a homework assignment to guide student understanding
(Britt, 1948).
Ratio Studiorum: A book of Ignatian instruction for educators
created in 1599.It explains the methods to be used by administrators and
teachers to educate students in the Jesuit mission (Farrell, 1970; Traub,
2012). LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 8
Vowed religious women and men: Women or men who are
members of a Catholic religious order, including brothers, sisters, and
non-diocesan priests.
Secondary school: A school that serves grades 7-12 or grades 9-12
(Fussell, 2016).
Sophomore Conversations: A midpoint discussion with high
school sophomores, their parents, and a teacher at a Jesuit secondary
school. Its purpose is for the sophomore to reflect upon the previous two
years at a Jesuit secondary school and to establish goals for the
forthcoming junior and senior years. It uses the tenets of the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) as a guide
(McQuaid, 2020).
Delimitations, Limitations, and Personal Biases
This research study was limited by perceptions presented
from interviews of the teacher participants from Jesuit secondary schools
in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus.
A delimitation to this study was the difficulty to replicate a
similar cohort of teachers who experienced the non-presence of Jesuits in
their schools in future studies. To ease the replication for future
researchers, I invited teachers from differing academic disciplines in Jesuit
secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus for
this study. However, it may be equally challenging to establish an LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 9
identical body of teaching experiences in Jesuit secondary schools in the
USA East Province of the Society of Jesus (Bryant, 2004).
All participants received the three sample questions found
in Appendix E. All prospective participants and participants knew I taught
at a Jesuit secondary school for 35 years. Since participants knew what the
content of the research was and that I was a long-time Jesuit secondary
school educator, their decision to participate in this dissertation research
study may have been influenced an unexpressed assumption that the
participant had a modicum of knowledge about Jesuit education.
I am a teacher at Boston College High School (BC High). BC High
is a Jesuit secondary school for boys, grades 7-12. I have taught at BC
High for 35 years and I am a proponent of Ignatian pedagogy as a vitally
effective teaching tool in the classroom. Therefore, I was cognizant of my
personal biases when conducting interviews, analyzing data, and
determining conclusions from data.
Interestingly, as the study proceeded, I received email messages
from participants who recommended their colleagues for the study. From
their recommendations I gained two participants. Above all, I remained
steadfast to select teachers from academic disciplines randomly. And I
told reluctant participants that I chose teachers randomly and welcomed a
varying degree of Ignatian pedagogical knowledge for this study.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 10
The Role of Leadership in this Study
This study explored whether there was a growing spiritual
leadership role for lay secondary educators among Jesuit secondary
schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus. Lay teachers in
all Jesuit schools expected to make the Ignatian charism a part of their
pedagogy. It was because of the Ignatian charism that the intentional
transformation of students included a better understanding of their
religious faith and a commitment to make societal changes where injustice
existed (Jesuit Institute, 1993). The expectations were broad for Ignatian
educators that included social activism and spiritual inclusion in their
teaching practice. Both were necessary for lay educators who worked in
Jesuits schools (Jesuit Institute, 1993).
Moreover, Robbins and Judge (2016) identified a moral emotion
or, as Spesia (2016) called it, an evangelical motivation and responsibility
for lay educators to serve as ministers in the classroom. Consequently, lay
teachers served as de facto representatives of the Roman Catholic Church
in schools. The Ignatian educator’s teaching practice rooted itself in the
tenets of servant leadership as explained by Greenleaf (2002) and Pope
Francis as cited by Lowney (2013). This teaching practice for students was
charismatic and transformational as explained by Barbuto (2005).
Educators in Jesuit schools had a responsibility to transform their
students and nurture student spiritual growth (Kashdan, & Nezlek, 2012).
Today, Jesuit educators in Jesuit schools have a greater responsibility to LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 11
imbue transformative spiritual growth when teaching. At one time this
responsibility rested with Jesuit priests who taught in these schools, but
because there are fewer Jesuits working in Jesuit schools, it now falls upon
lay teachers to do this work. (Fussell, 2016).
A lay educator in a Jesuit school had a fundamental responsibility
to be an active role model in the classroom by melding Catholic principles
and Ignatian pedagogy, the vision of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Rooted in the
Ratio Studiorum (Farrell, 1970), the current expectation was that a lay
Jesuit teacher included the five tenets of the Profile of the Graduate at
Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) (Jesuit Institute,1993; Martin,
2012). Those tenets were:
1. intellectual competence
2. openness to growth
3. lovingness
4. religiousness
5. commitment to doing justice.
Therefore, the lay educator became an active modern disciple of
the Roman Catholic Church whose responsibility spread the message of
Jesus Christ to be compassionate, caring, and loving (Spesia, 2016).
The Jesuit educator had the expectation to place the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) in the curriculum
and to use it as a guidepost in teaching practice (Jesuit Institute, 1993). LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 12
By comparison, it is noteworthy that a similar responsibility existed in
other religious schools such as Lutheran and Islamic schools. These
schools expected the lay classroom teacher to include spiritual formation
in their teaching pedagogy (Mehdinezhad & Nouri, 2016; Thanissaro
(2010).
Barbuto (2005) wrote that transformational leadership and
charismatic motivation created leadership character. For the Jesuit
educator, there was a spiritual practice emanating from the Ignatian
charism which intertwined transformational leadership behavior and
servant leadership in the classroom. Functionally, the Jesuit educator
assumed a pastoral role as servant leader (Greenleaf, 1991; Haslam, et al.,
2011).
Compassion, empathy, and creativity were descriptors about the
behavior of servant leaders (Sipe & Frick, 2009). Servant leaders had to be
realistic, had clear expectations, were open to fresh ideas, and had a moral
beacon. Greenleaf (2002) said a measure of excellent servant leadership is
whether people have improved, have more independence to be themselves,
and are healthy.
Ignatian pedagogy had similar expectations for its educators (Jesuit
Institute, 1993). The pedagogy expected its educators to teach students to
seek a greater understanding of all surroundings, to reflect upon
experience
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 13
, and prayerfully discern about the course of study.
Significance of the Dissertation in Practice Study
This study added to the scholarly research and literature because
there was little written about the experience of Jesuit lay secondary
educators in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus. Christensen
(2013), Cook and Simonds (2011), Fussell (2016), Gleeson and
O’Flaherty (2016), and Sanger and Osguthorpe (2013) studied the roles of
lay Catholic educators in Catholic schools, many who had few, if any,
vowed religious women and men or diocesan priests present on the
teaching staff.
Christensen (2011) studied teacher induction programs of Jesuit
educators in the California province. Cook and Simonds (2011) linked lay
teachers to the charism of Catholic schools because that connection is an
integral part of the 21st century distinctiveness for Catholic schools.
Furthermore, they found that graduates of Catholic schools have a healthy
relationship with creation.
In a similar fashion, previous research identified differentiated
degrees of spiritual understanding by lay teachers. For example, Gleeson
and O’Flaherty (2016) found that teachers in Australian and Irish schools
greatly understood their responsibility as moral educators in Catholic
diocesan schools. This was especially true when they were directed to
learn more about the individual school’s Catholic, moral obligation.
Whereas, Fussell (2016) found that lay teachers may or may not LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 14
necessarily center their pedagogy upon the Catholic charism in their
teaching. And most strikingly, Sanger and Osguthorpe (2013) found new
teachers have little knowledge how to prepare to teach morals in the
classroom, so their tendency was not to teach them at all (2013).
This study contributed to the improvement of the teaching
induction programs in Jesuit secondary schools (Kearney, 2017; Kelley
2004). And the contents of the data may assist administrators who plan
teacher induction programs there too. Possibly, administrators may have a
better understanding about the distinction between the education
profession and the vocational responsibility of Jesuit educators as a result
of this study (Buijs, 2005).
Here are examples about lay teacher responsibility in other
Catholic secondary schools and their teacher induction programs. In a
previous study, Tidd (2009) examined the changes of responsibility for lay
teachers in Lasallian and Xaverian Brothers’ schools. He found it was
necessary to provide lay teachers a model for effective teaching that
incorporated the respective Lasallian or Xaverian charism. Baker (2016)
studied the purpose of the Augustinian Values Institute as a part of the
teaching of its charism by lay teachers in Augustinian secondary schools.
Baker (2016) found an improvement in a commitment to the practice of
the charism when teachers attended the Augustinian Values Institute. So
essentially, a key question emerged from this study: does a similar
commitment to the Ignatian charism exist among lay secondary teachers in LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 15
Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of
Jesus?
This commitment mattered greatly because lay teachers carried
forth the bulk of the teaching and ministering in Jesuit secondary schools
(Cimino, 2001). Indeed, Jesuits recognized this change in teaching staff
when they created two aspirational documents: the Ignatian Pedagogical
Paradigm (IPP) (Jesuit Institute, 1993) and the Profile of the Graduate at
Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) (Martin, 2012). While
different in content, both instruments serve as guides for lay teachers
(Wilson, 2013). There was a discussion about both documents further in
this study. For now, be aware that authors like Currie (2011) wondered
could a Jesuit university claim to be Jesuit without the presence of Jesuits
in the school? This study provided evidence to answer that question
relative to Jesuit secondary schools. It explored whether the Ignatian
charism is present in secondary schools without the direct presence of a
Jesuit teaching staff, taught by lay teachers who are exposed to the tenets
of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network,
2019) (Martin, 2012) and the pedagogy associated with the Jesuits, the IPP
(Jesuit Institute,1993).
This was not the first study to examine this question about
Catholic lay teachers in the United States. Learning whether lay teachers
in Jesuit secondary schools made the Ignatian charism manifest in their
teaching was a reason for a study by Christensen (2013) in the Jesuit LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 16
California province. Christensen (2013) said lay teachers advanced the
Jesuit mission of these schools and that the Ignatian charism was present
in the work conducted by the laity. This study explored whether the
manifestation of the Ignatian charism is present among lay teachers in the
USA East Province of the Society of Jesus.
If Jesuit secondary school lay teachers in the USA East Province of
the Society of Jesus understood their roles in Jesuit schools and intermixed
the Ignatian charism into their teaching practice, then Currie’s (2011)
question whether a Jesuit school could be Jesuit without Jesuits began to
be answered.
Elias (2003) explored the vocational purpose of Catholic educators
in a study that told the experiences of lay Jesuit educators who worked
with the charism in secondary schools. This study illuminated for Jesuit
secondary school administrators whether lay teacher practice of the
Ignatian charism was at hand. It presented opportunities for Jesuit
secondary school administrators to present guidelines about lay teacher
understanding of the Ignatian charism or strengthen the guidelines. The
results revealed the teacher-to-student mentor relationship was necessary
and critical for lay teachers to understand the significance of charism in
Catholic schools.
Similar to findings by Reilly (2017) on the university level, the
teacher-to-student mentor relationship was true for the teaching of the
Ignatian charism in secondary schools too. Likewise, when Earl (2005) LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 17
examined the roots of spiritual foundation for lay Catholic educators, it
exposed the necessity for deliberate instruction, the importance and
function of the Ignatian charism for lay teacher as minister in Jesuit
secondary schools, and the faculty-to-student mentor relationship taking
place in the secondary school level (Elias, 2003).
Summary
Following the trend of fewer priests and religious in American
Catholic schools, there were significantly fewer Jesuit priests teaching in
Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus
(Cimino, 2001). The responsibility to practice the Ignatian charism
became the responsibility of lay teachers. Little was known about the
experience of lay teachers in Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East
Province of the Society of Jesus and their understanding of the Ignatian
charism.
The goal of this dissertation provided research-based evidence
about the experience of lay teachers Jesuit secondary schools in the USA
East Province of the Society of Jesus with the Ignatian charism. The
results assisted Jesuit secondary school administrators in their planning
about the spiritual formation of lay faculty in Jesuit secondary schools.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 18
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This study explored the understanding of the Ignatian charism by
lay teachers at Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the
Society of Jesus. It included their knowledgeable practice of the Profile of
the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) first created
by the Jesuit Secondary Education Association (JSEA) and presented
today by the Jesuit Schools Network (JSN) as the Profile of the Graduate
at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019).
We do not know whether lay teachers actively inculcate the
Ignatian charism into their teaching practice in the USA East Province of
the Society of Jesus. Buijs (2005) wrote that this was particularly
important today because, over the past 40 years, Catholic education has
undergone substantial change from vowed religious women and men
teaching in the classroom to lay teachers. It caused a transfer of classroom
teaching and school leadership away from priests, such as Jesuits, and
vowed religious men and women toward lay people (Manning, 2018;
Mucci 2014; O’Keefe, 2003; Squillini, 2001).
St. Ignatius of Loyola was the founder of the Society of Jesus,
more commonly known as the Jesuits (Martin, 2012). The spiritual
understanding of the Jesuits is commonly known as the Ignatian charism.
It comes from St. Ignatius’ discernment as a lay person, not necessarily as
a saint (Traub, 2012). LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 19
Whether the religious identity of Jesuit secondary schools
continues today with predominantly lay teachers discerning and practicing
the Ignatian charism in their teaching was the focus of my dissertation
research and this literature review.
First this literature review presents information about the Jesuit
document, the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools
Network, 2019). It is a foundational document because it explains the core
formation of a teacher’s Ignatian pedagogy. Additionally, Go Forth and
Teach (Kolvenbach, 1987) and What Makes a Jesuit School Jesuit? (Jesuit
Conference, 2007) provide guidelines for teacher induction programs to
educate teachers about this foundational Ignatian document.
Second, this literature review explained how a lay Catholic
teacher’s calling and Jesuit schools’ teacher induction programs exist to
educate teachers who may be unfamiliar with the Ignatian pedagogical
purpose.
Third, the context for this study examined the Ignatian charism and
its spirituality as both related to a lay teacher’s responsibility to inculcate
the Ignatian charism into his or her teaching practice. It analyzed charisms
of other Catholic religious orders: Sisters of Saint Joseph, Christian
Brothers, and Xaverian Brothers to show the handover to lay educators
occurred with other schools run by separate religious orders. This
discussion included the rationale to involve lay people in the embracement
of the religious order’s charism. Separate subsections explained induction LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 20
programs. There were references to the Augustinian, Lasallian and
Salesian religious orders, too, because of their efforts to create lay teacher
induction programs.
Fourth, there was an analysis of leadership types: authentic,
transformational, and servant leadership as they related to the Ignatian
charism, Sisters of Saint Joseph charism, Christian Brothers Edmund Rice
charism, and Xaverian Brothers charism. I determined servant leadership
type fit well with lay teacher empowerment to carry forth the mission of
Ignatian secondary schools (Greenleaf, 1991). And finally, to demonstrate
how these leadership types fit with other religious belief systems too, I
looked at other organized faiths, Lutheranism, Presbyterian Dutch, and
Islam. These faiths have schools staffed by lay teachers who must teach
about their respective faiths.
Lastly, I explained the characteristics of an Ignatian educator and
examined how the function of spirituality illuminates the purpose of the
phenomenological research that sought to exemplify lay teacher
understanding of the Ignatian charism. Since charism involved the
interpretation of the Spirit’s particular manifestation and purpose, there is
a section explaining its function.
The Graduate at Graduation: A Lantern for Ignatian Educators
As a guideline for the reader, here are the five components
contained in the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools
Network, 2019). Jesuit secondary schools use this document to guide LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 21
teachers who instruct and remind students about the pedagogical purpose
of lessons. The Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools
Network, 2019) is:
1. Intellectual competence, which included a student’s competence
in subject understanding, a desire to learn, be curious, see
necessity for intellectual integrity, and to embrace their own
learning.
2. Openness to growth means the student takes ownership of his or
her own intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual growth.
3. Religious, included a student’s exposure to the tenets of
Catholicism, an understanding of the importance of Ignatian
spirituality, and greater cognizance of the student’s faith tradition.
4. Loving, where the student accepts his or her identity and begins
to understand how deeper relationships develop when reaching
adulthood.
5. Commitment to doing, justice includes the student’s awareness of
his or her place in a global society as a person for others including
a responsibility to be competent and concerned about justice
within his or her community.
The Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools
Network, 2019) framed the mission of Jesuit secondary schools and finds
its roots from the Ignatian charism. We know that most Jesuit schools LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 22
conduct teacher programs to instruct teachers about the Ignatian charism
and necessity of imbedding the charism into their pedagogy (Christensen,
2015; Rebore, 2012). In some Jesuit schools, the teacher induction
program might be called a teacher mentor program (Chatlain & Noonan,
2005; Christensen, 2015; Fussell, 2016).
Spiritual development of the student matters at a Jesuit secondary
school because it was the main emphasis of the school’s reason to exist
(Molloy & Foust, 2016; Shields, 2008). It incorporated the tenets of the
Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) into
the teaching practice. Shields (2008) wrote that student spiritual
development was necessary for all Catholic schools where lay teachers
have replaced vowed religious women and men and are now the
predominant educators.
For lay teachers in a Jesuit secondary school, a part of their
understanding of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit
Schools Network, 2019) was dependent upon the teacher’s on-going,
personal spiritual growth and formation (Jager et al., 2012). Vierstraete
(2005) found that retention of Catholic teachers depended upon an active
spiritual formation of teachers. For Ignatian educators, there was a more
specific concern about their spiritual formation because they must be
concerned with student formation “as a whole person” (Kolvenbach, 1987;
Rebore, 2012). LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 23
To understand the spiritual meaning behind the five tenets of the
Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019), let
us look at cura personalis and Magis, two terms that guide Ignatian
education and Ignatian spirituality (Martin, 2012).
Forming the whole person was a significant part of Ignatian
pedagogy. It was commonly expressed from the Latin language as cura
personalis (Lowney, 2005; Martin, 2012).
Cura personalis included student religiousness, spiritual formation, and a
desire to seek justice (Bott et al.,2015; Tirrell, et al., 2018). For Jesuits and
their lay counterparts, their personal understanding of and practice of
Magis (Martin, 2012), helped in a greater and better way to nurture the
students’ ability to “find God in all things” (Lowney, 2003, p. 147). To
find God in all things was one of the core parts of being a Jesuit (Martin,
2012) and the notion found its way into the practice of an Ignatian
educator (Jesuit Institute, 1993).“Finding God In All Things” was more
than a motto for the Society of Jesus, it was a core part of Ignatian
spirituality (Martin, 2012, p.5-6), and it had become a core responsibility
for lay teachers in Jesuit secondary schools (Fussell, 2016). In a reflection
concerning the ability of the Jesuit lay teacher to understand calling, Elias
(2003) cited Dewey’s (1959) claim of a teacher’s noble calling and
expanded the responsibility to incorporate an Ignatian pedagogy that is
vocational.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 24
Catholic Educator and Ignatian Educator as Minister
Convey’s (2012) survey of 3,300 administrators and teachers in
Catholic schools found people working in those schools drove their
school’s identity through its culture and its faith community. Schuttloffel
(2012) noted students were less devout, less knowledgeable of religion,
and more ecumenical, so it made the work of the lay administrator and
teacher more ministerial. Specifically, it heightened the necessity for the
lay administrator and the lay teacher to be the vessels who carried forth a
Catholic school’s mission and identity. Most Catholic school mission
statements, directed by religious charisms, sought to nurture the student’s
inner spiritual identity (Sullins, 2004; Van der Zee & DeJong, 2009).
Like a rudder guiding a ship, mission statements help teachers
navigate the development of student spirituality. The Catholic teacher's
ability to nurture a student's spiritual relationship with God is (Sullins,
2004; Van der Zee & DeJong; 2009). Sullins (2004) studied random
faculty members (N = 1,290) at American Catholic colleges (N = 100)
learned more about fidelity to the Catholic identity of the institution.
Sullins (2004) found a high preference for hiring more Catholic teachers,
hiring teachers for mission, and for additional courses in philosophy and
theology to grow student spirituality. Van der Zee and DeJong (2009)
surveyed lay teachers (N = 1,179) to understand better how teachers
influence student understanding of the gospel message and Catholic
mission. They found teachers who relate closely to their educational LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 25
objectives stimulated interest in the subject being taught, especially when
imparting the spiritual growth in Catholic schools.
Integral to the notion of a Jesuit lay teacher becoming a minister
was an additional practice of being a spiritually committed teacher.
Rebore’s (2012) study lent evidence to that commitment. He interviewed
27 faculty at five Jesuit Missouri Province schools who had experienced
an induction program about their calling and the vocation of being a
teacher at a Jesuit school. This quotation illustrated the notion of lay
teachers recognizing their vocation: “cura personalis, care of the whole
person…not just academics…but you know really developing the whole
person is a big part of why I teach…Ignatian standards, the Ignatian
Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP), cura personalis, the things that we stand for
and the mission…I carry those things out daily” (Rebore, 2012, p. 91).
The vocational fervor expressed in this quotation was important
because the responsibility of a lay Ignatian educator continues to grow as
there were fewer Jesuits present in these Jesuit schools to teach and model
Ignatian spirituality. Hartnett and Kline (2005) described a vocational
calling for lay teachers and Guinness (1998) described as the lay teacher’s
deep responsibility as a calling.
However, do not infer that acceptance of this responsibility was
universally embraced by current lay teachers, nor was it practiced without
concern of negative externalities. Kirby et al. (2006) found there was
discomfort expressed by lay faculty with incorporating prayer and faith LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 26
into their classrooms. Lay faculty worried about disconnecting with
students who questioned their own faith, distancing students who were not
practicing Catholics, or alienating student atheists. Helping students
recognize why or why not they have faith was also an equal responsibility
of the Ignatian educator.
In this context, the purpose of calling and vocation was for the lay
teacher to recognize a responsibility beyond having content knowledge
and excellent methodology.
Calling and School Programs
Bullough and Hall-Kenyon (2012) studied calling, hope, and commitment
to better understand how excellent quality school programming can be
developed. They wanted to know whether a teacher’s sense of being was
related to calling, hopefulness, and commitment. Through a mixed study
of surveys and then interviews based upon the responses received from the
surveys, the researchers discovered teachers who self-reported as being
religious had a slightly higher sense of calling than those who did not.
While the researchers did not detect any causal link to hope and
commitment, they did observe most of the teachers interviewed found
themselves called to teach. Palmer (1998) described this calling as
vocational, an inner connection that lives in light and truth. When
practiced genuinely, the inward teacher function transforms students’
lives. For example, the Ignatian educator felt an obligation to enhance LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 27
student understanding of being committed to doing justice to mean in
practice (Jesuit Institute, 1993; Jesuit Schools Network, 2019).
Two of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation’s (2019) tenets,
loving and intellectual competence, intersected with American culture and
faith. The loving part emphasized an experience of God’s love and an
individual’s responsibility to be empathetic for others. The intellectual
tenet sought for the student to grow in knowledge of cultural complexities
locally and globally. And from that knowledge the student develops a
wisdom that seeks truth. Cook and Simonds (2011) described the role of
modern Catholic educators was to help students build relationships in the
world. They concluded that faith-based principles fused a student’s
acceptance of differences and the ability to love others. Therefore, the
spiritual development of the educator was necessary because his or her
responsibility wove the values and truths of religious faith into the
teaching practice (Earl, 2005).
Peck and Stick (2008) researched and found a similar expectation
of Jesuit educators who taught in higher levels of education. Scibilia et al.
(2009) studied teachers at a secondary school, St. Peter’s Prep in New
Jersey, who created experiential educational situations with reflection as a
part of their incorporation of the IPP. Peck and Stick (2008) included the
formulation of a culture where shared religious values and an overt
understanding by new faculty members about the sectarian charism was
the foundation of the institution. Scibilia et al. (2009) recommended a LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 28
narrative approach for lay teachers to teach social justice themes to
students in order to develop the students’ capacity for empathy. Peck and
Stick (2005) interviewed a Jesuit university president who said the faculty
must engage in a robust advocacy of the school’s mission because its
identity is challenged by secularism.
In order for lay people to become advocates of a school’s Catholic
mission, they had to be good people who lived the mission and discerned
the charism because doing both grounded the mission’s purpose. Lydon
(2009) found that a purposeful conversation between religious educators
and lay educators, who worked with them to explain the charism and its
practice, produced more dedicated lay practitioners. Organized formation
programs for lay faculty, wrote Berger (1991), assisted in the lay teacher’s
understanding of charism. Ultimately, the important foundation of a
school lay leader’s character such as an example of virtuous living, served
as a model for the community and conduits to learn the about a Catholic
school’s mission (Schuttloffel, 2012).
Lay teachers who worked in secondary schools and had completed
the teacher induction program expressed an overarching affection for the
meaningfulness of their work (Rebore, 2012). Molloy and Foust (2016)
revealed in a study there was a dynamic integration of skill and passion for
the people who had a work calling. Their study did not have a direct
religious connection. Nevertheless, they found similar deep fulfillment in
their work with participants making comments such as “this is who I am” LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 29
(Molloy & Foust, 2016, p. 348). For the Ignatian educator, Metts (1995)
wrote that education as guided the formation of the student’s spirituality.
Education explained spirituality to the student first. Once understood, the
student explored his or her relationship with God (Schreiber, 2012).
The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm
The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) was the core way an
Ignatian educator taught (Wilson, 2013). The IPP had a methodological
order to it, beginning with context, as shown in Figure 1, and, like a
syllogism, had a related order that elevates student learning: “experience,
reflection, action, and evaluation (McEvoy et al., 2012, p. 85).
Importantly, the IPP did not provide an itemized list for the instructor
about how to apply the pedagogy in each discipline or situation. Rather,
the IPP functioned like a sextant setting a course for the educator and the
student (Mountin & Nowacek, 2012).
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 30
Context
Evaluation Experience
Action Reflection
Figure 1. The Directional Order of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm Teaching Methodology (Jesuit Institute, 1993)
The IPP guided students to make decisions about their education
and, from a grander perspective, about in which direction their life might
go (Schreiber, 2012; Wilson, 2013). Dickel and Ishii-Jordan (2008) noted
similar decision making with Ignatian charism when applied to distance
education methodology. The structure of distance education centered on
enabling the student to reflect and discern about the educational work,
then taking action by sharing their reflection with other online students
(Brin, 2015; Wilson, 2013).
Similarly, McAvoy et al. (2012) and McAvoy (2013) trained five
lay college professors at Marquette University how to incorporate the IPP
into their work. The trainees learned how to use the tenets of the Ignatian LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 31
paradigm in their teaching practice by writing questions, five to ten-page
papers into their class assignments. To bring context, each professor asked
students to respond: “How do I react to this topic?” (McAvoy et al., 2012,
p. 87). Each participant assigned students commentaries that included:
experience, reflection, action, and evaluation. The researchers found
greater depth of questions asked by students and higher level of thinking
transpired.
Different but similar to the Marquette University professors’
intentional practice of using the IPP in their assignments, Mountin and
Nowacek (2012) wrote there were professors who incorporated the IPP
into their assignments but did not identify the IPP directly because of its
religious affiliation. Some participants worried their less religious or
atheist students might feel separated from the work of the course. Rather,
each professor described the IPP as a critical thinking methodology that
enhanced student decision making and judgment.
The IPP’s purpose taught students how to discern about their
learning through a specific methodology (Wilson, 2013). If students
recognized the context of their experiences, reflected upon those
experiences, took action based upon that reflection, and then evaluated
their actions, the Ignatian educator hoped the methodology would start a
lifelong process of thinking, reflecting, reacting, and evaluating that
brought individuals to discern about their life and them closer to God. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 32
The IPP’s process was purposeful, developmental, and on-going part of
the Ignatian charism for Jesuits and for lay people. Here was the work of
researchers who studied the function of the Ignatian charism, while
incorporating parts of the IPP.
Cook and Simonds (2011) described the Ignatian charism’s
function as a framework to guide the student’s developing relationship
with God, understanding of the self, and a better way to have healthy
relationships with others. They wrote that when hiring, the Catholic
educator must recognize the relationship with God as a distinguishing
reason why the school was different from the rest of the educational
marketplace. Gleeson and Flaherty (2016) added the lay teacher’s
responsibility, as moral educator, was at the center of their teaching. And
that imbedding moral, religious formation into the teaching of curricula
promoted discernment. Peck and Stick (2008) found new hires must be
aware of and agree to recognize the necessity of the Ignatian charism in
their teaching.
Coiro et al. (2014) were all lay professors at Loyola University
Maryland, a Jesuit school. They conducted a qualitative and quantitative
study by collecting self-reported data from graduate students (n = 130)
about how they used reflective practice in their study of counseling,
psychology, and speech-language pathology. The “six forced-choice
questions” and one open ended question was administered twice, at first in LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 33
August of their first year and then again in May at the end of the same
year (Coiro et al., 2014, p. 48).
The study by Coiro et al. (2014) and the instructive training
explained by McAvoy et al. (2012) and McAvoy (2013) illustrated active
ways instructors taught the Ignatian pedagogy with students in Jesuit
university settings. What was telling about the work by McAvoy et al.
(2012) and McAvoy (2013) was that the researcher, McAvoy (2013),
discovered more about the details of the IPP while training her colleagues.
In other words, the researcher learned more about the IPP by experiencing
the IPP herself. Additionally, the Coiro et al. (2014) study displayed
increased awareness of reflection in graduate student work after creating
assignments using the IPP.
An assertion from these results conveyed that when taught to
professors and graduate students, the IPP can be learned well and was
effective as a reflective teaching methodology. So, adults can be trained to
use the IPP and the Ignatian charism. And that was what Rebore (2012)
found with teacher induction programs in secondary Jesuit schools.
Rebore (2012) wrote about the success of teacher induction programs in
Jesuit schools in the short run. But was the teacher induction of lay
teachers sustainable in the long run?
This was a broader concern expressed in a study by Fussell (2016)
about the sustainability of lay teacher practice in Catholic schools. Fussell
(2016) examined whether Catholic school leaders can guide lay teachers to LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 34
carry forth the spiritual roles previously held by women and men who
lived in consecrated life. Through a series of interviews, Catholic lay
teacher participants revealed prayerful reflection, a faith community, faith
sharing, and overall formation of the student were reasons that make their
school a loving, caring place of learning.
Likewise, Earl (2005) identified a long run concern about whether
lay teachers could center their work upon the spiritual formation of
students. The Congregation for Catholic Education (1988) called for
similar teaching by lay educators to grow faith, prayerfulness, and spiritual
development. Fussell (2016) found evidence for religious educators to
develop similar depth of faith formation. Additionally, the Congregation
for Catholic Education (Baum, 1988) emphasized Gospel values must be
present in teaching. It rooted its goals from an encyclical by Paul VI
(1965). Paul VI (1965) directed Catholic educators to illuminate the
gospel message in their work. He wrote that students’ motivation
emanated from the coruscating message found in Christ’s gospel word to
make it a part of their lives (Paul VI, 1965).
Fussell (2016) cited comments from Catholic educators concerning
the loss of Catholic school identity and overall increasing secularism of
American society, as reasons to make the marketing of a Catholic school
to a broader group of families even more challenging.
This was important because Fussell (2016) also found scheduling
and family demands were immediate impediments to lay teacher retention LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 35
in Jesuit schools. Additionally, poor teacher support during the first two
years of teaching led to high teacher turnover in Catholic schools
(Vierstraete, 2005).
A combination of the necessity to teach prayerfulness, spirituality,
and gospel values (Earl, 2005; Fussell, 2016) with Convey’s (2012)
finding the longer a lay teacher worked in a school the more they indicated
the importance of the Catholicity for these schools. These findings
indicated an issue for the long run sustainability of Catholic school
identity, if lay teacher nurturing and recognition of Catholicity did not
develop.
Jesuit Charism and Other Catholic Religious Order Charisms
Each Roman Catholic religious order has its own experience of
spiritual connection with God and from this spiritual connection the
purpose of the religious order is defined. This section explains the purpose
of Catholic school religious order charisms and how lay persons who work
in those schools learn where the charisms appear in the work.
Lay administrators and faculty carry forth the charisms of a variety of
religious orders today because there are a diminishing number of priests as
well as vowed religious women and men to carry forth the work (Bujiis,
2005; Christensen, 2016; Puclowski, 2017; Tidd, 2009).
The lay adults who worked in a religious, charism-based school
were the people who prayerfully learned the details of the charism.
Karahalios et al. (2013) conducted a survey of undergraduate students at LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 36
an American Catholic Franciscan university (n = 218 women, n = 57 men)
to assess the degree of undergraduate awareness of the Franciscan
charism. They separated respondents into two groups: lower level
(freshmen and sophomores) and upper level (juniors and seniors). Among
the responses for the lower level 41.5 % supported Catholic activities,
29.3% supported approaches expressing the Catholic identity of the
school, 26.3% supported Franciscan activities, and only 12.1% supported
approaches expressing the Franciscan identity of the school (Karahalios et
al., 2013).
Support for the Franciscan charism of the university grew with
upper level students. Among the responses for the lower level 23.3 %
supported Catholic activities, 16.7% supported approaches expressing the
Catholic identity of the school, 26.7% supported Franciscan activities, and
20% supported approaches expressing the Franciscan identity of the
school (Karahalios et al., 2013). Support for Franciscan identity increased
by 8% from the lower level students to the upper level students.
The results showed an increase in support for the Franciscan identity
among undergraduates and was the result of the work by professors and
administrators at this Franciscan school. A significant statistical result was
an increase in the recognition of the Franciscan charism from lower level
students to upper level students. And it showed the people who advanced a
Catholic school’s mission and religious charism were administrators and
faculty (Schafer, 2005; Schuttloffel, 2012). LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 37
When the Congregation for Catholic Education (1982) directed
Catholic educators to be more deliberate in growing spiritual awareness,
the report addressed the transition from religious to lay teachers who
began to teach in Catholic schools. Schafer (2005) cited the Vatican-
supported Congregation for Catholic Education (1982) which said
working in a Catholic school meant building up the kingdom of God and
deliberately growing spiritual connectedness to God. Furthermore,
additional reports, such as the Congregation for Catholic Education (1988)
that followed, urged a purposeful development of spirituality for educators
and students. The report said the individual learned more about spirituality
through prayerful discernment and that this process was not intuitive.
Rather it was deliberate (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1988). The
survey results from Karahalios et al. (2013) supported the notion that one
must learn and discern about a charism.
Jesuit Charism
The Jesuit charism shapes a Jesuit school’s identity. It is more
specific than Catholic school identity. And today, it is far less likely being
advanced by Jesuits (Currie, 2011). Currie (2011) cited the declining
number of Jesuits across the United States and asked: “Are we replacing
them with women and men who can keep those stories and traditions alive
and well” (p. 354)?
At any Jesuit school, a distinguishing characteristic of Jesuit
education for the teacher was to stitch the five components of the Profile LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 38
of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) into
teaching practice. A successful Jesuit school brought the Ignatian charism
into the classroom (Peck & Stick, 2008) while Catholic school teachers
taught religiosity, sacramentalism, and spirituality (Cook & Simonds,
2011). Lowney (2005) wrote Ignatian Spirituality finds itself grounded in
these values: “self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism” (p. 9). These
descriptors served as rudders for the teacher (Christensen, 2015). To
advance the spiritual work of a Jesuit school without Jesuit presence
meant the lay teacher must understand Catholic spirituality and the
Ignatian charism. To that required active prayer, reflection, and
discernment.
For a Jesuit, teaching the laity about the Jesuit charism was a
successful endeavor over the course of a 500-year history of the Society of
Jesus (Lowney, 2005). The current challenging religious climate with
fewer Jesuits working in schools placed more reliance upon lay teachers.
In fact, theologian Monica Hellwig said making a school university Jesuit
without the presence of Jesuits had never been attempted (Cook &
Simonds, 2011). And Cook and Simonds’ (2011) study identified a similar
issue for the teaching of the Ignatian charism by lay teachers, essentially
asking if a Jesuit school could be Jesuit without the presence of Jesuit
priests working in the schools?
There were data that existed which assessed the ability of lay
Ignatian educators to teach the Jesuit charism without the presence of LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 39
Jesuits in schools. For example, Hansdak (2017) examined whether the
understanding and practice of Jesuit lay teachers and administrators in four
Indian schools upheld the standards established by Jesuit priests. He
compared lay teachers understanding of the Jesuit charism in India to the
expectations of the American Jesuit Schools Network. Hansdak’s (2017)
mixed methods doctoral dissertation study used surveys and semi-
structured interviews of a combined 102 teachers and administrators. It
indicated Jesuit lay teachers identified with caring for the individual
student, discerning ways of teaching, and modeling Ignatian pedagogy as
most important in their teaching practice.
Hansdak (2017) combined descriptors from Strong (2002) and the
Jesuit Secondary Education Association/Jesuit Schools Network. From
Strong (2002), Hansdak (2017) used these descriptors: “teacher as a
person, implementing instruction, planning and organizing instruction,
classroom management, monitoring student progress, and prerequisites for
effective teaching” (p. 10). And from the Jesuit Schools Network (2019),
Hansdak (2017) wrote: “animating the Ignatian, modeling Ignatian
pedagogy, caring for the individual, building community, and discerning
ways of teaching and learning” (p.10).
Hansdak (2017) found lay Indian teachers ranked animating the
Ignatian vision and “profession as a vocation” highest in importance for
their teaching practice (p. 134). So, there was evidence to support the
notion that a Jesuit school can remain Jesuit without Jesuits. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 40
The Jesuits were not the only religious order experiencing this
phenomenon of having lay people advance their mission. Religious orders
such as the Augustinian Monks and the Lasallian Friars addressed their
declining religious order membership by relying upon the work of lay
teachers to implement their charisms (Baker, 2016; Tidd, 2009). Watson
(2007) found that there was a great amount of anxiety about whether
implementing the charism can be implemented successfully if students
were unchurched. When Catholic schools had priests and vowed religious
women and men as the predominant teachers, the students who they taught
attended Mass regularly and they had a growing understanding of Catholic
sacraments (Schafer, 2005; Watson, 2007)
What follows is a detailed discussion of Sisters of St. Joseph,
Xaverian Brothers, and Christian Brothers Catholic religious orders all of
whom have lay people carrying forth their charisms.
Sisters of St. Joseph Charism
The Sisters of Saint Joseph found their roots in Le Puy France.
Founded in 1650 by the Jesuit, Jean Pierre Medaille, SJ, there were many
enclaves of this religious order across the planet. I chose to examine the
Sisters of St. Joseph in Springfield, MA because a relative is a member of
that religious community and the Sisters of St. Joseph welcomed lay
women who had varying levels of affiliation with the order: fully vowed
women and “lay married or single women in Confraternities of Mercy”
(Cresp, 2005, p. 16 ). The Sisters of St. Joseph in Springfield, MA said in LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 41
their constitution that their mission is dynamic and evolving (Keating,
2004). The Sisters of St. Joseph have operated schools, worked in
hospitals, homeless shelters, and a myriad of other Catholic apostolates
throughout western and central Massachusetts.
They appeared in this study because from their inception, they
welcomed women who had a varying level of affiliation with the order:
fully vowed, Agrégées, and more currently Associates (Keating, 2009).
Traditionally, Agrégées were poor women associated with Sisters of Saint
Joseph but they were not fully vowed sisters because of family
commitments (Cresp, 2005). Today, Agrégées are people who help as
spiritual companions to this religious order.
Cresp (2005) explained the Sisters of Saint Joseph have a history
of embracing Agrégées in their ministry. The Sisters of Saint Joseph have
had Agrégées since their foundation in the 17th century (Cresp, 2005;
Keating, 2009). Agrégées were single women who vowed to be a faithful
to a life devoted to Jesus Christ. Keating (2009) expressed similar concern
because Associates worked in full partnership with fully vowed sisters and
yet Associates did not experience similar formation as vowed sisters. It is
noteworthy that Agrégées were different from Associates because
Agrégées were in spiritual communion with the Sisters of Saint Joseph.
Sisters of Saint Joseph Associates may or may not have worked in
sponsored ministries. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 42
Today lay co-workers carry forth teaching and other ministerial
functions of the Sisters of Saint religious order as Associates. Lay co-
workers learn “to persevere the charism” of the Sisters of Saint Joseph in
many ministries including teaching (Cresp, 2005, p. 33). Similar to the
Jesuits Schools Network’s (2019) triennial colloquium, Australian Sisters
of St. Joseph hold colloquiums to develop a working understanding of the
religious order’s charism among its lay co-workers. The intent provided
lay Associates with an opportunity to understand the purpose of and to
plant the religious order’s charism purposely with the lay person
(Belmonte & Cranston, 2009).
Lupowksi (2017) researched the presence of lay women and men
in the ministerial roles in Catholic schools, especially schools driven a
religious order’s charism. He found lay leaders such as Agrégées, must
have a conscience recognition of the charism and must make a pronounced
decision to advance the mission of the religious order by having a full
understanding of its charism. It was one of the reasons why the Australian
Sisters of St. Joseph and the Jesuit Schools Network held colloquiums.
Colloquiums provided an opportunity for lay workers to share ideas and
ask questions about working with charisms.
Next the researched showed that the Xaverian Brothers’ schools
deliberately expected lay teachers to incorporate the charism in classrooms
and co-curricular activities.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 43
Xaverian Brothers’ Charism
Puclowski’s (2017) dissertation proposed service and spiritual
formation programs at Xaverian Brothers schools to include alumni as
transformational leaders in Xaverian schools. Functionally, he found that
the Xaverian charism envisioned its alumni serving as ambassadors for the
schools once they graduated. Therefore, a Xaverian school would instill in
the alumni a mindset practice of service that would serve as aspiring
model for current students. Because the number of Xaverian Brothers
working in Xaverian schools has declined, the role of transmitting the
Xaverian mission falls upon lay teachers and administrators within the
school.
The founder of the Xaverian Brothers, Brother Theodore Ryken,
said he “turned to God, fell in love with God, and put himself in God’s
service” (Puclowski, 2017, p. 91). Ryken founded the Xaverian Brothers
in 1839 in Bruge, Belgium. The Xaverian charisms included: compassion,
humility, zeal, trust, and simplicity. The Xaverian Brothers have
experienced substantial decline in their vocations over the past 35 years,
so lay teachers and administrators currently carry forth the Xaverian
charism (Puclowski, 2017).
Puclowski (2017) noted that lay teachers completed a five-year
formation program in order to assure the fidelity to the Xaverian mission.
Lay teachers in Xaverian Brothers’ schools experienced orientation
roundtable meetings to introduce Xaverian spirituality. The purpose of LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 44
roundtable meetings allowed lay teachers to share with others and “reflect
with them on how you find God in your lived experience” (Puclowski,
2017, p. 23).
Different from the Jesuits and the Sisters of Saint Joseph, the
Xaverian teaching method about the charism includes SpiritHawk– a
student-run bible study and faith sharing program, parent rosary groups,
and a five-year lay teacher formation program (Puclowski, 2017). Lay
teacher formation programs included discussions with experienced and
new teachers, classroom observations, and required participation in
service, sports, and co-curricular programs.
Importantly, these programs occurred outside of the classroom must had a
direct connection to the Xaverian charism.
Puclowski (2017) researched and proposed changes to student
service and spiritual formation programs in five Xaverian Brothers schools
in the eastern part of the United States. When providing an overview of
the Xaverian charism and how lay teachers and lay administrators
implement in their work, he argued the distinctive charism of Xaverian
schools can be preserved.
Similar to Hansdak’s (2017) findings, Puclowski (2017) found lay
teachers in Xaverian schools considered the Xaverian Brothers’ school
mission to be of paramount importance to their teaching practice. Lay
teachers learned to place discernment of the Xaverian Brothers charism at
the centrality of the teaching practice and was similar to the expectations LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 45
of the Sisters of Saint Joseph (Cresp, 2005), the Jesuits (Coiro et al.,2014;
Dickel, 20008; Fussell, 2016; Hansdak, 2017), and the Christian Brothers
(Watson, 2007).
Having examined the Jesuit, Sisters of St. Joseph, and Xaverian
Brothers’ charisms, let us look at the Christian Brothers’ charism and how
it is practice by lay teachers.
Christian Brothers’ Charism
The charism of Brother Edmund Rice drives the Christian Brothers
pedagogy. His experience with the Holy Spirit began to guide him to
educate the poor, mainly boys. Today, it addresses student spiritual
poverty. Since its formation, the Edmund Rice Education expanded to
include a holistic education, service to others, pastoral care, reaching out
to people on the margins, and being just (Finn, 2013; Watson, 2007). From
their founding through the late 1980’s, Christian Brothers transmitted the
Brother Edmund Rice charism (Finn, 2013). Today the charism has
broadened to include lay teachers and lay administrators (Watson, 2007).
The Christian Brothers recognized that lay people must learn to inculcate
the Edmund Rice charism into their teaching and carry it forth because
there were no longer enough Christian Brothers to do that work (Finn,
2013).
Watson (2007) researched a case study and examined the
leadership role of lay principals in three Christian Brothers schools. Using
questionnaires and interviews, he wrote the major concern for the LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 46
Christian Brothers was that if lay teachers and administrators were not
fully invested in advancing the charism, then could a Christian Brothers
school claim to be a Christian Brothers’ school? Watson’s (2007)
dissertation addressed this concern stating instruction of lay teachers about
the purpose of the Edmund Rice charism in Christian Brothers schools
was critical for their survival.
Wallace (1995) identified similar sentiment about the importance
of lay teachers and lay school leaders about transmitting charisms in
Catholic schools. He found 70% of lay principals in Catholic schools said
they felt inadequately prepared to lead on spiritual issues in Catholic
schools. In the same manner, Watson’s (2007) study revealed Christian
Brothers’ school principals, who promoted instruction about the Edmund
Rice charism, saw an improvement charism understanding in school
activities and in teaching practices. However, Watson (2007) found a
varying degree of implementation from one school to the next, especially
when reaching out to the students identified as being spiritually poor.
Nevertheless, by placing recognition of the charism at the center of a lay
teacher’s practice, there was a noticeable improvement in its presence in
schools. The role of the lay teacher to extend the charism meant the lay
teacher carried an additional ministerial responsibility. The next section
discusses this new additional duty for lay teachers.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 47
Lay Person as Minister
Watson (2007) cited a 2001 National Church Life Survey that revealed
only 5.6% of boys and girls, aged 15-19, regularly attended church of kind
(p. 182). He said this low participation rate by students may have a causal
link to the varying degree of implementation of the Edmund Rice charism
in Christian Brothers schools for administrators and teachers.
Accordingly, the ministerial function of adults in the Christian
Brothers schools was similar to the responsibility of Associates in Sister of
Saint Joseph schools and lay teachers in Jesuit and Xaverian schools.
Schuttloffel (2012) wrote that at the ecclesial center of the mission for all
Catholic schools was the responsibility to assist parents in faith formation
of their children. If church attendance was so low, then the faith formation
may have a hollow meaning for students.
The necessity for lay teachers to incorporate charism into their
teaching practice was evident from Baker’s (2016) study of the
Augustinian charism and Tidd’s (2009) research about the Lasallian
charism in universities. Both works solidified the importance of knowing
whether lay teachers embraced the charism in Catholic secondary schools.
Lydon (2009) cited evidence from the transmission of the Salesian
charism from Salesian priests to lay teachers as concerning and necessary
for further study.
Cook and Simonds (2011) identified religious order charism as
bringing forth an outward look and sharing of one’s spiritual talents with LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 48
society. Their examination of the changing role of charism in the modern
era presented a new ministerial framework based upon ecclesial
publications, research scholarship, and current practice. They intentionally
synthesized the expectation of Catholic universities and ministerial
responsibility of lay educators to the students’ relationship with God, other
people, and self.
The question of whether it was possible to operate a school based
upon the charism of a Catholic religious order without the presence of
vowed religious women and men remains an overarching question
(Schafer, 2005). It follows then, whether lay teacher could educate
students comparably to the way a teacher from a vowed religious order
would educate them. That understanding about the understanding of the
charism’s tenets remained an open question. For a lay teacher to bring a
spiritual charism into the teaching practice required background
knowledge, discernment, and leadership. This next section considers
leadership literature and charism.
Leadership Literature and Charism
Belmonte and Cranston (2009) found the promotion of a faith
community was the primary responsibility for all educators in Catholic
schools and it is led by principals. They wrote this responsibility fell upon
the leadership responsibilities of lay teachers and administrators. Hoch et
al. (2018) conducted a meta-analysis of ethical, servant, and authentic
leadership to learn more about leadership approaches. They found leaders LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 49
who model ethical behavior and either reward, communicate, or punish
had a greater effect upon promoting an ethical climate within an
organization. Their conclusion blended with the findings of Belmonte and
Cranston (2009) for lay educator responsibility.
This section explains the ways lay faculty educator expressed the
interest of the Catholic school’s mission and identity. Here, I have
described three leadership types: authentic, transformational, and servant.
They were prevalent leadership types present among current lay teacher
practice (Black, 2010; Branson, 2007; Tuytens et al., 2018)
These leadership types instilled charisms better in a religious-
based school require discernment, time, and contemplation (Shields,
2008). The section after that examines leadership formation and charisms
because it examined the uniqueness of the Ignatian charism. Additionally,
this study gathered phenomenological data from the lay educators whose
data from interviews are in the chapter titled Findings. They connected
how the purpose of each leadership type supported the statements made
about the Ignatian charism by this study’s participants.
Therefore, to compare three common types of leadership styles:
authentic, transformative, and servant, I have analyzed the leadership
styles and the charisms of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, Xaverian Brothers,
Christian Brothers, and the Jesuits.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 50
Leadership Types and Charism Expectations of the Lay Educator
Currently, these four religious orders: the Sisters of Saint Joseph,
Xaverian Brothers, Christian Brothers, and the Jesuits, have schools run
by lay educators especially in the Boston area. I have a familiarity with the
Sisters of Saint Joseph since one of my aunts is a member of that religious
order. I am a graduate of a Xaverian Brothers secondary school and Jesuit
college so my exposure to those two charism influenced the formation of
my character and relationship with God. Also, I have taught at a Jesuit
secondary school for 35 years in Boston. The Christian Brothers affiliation
appears here because there was competing Christian Brothers’ school near
where I work in Boston. So, I have had to become familiar with the culture
of that school in order to explain the differences to prospective students
and parents between the Jesuit school where I teach and the Christian
Brothers school.
Authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and servant
leadership were types of management styles educators used to build their
schools (Black, 2010; Branson, 2007; Greenleaf, 2002; Tuytens et al.,
2018). How each type fits with expectations and guidelines of religious
charisms for lay teachers was a part of the embodiment of this research.
For example, Frederick et al. (2016) described authentic leadership as
being positive and ethical with “a self-awareness that includes
responsibility, openness, and answerability” (p.303). Avolio et al. (2004)
wrote positive organizational behavior including trust, hope, emotion, and LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 51
identification were the traits that leaders employed to motivate less
optimistic co-workers. For Catholic educators an authentic leader’s
positivity had a successful effect.
Authentic Leadership
Lay teachers used an authentic leadership role when guiding
students to understand better the religious function of a school’s charism
in students’ lives (McAvoy et al., 2012; McAvoy, 2013; Mountin &
Nowacek, 2012; Puclowski, 2017; Watson, 2007). A lay teacher’s
pedagogy intertwined with authentic leadership in this way: the lay teacher
had accountability to transmit the meaning and practice of the religious
charism (Frederick et al., 2016).
Puclowski (2017) wrote the center of Xaverian teaching training
was to build positive identification for lay teachers with the Xaverian
Brothers’ charism and since the tenets of authentic leadership included
positive trust, hope, and emotion, this leadership type melded well with
this charism (Avolio et al., 2004). Frederick et al. (2016) supported what
Puclowski (2017) wrote, especially after Frederick et al. (2016) found
themes of responsibility, openness and answerability are keys for authentic
leadership (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). While imprecise, the general themes
fit the expectations for lay teachers in Xaverian schools.
Christian Brothers’ lay educators work under the auspices of the
Edmund Rice charism (Watson, 2007) with an expectation of fully
embracing the charism. Watson (2007) found its lay principals enjoined LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 52
the Edmund Rice charism through positive trust and hope. This
expectation combined well with positive modeling, positive moral
perspective, and identifying with the leader’s true self (Avolio & Gardner,
2005). Where this charism differed from authentic leadership was an
understanding of one’s purpose and of one’s values. If authentic
leadership encouraged a better understanding of the self, the Edmund Rice
charism guided the person toward kindness and hospitality (Sparrowe,
2005; Watson, 2017). Teaching induction of the Edmund Rice charism
sought to transform the lay educator, had them embrace its purpose, and
made it a part of the teacher’s educational practice (Finn, 2013; Watson,
2017).
Jesuit pedagogy mixed with many of the components of authentic
leadership especially being positive, ethically self-aware, responsible,
open, and accountable (Avolio et al., 2004; Avolio & Gardner, 2005;
Frederick et al, 2016). However, the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP)
required the educator to reflect and then move beyond self-awareness to
action through the “unity of heart and mind” (Dunfee et al., 2017, p. 64;
Mountin & Nowacek, 2012). Action came from the Spiritual Exercises
and was a deeper expectation that defines, more explicitly and with a
higher expectation, positivity and accountability (Avolio & Gardner,
2005).
It was the ability of the Ignatian educator to guide the student to
become more self-aware that makes authentic leadership a significant style LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 53
for them to use. When Dunfee et al. (2017) reexamined the tenets of Jesuit
education, they re-asserted the importance of cura personalis as the
fulcrum upon which Jesuit education balances itself. The Ignatian educator
should engage students in frequent reflection just as much as academic
accountability. The implication of frequent reflection was a willingness by
the individual to act willingly versus the notion that action was obligation.
Becoming self-aware was a key part of authentic leadership and, as
Scibilia et al. (2009) wrote, a goal of Jesuit education was to start with
student self-awareness and move them to critical analysis as well as
encourage “participation in making justice and realizing the common
good” (p. 49).
To continue this comparison of charisms and leadership styles, the
next part analyzes transformational leadership and religious order
charisms of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, Xaverian Brothers, Christian
Brothers, and the Jesuits.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 54
Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership was another leadership type that
improved educator understanding of charism so this section examines this
phenomenon. Transformational leadership was defined by Burns (1978) as
a unified purpose which reconstructs, inspires, and improves the behavior
and effort of co-workers. A Catholic religious order’s charism served as a
guide for the educational mission and the work of the educator in a school.
Researchers Dames (2014), Simola et al. (2010), and Berkovich (2017)
examined values-based leadership and transformational leadership and all
related to charism.
Dames (2014) studied values-based leadership, the voiceless, and
practical theology within an organization. He said how a leader connects,
develops relationships, and establishes systems was rooted in a higher
level of motivation and morality. Such a fundamental change empowered
followers, especially followers who had no power. Related to this notion
was the work by Simola et al. (2010). They conducted a multilevel
regression analysis about the ethic of transformational leadership from
leaders (n = 55) and followers (n = 391) at a Canadian university. They
concluded an ethic of care was more consistent with this style of
leadership.
Likewise, Simola et al. (2012) studied the care and the reasoning
of transformational leadership. They used a separate regression analysis of
public sector managers (n = 58) and supervisees (n = 119) and found LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 55
significant, positive results from followers when compared to leaders who
behaved selfishly. This was not surprising because transformational
leadership included the notion of extending the individual’s capacity to
reach out to the voiceless in an organization (Dames, 2014).
And Berkovich (2017) analyzed 819 transformational leadership,
peer reviewed articles and 3,915 peer reviewed articles about instructional
leadership to learn how they related to school principal leadership. His
analysis spanned a 36-year period of time. While he did not indicate
whether the principals led elementary, middle, or secondary schools, he
found half of the articles signified principals primarily used
transformational leadership or secondarily, they used transformational
supported with conditional, transactional leadership as a leadership style.
For example, principals used a transactional leadership type, such as using
rewards or punishments, when contractual requirements limited their
authority. However, the more dominant successful leadership type was
transformational leadership.
To connect transformational leadership to charisms, I looked at the
same four religious orders: Sisters of St. Joseph, the Xaverian Brothers,
Christian Brothers, and Jesuits. An ethic of care for the individual grounds
the Sisters of St. Joseph. This Sisters recognized the necessity to enlighten
and transform the people illuminated by Spirit through their charism
(Cresp, 2005; Puclowski, 2017; Simola, et al., 2010; Simola et al., 2012).
Berkovich’s (2017) analysis of peer reviewed articles conveyed a mixture LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 56
of leadership methods and fits with many references to the model of Jesus’
life presented by Cresp (2005). Cresp (2005) explained that Saint Joseph’s
humility was exemplified through the Sisters’ creativity and fidelity to the
Spirit of Christ. She wrote: “unsung heroes and heroines are most often
the enablers of great happenings while remaining in the shadows or behind
the curtain” (Cresp, 2005, p. 228).
The Xaverian Brothers charism directed educators to build
“enduring personal relationships with God and with others” (Puclowski,
2017, pp. 40-41). Carlson and Perrewe (1995) wrote that the ability to
raise another person to a higher level of ethical and moral behavior was a
part of transformational leadership. They presented a model of ethical
behavior for an organization. A requirement of it was that the
transformational leader reflected the values of the organization and was of
the highest ethical behavior. Together, building sustainable relationships
and maintaining high ethical character to form better and more caring
people remained the core purpose of the Xaverian charism.
The Edmund Rice charism connected to transformational
leadership especially with the charism’s focus on mentoring the student
and nurturing the student’s spiritual growth (Finn, 2013; O’Brien et al.,
2008; Watson, 2007). The vocational expectation of a teacher who worked
with this charism–and any Catholic charism– was the transformation of
students who improved their relationship with God to become better
people (Gellel & Buchanan, 2011). The Edmund Rice charism strived for LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 57
the student to be less self-centered and more focused on community,
justice, and fraternity (Finn, 2013; Haslam et al., 2011; Watson, 2007).
The teacher served as the conduit to inspire positive pronounced changes
in the student’s behavior (Van der Zee & De Jong, 2009). The Edmund
Rice charism had a holistic approach to student spiritual and communal
development and one of the tenets of transformational leadership made
holistic changes with the people within the organization (O’Brien et al.,
2008).
Finally, the Ignatian charism had principles of transformational
leadership present in it. One goal of the Ignatian charism was for students
to recognize first the necessity for an ethic of care of another person. Then
having students make manifest that ethic of care as a mindset was another
part of the Ignatian charism (Dames, 2014; Martin, 2012; Simola et al.,
2010). Intellectual competence and an openness to growth become
exhibited, too, when the student recognized embraced with conviction, to
make changes away from less selfish behaviors (Anthony, 2005; Martin,
2012; O’Brien et al., 2008). The teacher’s motivation to advance the
Ignatian mission continued because of a Christian culture, a student desire
to learn more about spirituality, and support from colleagues in the work
(Fussell, 2016; Squillini, 2001). Rooted in the purpose of the Ignatian
charism was student discernment of the message from the Spirit to serve
others (Streetman, 2015). Streetman (2015) suggested service and active LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 58
learning was: “perhaps the best way to unify theory and practice is to
unify them within the individual” (p. 46).
Whether faith discernment transformed the student to serve others
or whether service transformed the student to enhance practice of faith
was the key practical and philosophical question for practitioners. This
was a key question because it established the basis for the importance of
servant leadership and the role of the educator to practice the charism and
deepen the spirituality of the student (Greenleaf, 1991).
A 2018 Cardus Education Survey (2019) of 1,500 randomly
selected graduates, ages 25-34 to learn about religious attitudes, spiritual
beliefs, and relationships with God. The survey results indicated Catholic
school graduates were more likely than public school graduates to seek a
closer relationship with God. And it revealed, Catholic students had a
higher preponderance to serve others when compared to public school
students.
In addition to Catholic students being surveyed about their
attitudes and whether they had been transformed, Rieckhoff (2014)
conducted a qualitative and quantitative study of ten new Catholic school
principals to learn how important faith impacts their decision making.
After an initial survey, the researcher conducted ten monthly interviews
with the ten novice Catholic school principals. Then a concluding survey
was done ten months after to compare the results with the initial survey. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 59
Among the findings by Rieckhoff (2014) was the growth of importance
for faith development as illustrated by this comment from a new lay
Catholic principal: “How can I give people opportunities to explore their
faith more” (Rieckhoff, 2014, p. 40)? When Rieckhoff (2014) surveyed
new principals at the conclusion of the study, new roles as faith leader
increased from the first survey.
It was easy to infer from the Rieckhoff (2014) study that a
transformational leadership type empowered Catholic school leaders to
affect positive change. To support this notion, Banke et al. (2012)
conducted a phenomenological study about the spiritual experiences of 12
leaders in Christian schools. Like Rieckhoff (2014), Banke et al. (2012)
found faith development was a central responsibility of the new principal
for their teaching staff and students, essentially putting the staff member
and student’s spiritual development ahead of other school goals. This
coincided with Streetman’s (2015) conclusion that the contemplative
process moved the Christian educator or student to use knowledge
responsibly, reassess their behavior, and serve others.
Comparing other charisms here illustrated that, in addition to the
Ignatian charism, similar work has been done to inculcate lay teachers
about the purpose of the charisms in the absence of priests and vowed
religious women and men in Catholic schools. The charisms served as the
Spiritual source of motivation and a perpetual reminder to lay educator
about the reason why the schools exist. Ultimately, Catholic school LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 60
educators who developed their own spirituality brought a central focus
about its necessity for students and it brought students closer to God
(Anthony, 2005; Belmonte & Cranston, 2009; Gellel & Buchanan, 2011).
Servant Leadership
This next part examines servant leadership and charism. I placed
servant leadership last in this section because it was the overarching
relationship to the responsibility placed upon lay persons and lay
educators who embraced the charisms of the Sisters of Saint Joseph,
Xaverian Brothers, Christian Brothers, and Society of Jesus (Jesuits). It
melded with Schafer’s (2005) review of servant leadership literature
where the conclusion was that “the servant leader is a servant first” (p.
247) and, with Banke et al. (2012), that Christian servant leaders “have a
Christ-like attitude of service reflected through acts of humility” (p. 236).
Interrelated to other Catholic charisms and the goals for the lay person
established during Vatican II was servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1991;
Greenleaf, 2002; Schuttloffel, 2012; Streetman, 2015). Greenleaf (1991)
said all great leaders were deep down servants first who listened, affirmed,
and accepted humans as they were. Greenleaf (1991) criticized the default
behavior of the institutional Catholic Church that relied upon the law first,
rather than the primacy of being servant first.
Nandram and Vos (2010, Chapter 19) wrote that an organization
which sought to have a meaningful workplace, created intrinsic
motivation, and had committed followers, recognized worker calling and LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 61
provided a sense of membership. They also wrote servant leadership was
not results oriented, compared to transformational leadership. Servant
leaders were more concerned with the emotional well-being of followers.
To better understand servant leadership, Barbuto and Wheeler
(2006) surveyed 80 elected community leaders and 388 raters from
Midwestern counties in the United States identified these subscale
descriptors about servant leadership: “altruistic calling, emotional healing,
pervasive mapping, wisdom, and organization stewardship” (p. 300). After
reviewing the meta-analysis by Puls et al. (2014) and the meta-analysis by
Hoch et al. (2018), it was apparent servant leadership signified more
promise as a positive form of leadership when compared to authentic,
ethical, and transformational leadership.
Barbuto and Wheeler (2006) wrote organizational stewardship was
a noticeable descriptor for servant leadership. Organizational stewardship
meant the individual took ownership about the advancement of the
institution’s mission. When individuals became organizational stewards,
they worked more frequently and longer to promote the goals of the
organization. This finding supported the notion lay teachers hold more
substantive responsibilities in charism driven schools.
When teachers and principals understood the significance of
charism in their work, the school community grew its understanding and
practice of the charism. For example, Malingkas et al. (2018) conducted a
quantitative survey of 75 teachers at 11 Catholic senior high schools in LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 62
Indonesia to examine the effects of servant leadership upon principals.
Malingkas et al. (2018) found positive substantial improvement resulted
when the principal placed the needs of the school culture first, when the
principal led with integrity, and the principal empowered the educators
who worked in the school to be servant leaders too. For educators, servant
leadership provided benefits including trust in supervisors, acts of justice,
and positive exchanges between leaders and followers (Hoch et al., 2018).
The Sisters of St. Joseph Certainly were an excellent example of
servant leadership because their charism sought trust, acts of justice, and
positivity. Grounded in servant leadership, the Sisters of St. Joseph
charism was an especially altruistic spiritual calling. Cresp (2005) wrote
how important humility was when making the charism manifest in one’s
heart. “Humility in a leader wins hearts and minds; it engenders trust; it
binds people together” (Cresp, 2005, p. 223). Sousa and van
Dierendonck’s (2015) found support for these notions well when they who
tested a hypothesis with 236 people answering a survey. These researchers
confirmed the humble service side of servant leadership, as perceived by
followers, positively affected decision-making and action taken by
followers.
Similarly, the core characteristic of humility present for the Sisters
of St. Joseph also existed in the Xaverian Brothers’ charism. The Xaverian
Brothers’ charism explicitly humility as a component part to its core five
descriptors (Puclowski, 2017), and it included a grounding in the ordinary LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 63
which included Barbuto and Wheeler’s (2006) altruistic calling, wisdom,
and organization stewardship. Thus, it exemplified the tenets of servant
leadership.
Given the findings by Sousa and van Dierendonck’s (2015) about
the benefits of humility in leadership because it led to trusting action,
servant leadership fit well with the Xaverian charism too. Puclowski
(2017) reported a goal of the Xaverian Brothers’ charism was to have
laypeople be responsible to carry forth the mission of the Xaverian
Brothers by understanding fully all parts of the charism. Sousa and van
Dierendonck’s (2015) said that less humble leaders compensated by being
vigorous and energetic when engaging in the activities of the organization.
The Xaverian tenets of humility and zeal also spoke to the findings by
Sousa and van Dierendonck’s (2015).
The Christian Brothers and the Edmund Rice charism used parts of
servant leadership such as emotional healing, pervasive mapping, wisdom,
and organization stewardship. Since the charism reached out to the
oppressed and it sought leaders to have a collective relationship with the
community, Puclowski (2017) wrote that transformational leadership was
a better model for the Edmund Rice charism.
The Ignatian charism imbedded cura personalis in many ways
such as reflection through a form of prayerful meditation such as the
Examen, a deliberate and growing understanding of Magis, the
incorporation of the components of the Profile of the Graduate at LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 64
Graduation into the teaching practice, (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) and
the practice of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) as a teaching
methodology (Martin, 2012; McAvoy et al., 2012; Modras, 2004). Servant
leadership fit best with this charism because the descriptors provided by
Barbuto and Wheeler (2006), “altruistic calling, emotional healing,
pervasive mapping, wisdom, and organization stewardship” (p.300), wove
the goals of the IPP and the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit
Schools Network, 2019) effectively. For example, the IPP directed
educators to provide context, experience, reflection, action, and
evaluation.
Pervasive mapping and wisdom amalgamated the IPP into the
function of a servant leader. The aspirational tone of the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) matched well
with the positivity of servant leadership, especially where it aspired for the
Jesuit school graduate to make conscience decisions to be a person who
acts justly (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006; Jesuit Institute, 1993). It was the
development of the student’s intentionality to work for the common good
and the Ignatian educator’s purposeful lesson planning to lead the student
there, where further, servant leadership was elucidated (McAvoy et al.,
2012; Scibila et al., 2009). The Profile of the Graduate at Graduation
(Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) and the IPP were counter cultural tools
that helped bring the student closer to God. Nandram and Vos (2010,
Chapter 19) wrote servant leadership was a counter cultural construct LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 65
because it placed the subordinates in an organization ahead of the leader.
It was fundamentally altruistic when practiced properly.
Leadership Examples of Other Belief Systems
This study presented the experiences of lay secondary school
educators in Jesuit schools. Since the comparisons made here include only
charisms from Catholic religious orders, it was easy to infer authentic
leadership, transformational leadership, and servant leadership were
exclusive to Catholic religious orders and to the Jesuit secondary schools
included in the study. Religious orders were not exclusive to servant
leadership. For example, Fadare (2016) explained about non-Catholic,
secular leaders who practiced authentic leadership, transformational
leadership, and servant leadership. He cited Gandhi as an example of a
secular leader who practiced a religious faith but was not a part of a vowed
religious group (Fadare, 2016).
To illustrate examples of non-Catholic authentic leadership,
transformational leadership, and servant leadership in schools, I have
included Protestant and Islamic faith-based school in this next section. I
examined them because there were many Protestant and Islamic schools
across the planet.
Protestant Schools
Lutheran schools were an example of non-Catholic schools that
exhibit authentic, transformational, and servant leadership. For example,
Puls et al. (2014) surveyed 58 ordained, experienced Lutheran Church LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 66
ministers and found a correlation between authentic leadership and
pastoral effectiveness. This was true when the researchers specified these
descriptors: “being affirming, caring for a person under stress, personal
communication of faith, and connection of theological teaching to life” (p.
64).
Additionally, Luodeslampi et al. (2019) studied the experience of
four lay Lutheran religious education teachers in Finland with the purpose
to glean examples of their career trajectory, challenges to teaching religion
in a growing secular society and to assess their influence upon their
students. These researchers interviewed 62 teachers. Their interviews
conveyed teachers enjoyed a level of satisfaction when teaching religion,
received formal training from evangelical schools, saw the subject as
developmentally necessary for student formation “to be seekers of faith,”
and to “objectively examine different religious views” (Luodeslampi et al.,
2019, pp. 14-15).
Other leadership types were present in Protestant schools. Servant
leadership principles were present based upon the responses of the four
teachers. For example, each teacher wanted to empower their students to
be spiritual, peace seekers, and “life-givers” (Luodeslampi et al., 2019, p.
8). Nurturing students who become spiritual and life givers are similar
outcomes when compared to the Ignatian educator’s notion of cura
personalis (Martin, 2012; Schreiner, 2018). This was similar to a holistic LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 67
approach of student development derived from servant leadership
identified by Miedema and Biesta (2003).
Miedema and Biesta (2003) explained how religiously connected
Presbyterian Dutch schools existed beyond the single task of teaching.
Their pedagogical purpose developed the whole person, a similar concept
at the root of Ignatian pedagogy and at Presbyterian schools. Miedema and
Biesta (2003) wrote that these schools directed their teachers to transform
with a pedagogical goal to produce faith-filled, caring, and respectful
students (Miedema & Biesta, 2003: O’Neill et al., 2007; Streetman, 2015).
Hoch et al.’s (2018) meta-analysis revealed authentic leadership did not
offer better or newer leadership options when compared to servant
leadership or transformational leadership. While servant leadership stood
alone, Miedema and Biesta (2003) wrote a transformational influence was
more pronounced when a school had a pedagogical purpose, especially if
the school educated students for life. This evidence supported the
influence of transformational leadership is a substantial and “robust
predictor of outcomes” among leadership types (Hoch et al., 2018, p. 26).
And they found servant leadership exhibits strong, stand-alone
characteristics of bringing success to organizations.
Further evidence that servant leadership and transformational
leadership types existed in Protestant schools were by the study conducted
by Martin (2018). She conducted a mixed methods study with 18
principals and 280 teachers from six Christian school systems in the LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 68
Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast of the United States. Martin (2018)
wanted to learn if there was a correlation between instructional leadership
traits and servant leadership characteristics. The results were similar to
responses from teachers in Catholic schools. For example, Principals used
words like “pastoral care” and “making our practices flow from our
theology” to describe the role of lay teachers in their schools (Martin,
2018, p. 169). Most importantly, lay teachers viewed themselves as
servant leaders who built community and advanced the vision and goals of
the school (Martin, 2018).
And, in evangelical Protestant schools, their alumni centered their
work on others, making society better, and developing excellent
relationships with others (Sikkink, 2012). While Sikkink (2012) wrote that
the alumni behavior was result of transformational leadership, this
leadership type along with servant leadership was found present in non-
Catholic schools too.
Islamic Schools
Let us now examine at leadership beyond Christian schools. The
perception by principals and teachers of authentic leadership was a focus
in Islamic schools for Bahzar (2019). He studied 30 principals in Islamic
schools concerning their leadership, authenticity practice as school
leaders. Bahzar (2019) found responsibility, openness and answerability
(Frederick, et al., 2016) were similar traits for principals and especially
with teacher perception of authentic leadership practices. For example, LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 69
principals at Islamic schools said they sought to incorporate the Prophet
Muhammed as a role model especially using the traits of positivity,
honesty, and truthfulness (Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Bahzar, 2019).
Islamic schools also attempted to use servant type leadership but
that did not always succeed. For example, Memon (2011) studied four
Islamic schools in Toronto and used focus groups with head teachers and
administrators. He noted there was no accredited Islamic teacher program
in North America, despite the existence of Islamic schools there for the
past 70 years. The focus groups revealed teachers encountered challenges
to learn deeply about the Islamic faith, especially when trying to balance
secular societal expectations, ideological differences, and cultural
differences. They wanted to have a pedagogy that provided “wisdom
(hikma) when wanting to motivate and inspire students” and showing
mercy for misbehavior (p. 292). Teachers sought servant leadership
empowerment with the formation of a pedagogy to allow for multiple
interpretations of Islamic principles, adaptation to modern culture, and
“nurturing a grounded sense of self in students” (Memon, 2011, p. 295).
A desire to have a voice differed from having the practice of
servant leadership ideals. Servant leadership was not a leadership type
adhered to in Islamic schools. For example, an Imam in Italy, argued there
were benefits to interfaith education that teaches cultural and ethnic
diversity, the spiritual commonality of Adam from the Book of Genesis in
Christian, Islamic, and Jewish faith traditions, and fraternal cooperation to LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 70
search for knowledge (Pallavicini, 2016). Interfaith education promoted
respect among different grade levels and among teachers at all school
levels. It was more inclusive of cultural and religious diversity
(Pallavicini, 2016). This was positively presented as an example of
authentic leadership explained by Bahzar (2019), and Pallavicini (2016)
explained, it prevented the growth of Islamic fundamentalism because it
erased assumptions previous philosophies were problematic. Such a
positive philosophy of study urged the establishment of better
relationships revealed a higher preponderance that authentic leadership
was a style prevalent in Islamic schools (Avolio & Gardner, 2005;
Memon, 2011; Pallavicini, 2016).
The teachers interviewed by Memon (2011) wanted to teach their
students more about other cultures because they believed it would enhance
student relationship with Allah. Essentially Pallavicini (2016) expressed a
similar desire to enhance student understanding and respect for other
cultures. But the decision making to achieve those goals were beyond the
power of the classroom teacher. This differed from findings by Taylor et
al. (2007) who concluded after a quantitative study of 715 public school
elementary, middle, and high school principals who practiced encouraging
the heart and built a teaching staff which understands students and each
other better.
Teachers in the Islamic schools wanted flexibility to pursue a local
interpretation of the Islam within the parameters of the faith and LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 71
permission of the local Imam (Bahzar, 2019; Memon 2011; Pallavicini,
2016).
Similarly, Fuller and Johnson (2014) conducted a case study at an
urban, northeastern United States Catholic school about its explicit and
implicit characteristics. They found that a critical mass of Catholic faculty
found it necessary to promote the Catholic identity of universities in the
United States. Maintaining Catholic identity occurred because faculty
deemed it was important (Fuller & Johnson, 2014; Sullins, 2004.Catholic
faculty who were assessed concerning “the apostolic constitution, Ex
Corde Ecclesiae, promoted Catholic identity of the institution” (Sullins,
2004, p. 99).
This was important because whether the school was a Christian or
an Islamic school, more promise occurred with servant leadership when
compared to authentic or transformational leadership. Servant leadership
empowered followers (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006), lead to greater
commitment by workers, heightened their intrinsic motivation, and made
them more involved (Nandram & Vos, 2010, Chapter 19). Sousa & van
Dierendonck (2015) connected action-driven behavior by the worker with
the decency of humility. Barbuto & Wheeler (2006) identified altruistic
and Sousa & van Dierendonck (2015) included trustworthiness as further
characteristics of the servant leader. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 72
Ignatian educators carried forth the responsibility of advancing mission in
schools today. This next part explains what the literature said about the
characteristics of Ignatian educators.
Characteristics of a Lay Ignatian Educator
The majority of Catholic teachers in America were lay people and
this was true at all academic levels (Manning, 2018; Mucci, 2014;
O’Keefe, 2003; Squillini, 2001). Promoting a strong Catholic school
culture was once the responsibility of priests and vowed religious women
and men (Manning, 2018). Mucci (2014) found lay teachers bear the
responsibility of meting out discipline in current Catholic schools similar
to their roles. Priests and vowed religious women and men represented
Catholic faith and culture in schools. With the dearth of priests and vowed
religious women and men in schools, the mantle of responsibility rested
with lay teachers.
Lacey (1998) found the majority of lay teachers in Catholic
schools supported identical religious value preferences as their
predecessors who were priests and vowed religious women and men.
Squillini (2001) surveyed 339 Catholic lay teachers and conducted semi-
structured interviews with 11 teachers to learn about lay teacher
commitment to Catholic schools and the reasons why they remained there
when salary and retirement benefits were greater in the public system. She
found being involved in a faith community, the importance of the Catholic
work, student motivation to learn, and positive relationships with LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 73
colleagues were the main reasons why lay teachers remain Catholic
schools. Cimino (2001) identified a high sense of vocation among
practicing lay Catholics who work in Catholic schools. While this was true
for all years of experience, it was especially true for veteran lay Catholic
teachers with 16-20 years of teaching experience in Catholic schools.
Finding suitable lay teachers to work in Catholic schools and fulfill
the expectations of Vatican II had not been fully realized (Roebben, 2009).
Roebben (2009) said the roles of lay teachers is to deepen students’
understanding of God, increase discernment and reflection, and motivate
students towards tolerance and justice for others. Likewise, Van der Zee
and De Jong (2009) and Manning (2018) wrote lay teachers unfairly
receive blame for the low sacramental practice of Catholicism by current
students raised as Catholics who matriculated at Catholic schools. She
found societal pressures have changed the fabric because the growth of
social media, secularism, and traditional media eroded the necessity of
religion in society. Although O’Keefe (2003) wrote about the slow
changes within the institutional Church to allow more ministerial function
for lay women and men and their desire to minister more, Manning
(2018) did not link the decline in Catholic practice to the presence of lay
teachers in schools.
It was important to note Manning (2018) wrote about
preponderance of Catholic high school students who succeed academically
in theology classes but whose study did not make them practicing LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 74
Catholics. It was a long run concern for Catholic schools because one of
the traditional goals of a Catholic school was evangelization and the
enhancement faith practice (Manning, 2018).
Whether basing the role upon moral emotion as explained by
Robbins and Judge (2016), an evangelical motivation as explained by
Spesia (2016), charismatic and transformational leadership as explained
by Barbuto (2005), or servant leadership as explicated by Greenleaf
(2002), lay educators served as spiritual leaders in the Catholic classroom
and as ministers within each Catholic school community.
Lay Jesuit educators had a transformational responsibility and an
inculcated moral and spiritual outcome for the students they served. This
similar responsibility existed in other religious based schools as explained
by Mehdinezhad and Nouri (2016) who studied schools in Iran as well as
Thanissaro (2010) who examined Lutheran schools in the United
Kingdom. A spiritual commonality between Islamic and Lutheran schools
created a commitment to the organization for the educator and brings forth
a spiritual unity to the community.
For the Jesuit lay educator, the differentiator became the grafting
of the responsibility to become an active model of Jesus Christ with the
incorporation of intellectual competence, openness to growth, lovingness,
religiousness, and a commitment to doing justice as defined in the
Graduate at Graduation (2015; Jesuit Institute, 1993). LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 75
Most importantly, the modern spiritual explanation of the Ignatian
charism for lay teachers came from the Jesuit, Pedro Arrupe SJ’s (1974),
foundational document, Men For Others. Arrupe was the 28th Superior
General of the Jesuits from 1965-1983 (Modras, 2004). Arrupe published
Men For Others (1974) to advocate for an active justice. It was Arrupe’s
(1974) call for educators in Jesuit school to teach about the love for one’s
neighbor, to reach out to the poor, and to seek societal structural change
that brings forth justice (Martin, 2012; Modras, 2004). This phrase “men
and women for others” (Modras, 2004, p. 274). The phrase is attributed to
Pedro Arrupe and it became a motto for all Jesuit schools including an
expanded phrase, “men and women for and with others” (Traub, 2012, p.
9).
The research literature conveyed a newer and growing ministerial
function for lay teachers in Catholic schools and Jesuit schools (Cimino,
2001; Schafer, 2005; Schuttoffel et al., 2012). Lay teachers in Jesuit
schools hold a special responsibility to the Ignatian charism because the
Ignatian charism was intentionally transformational for its students (Peck
& Stick, 2008). The expectations were broader because evangelical
activism and consequential spiritual attachment was a necessary
expectation of lay educators who work in Jesuits schools (Jesuit Institute,
1993). This mission found its roots in an encyclical by John Paul II (1990)
who called Catholic universities to be more directly Catholic and to
consecrate a spiritual activism among teaching faculties. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 76
The active discipleship of the lay educator in the classroom spoke to the
expectation for all Catholic schools to have educators who were
intellectual, formed pastoral compassion, and evangelized (Spesia, 2016).
Barbuto (2005) found a correlation between transformational leadership
and charismatic motivation. While charisma and charism differed, the
notion of a leadership aura brought forth from charisma and the reality of
spiritual practice brought forth by a charism, meshed the importance of
transformational leadership behavior as one way to successfully achieve
the implementation of the Ignatian charism in the classroom.
While transformational leadership practice was another way for lay
educators to be pastoral and to take on the role of the vowed religious
women and men in the classroom so, too, was servant leadership (Haslam
et al., 2011). Sipe and Frick (2009) explained servant leaders should be
clear and realistic with their expectations, open to newness, and should act
with moral authority. Servant leaders should be compassionate,
empathetic, and creative. Greenleaf (2002) explained servant leadership by
asking rhetorically if the leader makes people better, healthier, and able to
be themselves?
The Ignatian charism imposed a similar expectation upon the lay
Jesuit educator (Jesuit Institute, 1993). Lay Jesuit educators
conscientiously engaged in the context, experience, reflection and
evaluation of their relationship with the Ignatian charism in their teaching
practice. It was an expected outcome of lay teachers making the IPP a part LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 77
of their teaching practice. Cook and Simonds (2011) concluded that
Catholic schools must weave together societal norms with the Catholic
belief system. By engaging in this action, a reassertion of John Paul II’s
(1990) call to faith action for universities takes place. Lydon (2009)
concluded that tracking student engagement with a religious order’s
charism unearthed the foundation of Jesuit education. It was also a
manifest practice that came from “the Acts of the Apostles” (Lydon, 2009,
p. 54).
Spirituality
Janse van Rensburg, et al. (2015) separated spirituality from
religion in a study to establish component definitions. Their distinctions
for spirituality included a journey, relationships, and one being spiritually
holistic that included a recognition that “surpasses ordinary awareness” (p.
1840). They concluded a definition of spirituality, measured across
cultures and belief systems, include a condition, character or tendency
concerned with a soul or a spirit. The authors explicitly stated this was not
a tangible construct. Religion, by contrast, was a more formal practice,
such as a monotheism in a western Christian sense and in Islam. They
added polytheistic practices of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism
included similar formality.
Separating the two concepts, spirituality from religion, was
important for this study because Ignatian pedagogy required the deeper
examination of spiritual development in many ways such as on retreats, in LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 78
prayer, at liturgy, or in other grace-filled moments (Graduate at
Graduation, 2015). The notion fit well with the original intention of the
St. Ignatius to “pray on the run” rather than at a formal location (Lowney,
2003, p. 139). And, Padberg (1996) wrote that to make the Ignatian
charism manifest into work “the faith that seeks justice is a faith that
inseparably engages other traditions in dialogue and evangelizes cultures”
(p. 60).
Salsman et al. (2005) found a link to spirituality and religion was
optimism and social support. Optimism and social support mediated a
relationship between intrinsic religiousness in comparison to three
variables: satisfaction with life, psychological distress, and prayer
fulfillment. Optimistic and social spirituality produced higher responses
from among college students in comparison to psychological distress.
These findings supported the religious component of the Graduation at
Graduation (2015) in the expectation the student recognized the spiritual
part of being human was fundamental.
For the Jesuit educator, guiding a student to find God in all things
was a feature of teaching that addresses many facets of the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019). Being open to
growth was apparent when teaching. This tenet included reflection on
experiences to form future decisions for the student (Rebore, 2012). Baker
(2016) found a similar application of the Augustinian charism and the
necessity to develop the student beyond his or her academic work. The LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 79
spiritual relationship with God became what Groome (1991) called: “a
general style of action” (p. 60). That style of action requires the teacher to
open the eyes of students to the gospel message.
Students who reflected and discerned developed a spiritual
relationship with God. Reflection was a significant activity of Ignatian
pedagogy (Reilly, 2017). Discernment through prayer was necessary
because it bridged what God guided the lay Ignatian teacher to do next.
And for students, experience, reflection, and action were ultimately
formative parts for development of their moral conscience with the teacher
serving as a guide. Shields (2008) and Elias (2003) explained why the
development of spirituality leads to a deliberate vocational commitment
for the lay Catholic teacher. The lay Catholic teacher became a spiritual
role model and, in some cases, a spiritual mentor (Murray, 2002).
To assure the appropriate student spiritual development, teacher induction
programs included mentor training. Induction programs transformed the
lay teacher’s professional identity into that of role model and minister
(Gleeson & O’Flaherty, 2016).
Examining the professional identity of the lay teacher’s role in the
Catholic school better clarified the spiritual responsibility placed upon
educators. They now carried the mantle of advancing the charism in the
absence of priests and vowed religious women and men in Catholic
schools. In a questionnaire survey of 1,290 university lay faculty at 100
Catholic colleges and universities in the United States, Sullins (2004) LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 80
found aspiration and length of time in Catholic education motivated lay
faculty worked to advance the mission of Catholic education. Most
importantly, the religious identity of the educational institution lay faculty
came through that they lived and breathed as role models of the charism.
Summary
The role of the lay educator in a Jesuit secondary school continued
to grow in importance, especially with the diminished presence of Jesuits
priests in schools. The literature showed induction programs had a positive
influence upon the development of a lay teacher’s understanding of
making charism and mission a part of their teaching. There have been
studies of Jesuit secondary school teacher induction programs whose
purpose taught the Ignatian charism and Ignatian pedagogy.
There were university studies about the inculcation of the Ignatian
charism by college professors into their work at Jesuit colleges and
universities. A continued awareness of the presence of the Ignatian
charism in the teaching practice was necessary given the continued
diminishment of ordained Jesuit priests present in Jesuit secondary
schools.
This literature review examined charisms of the Sisters of Saint
Joseph, Christian Brothers, Xaverian Brothers, and the Society of Jesus
(the Jesuits) as examples of Catholic religious orders whose teaching is
currently advanced by lay teachers. Explanations of each charism
presented here, helped the reader understand the complexity of the LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 81
spirituality and, perhaps, illuminated the distinctive, complex nature of
each. Since lay teachers worked in each of these schools, they prayed,
discerned, embraced, and made manifest the charism in their work.
How to aid the teacher to learn about the charism was the focus of
the latter part of this literature review. Using authentic, transformational,
and servant leadership types as examples, an analysis of each leadership
was incorporated with each charism. Similar examination of leadership
types and belief systems presented here about Lutheran and Islamic
teachers elucidated my concern that the reader and future researchers
might incorrectly infer the leadership types and charism only applied to
Catholic affiliated spiritual beliefs.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 82
CHAPTER THREE: PROJECT METHODS
Introduction
The purpose of this research study was to understand Jesuit lay
secondary school teacher discernment of the Ignatian charism. It examined
lay classroom teachers who worked in Jesuit secondary schools in the
USA East Province of the Society of Jesus.
This chapter included the research question and the proposed
qualitative phenomenological research design. It explained who I recruited
as participants, how data were collected, and what ethical considerations
were made when collecting the data. How I collected the data, how the
data take analysis occurred, and when these procedures took place appear
later in this chapter. Also, I presented a timeline toward the end of the
chapter along with a visual appendix. Finally, a reflective commentary
explains what the goals and hopes were for me from this study.
Research Question
How do lay faculty integrate the Ignatian charism into their
teaching practice when teaching at Jesuit secondary schools in the USA
East Province of the Society of Jesus?
Method
This qualitative, phenomenological study approach gathered data
through one-hour interviews about the experience of lay teachers in Jesuit
secondary schools. Located in Appendix H, there is a list of the questions
asked during the research interview (Creswell & Poth, 2018). Using LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 83
transcendental phenomenology, the exposure of a shared and lived
experience of the charism and the manifestation of the mission by lay
teachers, I identified key phrases, comments, and quotations from the
participants. The teacher’s textural experience of the Ignatian charism
combined with the structural descriptions from the lay teachers’ lived
work situations conveyed their overall experience. Creswell and Poth
(2018) wrote that one-on-one interviews were a valid method of collection
for a phenomenological study because interviews expose the textural
richness of the participant’s experience.
Research Design Overview
I found little research about the experience of lay teachers who
work in Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society
of Jesus, and there was a paucity of information about experiences of
secondary school lay teacher understanding of the Ignatian charism. Both
were the reasons why I conducted this study. Since Creswell and Poth
(2018) stated interviews with people who experience a phenomenon help
to explain what is experienced and how the phenomenon is experienced, it
made sense to gather the experiences of lay teachers in Jesuit secondary
schools and their understanding about the Ignatian charism. And there was
little known about the depth, breadth, and purposeful recognition of
Ignatian pedagogy by teachers in Jesuit secondary schools.
Consequently, seeking this detailed information became a part of
this study. It was why I employed one-on-one, in-depth interviews. The LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 84
method sought to learn about the experiences of lay teachers who
discerned the Ignatian charism and worked with Ignatian pedagogy, and,
as a part of their experience, the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP)
(Creswell & Poth, 2018). According to Hagaman and Wutich (2016), 20 to
40 interviews were necessary when identifying meta-themes. So, I
interviewed 26 lay teachers. While this study did not seek to identify
meta-themes, repetition of themes emerged during the 16th interview and
continued through the 26th interview.
I asked lay secondary teachers how their teaching experiences
connected to their discernment of the Ignatian charism. Additionally, I
wanted to learn if lay teachers saw the lived presence of Ignatian
spirituality in their teaching practice (Creswell & Poth, 2018). The
questions I asked each study participant are in Appendix H. Importantly, I
added one question after conducting the third interview: What is the most
challenging part of incorporating the Jesuit mission into your teaching?
During the third interview, I happened to ask this question and received a
rich, detailed response included taking the time to incorporate the IPP into
lessons, explaining about the necessity to seek justice, as explained by
Arrupe (1974), and the difficulty of teaching baptized Catholic students
who do not attend Catholic mass regularly,
Participants
There was an available population of 477 lay teachers from the six
Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 85
involved in this study. I chose a phenomenological qualitative study
because the method gathered the lived experience of participants
(Creswell & Poth, 2018). I wanted to learn whether there are frequencies,
degree, or processes experienced by lay secondary teachers at Jesuit
secondary schools (Babbie, 2017).
For this study, I used a stratified lay teacher sampling strategy in
two ways. Invitations went to and participants came from six Jesuit
secondary schools. I sought teachers from six schools to keep the sample
quality of sample size geographically broad. Table 1 provides a list of the
interview participant data including participants totals, gender, and
longevity of teaching at a Jesuit secondary school.
Table 1
Overview of Participants and Invited Participants
______
Total Male Female
Invited 122 74 48
Participated 26 17 9
Declined 18 9 9
No Response 71 48 23
______
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 86
______Table 1 (continued) ______
Participant Number of Years Teaching in a Jesuit Secondary School
40 + 1
30 to 39 3
20 to 29 10
10 to 19 9
0 to 9 3
______
Participants came from nine academic disciplines common in Jesuit
secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus. Table
2 shows the participant breakdown by academic discipline. In Table 2,
Classics means the Latin and Greek languages are taught as well as classic
literature such as Ovid and the Aneid. While Theology/Religion refers to
the teaching of the Roman Catholic faith. Depending upon the curriculum
at the individual Jesuit secondary school, Theology/Religion might
include survey courses about world religions, ethics, or Christian Biblical
scripture.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 87
Table 2 Overview of Invitation, Participation, and Declined by Teacher in
Academic Disciplines
______
Invited Participated Declined No Response
Classics 4 1 0 3
Computer Science 4 1 1 2
English 20 3 2 15
Fine Arts 5 0 0 5
Foreign Language 14 3 2 9
Math 17 4 2 11
Science 19 2 6 11
Social Studies 25 4 3 18
Theology/Religion 14 8 2 4 ______
To better assure consistency of participation, I recruited
participants from the same six Jesuit secondary school in the USA East
Province of the Society of Jesus. Table 3 shows invitations extended by
schools and academic disciplines. This table includes teachers from
different schools who agreed to participate by academic disciplines. For
example, I invited English teachers from six different schools and had
three participants from three different schools.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 88
Table 3
Distribution of Participants by Contacted Schools and Academic
Discipline
Recruits Invited From Different Schools Separated by Academic Discipline Classics Computer Science English 2 3 6 Fine Arts Foreign Language Math 3 6 5 Science Social Studies Theology/Religion 5 6 6
Participants From Different Schools Separated by Academic Discipline Classics Computer Science English 1 1 3 Fine Arts Foreign Language Math 0 3 2 Science Social Studies Theology/Religion 2 3 5
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 89
Participant Recruitment Process
Phase 1: Administrator Notification About the Recruitment of Lay
Teachers
To encourage participation in this research study, I sought support
for it from the Jesuit Schools Network (JSN). The JSN is a consortium of
the 57 Jesuit secondary schools in the United States. I sought support for
the study from the Executive Director of the JSN. After receiving support
for it, I included a statement of support in the invitation to the school
administrators and in the separate letter to recruits.
Following receipt of the JSN’s support for this research project, I
began recruitment of study participants. It took two weeks to recruit the
first participant and that time frame for subsequent recruits emerged to be
the approximate length of time to acquire subsequent participants. To find
potential participants, I visited each schools’ faculty webpage, looked for
lay teachers by title and subject area. Then I picked them randomly.
As a courtesy, the principal or president of each school received a
notification letter about my research study and I included sample interview
questions (see Appendices B and C). Following that, I sent an email
message and called each administrator to learn if there were any questions.
I wanted to apprise administrators about the purpose of this research
project. That was a reason for sending letters, emails, and making phone
calls. Additionally, I learned if administrators had questions, and I thought
such contact might build enthusiasm for the study. This worked. For LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 90
example, in one case, a school president sent an email message to the
faculty endorsing participation in the study.
Two principals and one president replied with a list of suggested
participants. I added those names to my random list of potential
participants. I thanked each school leader for their teacher
recommendations and did not say whether I would or would not contact
those teachers. Importantly, I kept all information confidential concerning
who I contacted, whether they agreed to participate, declined the invitation
to participate, or ignored the invitation.
Phase 2: How Lay Teacher Recruitment Occurred
I recruited teachers from two schools at a time, from August 2019
through the end of October 2019. Recruitment of a participant took an
average of two weeks.
I mailed invitation letters to each potential participant (see
Appendix D) and I included a sample of questions (see Appendix E). Each
invitation included a sample of the interview questions to center the
recipient’s attention upon the topics for the study. The sample questions
generated curiosity about the study and who would be participants. For
example, one participant said in a follow-up email message the interview
questions provided valuable reflection opportunity.
I allowed five days for the letter to arrive, then sent a follow-up
email with the same invitation. If the person did not respond, I sent a
second, short invitation email five days later. When there was no response LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 91
after the second email invitation, I did not contact the recruit again. A
sample of the first email message, and second email message appear in
Appendices F and G.
Once a teacher agreed to participate, I sent the participant a link to
Zoom.us (www.zoom.us), an electronic consent form via docusign.com
(www.doscusign.com), and the Participant Bill of Rights (see Appendices
A and J).
Phase 3: Adjustment to Lay Teacher Recruitment
Initially I sent participant invitations to two participants at a time
and I received no responses. So, I increased the number of invitations per
school by sending batches of 8-12 invitations to lay teachers in each
school, hoping teachers would talk to each other about their invitations.
Doing that generated study participants. Also, for one school, I tried a
different approach, sending 21 invitations randomly, choosing three
teachers from each of the seven teaching academic disciplines listed on the
school’s website. That attempt yielded four participants.
In the middle of the study, having completed 13 interviews, I
realized there were no study participants from the math or science
disciplines. At that point, I had invited 12 teachers from math and 12 from
science from four schools. So, I invited all members from four schools’
math and science departments to participate and gained participants that
way.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 92
Data Collection
I accumulated interview data over a 14-week period of time. I sent the first
invitation letter in the last week of August 2019 and concluded the last
interview during the last week of November 2019.
There were 19 Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province
of the Society of Jesus. Below is a list of the six Jesuit secondary schools
contacted for this study. Located in the USA East Province of the Society
of Jesus, initially I selected these schools because they were within a four-
hour drive of my home. I thought it might become necessary to conduct
interviews in person. After conducting the first two interviews using
Zoom.us (www.zoom.us) video conferencing software as a pilot, it
became most apparent that the content richness of responses was more
than sufficient, and it rendered the necessity to visit any school moot.
Therefore, all interviews took place through the Internet using Zoom.us
(www.zoom.us) videoconference software.
Here is the list of the sampled six schools in this study:
1. Bishop Cheverus High School, Portland, ME
2. Fairfield Preparatory School, Fairfield, CT
3. McQuaid Jesuit High School, Rochester, NY
4. Fordham Preparatory School Bronx, NY
5. Xavier High School, New York, NY
6. Saint Joseph’s Preparatory School, Philadelphia, PA LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 93
I did not include Boston College High School. Although
geographically close in proximity to these other Jesuits schools and having
one of the largest lay teacher populations in the province, I teach there. So,
it was not ethical for me to conduct interviews at my school.
Data Collection Procedures
I sample tested all questions with three, one-hour interviews. Two
sample participants were colleagues at Boston College High School and
the other was a relative who had taught in the public and Catholic school
systems. I edited the syntax of four questions but not the content. The test
participants said the questions made them reflect more deeply upon their
teaching experience and understanding of Ignatian pedagogy.
Consequently, since consideration of a spiritual charism required
study participant reflection and discernment (Whitney & Laboe, 2014), I
included three sample questions in the invitation letter (see Appendix E).
All study interviews began with a warm-up question asking how the
person came to work at the Jesuit secondary school. After asking the first
question about participants how they came to the Jesuit school where they
worked, that question took the discussion in different directions and
served to ease any nervousness of the participant. Appendix H has the list
of questions used during the interviews.
All participants answered the same questions, but the order of the
questions changed depending upon the participants’ responses and
conversation that ensued (Creswell & Poth, 2018). In some cases, LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 94
participants answered my questions with no prompt because the
conversation brought them to that question. If a participant replied he or
she did not participate in an induction program, I did not ask induction
program question number three: Describe a memorable moment from that
teacher induction program.
I emailed each participant a message of thanks following the
interview and included a link to the Zoom.us (www.zoom.us) audio
recording. I emailed each participant an electronic transcript. I asked the
participant to read the electronic transcript and to watch the interview to
check the accuracy of the data collected. Then, a follow-up email went to
the participant one week later to find out if they had any additional
comments, clarifications, or corrections.
Data Collection Tools
I conducted all interviews using Zoom.us (www.zoom.us) from
September 2019 through the end of November 2019. Each interview lasted
approximately one hour.
As a back-up, I utilized an iPhone voice memo application to
record interviews. I used my iPhone back-up for one interview because of
an indecipherable Zoom.us (www.zoom.us) recording and transcription.
Zoom.us (www.zooom.us) provided a video synchronized transcription
and a downloadable printed transcript. To improve the Zoom.us
(www.zoom.us) transcription’s accuracy, I also made use of Rev.com LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 95
(www.rev.com) to create each transcript and edited each one by hand to
verify its accuracy.
Data Analysis
I collected data for this qualitative, phenomenological research
study from 26 interviews with lay secondary teachers at six Jesuit
secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus.
I utilized the coding software, Atlas.ti 8 Mac (www.atlasti.com) to
hand code each interview. I coded each interview five times. I used in-
vivo coding to identify concepts and themes emerged from the identified
data codes (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). I identified co-concurrence,
intersections of codes. The Atlas.ti 8 Mac (www.atlasti.com) software
helped me identify concepts and, then, themes such as horizontalization or
theme clusters (Creswell & Poth, 2018).
To tally codes and identify their frequency, I analyzed the data
results to decide if the code frequency had meaningful significance.
Coding identified significant comments and meaningful themes. Seven
themes emerged and I placed those themes in the beginning of chapter
four. Those meaningful units, whether textural or structural, identified
spiritual themes related to the Ignatian charism and the understanding of
lay teachers and their teaching practice (Creswell & Poth, 2018).
Hennink, et al. (2017) found they identified similar codes after completing
nine interviews. They did not identify themes until 16 to 24 interviews
took place. Hennink, et al. (2017) made a distinction between code LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 96
saturation and full meaning saturation. I recognized similar codes after
analyzing the first three interviews. And eight themes emerged by the
coding of the 16th interview. I placed those themes into chapter four. The
interview data explained a common, lived, worked, reflected and
discerned experience of lay teachers (Creswell & Poth, 2018).
Methodological Integrity
I am lay person who has taught at Boston College High School for
35 years. Boston College High School is a Jesuit school for boys, grades
7-12. Having studied, prayed, reflected, discerned, and take action about
Ignatian pedagogy, the Jesuit mission of my school, and the Ignatian
charism, one of my biases anticipated that participants experienced the
presence of the Ignatian charism in their work. Also, it was imperative that
I separated my zeal for the Jesuit mission of secondary education from the
data presented by participants, especially when I presented the findings.
I solicited school administrators if they had faculty to recommend
to me from their schools and thanked them for those recommendations. I
did not tell the administrator whether I did or did not contact the teachers
they recommended.
A concern emerged about the results of this study because it
occurred to me the recruits who agreed to participate skewed towards
those teachers who have more comfort with the Ignatian charism. Their
understanding about how the Ignatian charism applied to their teaching LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 97
practice meant the results might appear more robust than they really were.
I discuss more about this concern in chapter five, the conclusion.
When asked by participants what I had found so far, I declined to respond
so as not to taint their replies. I was cautious about leading participants
towards answers that supported the practice of the Ignatian charism in
their teaching. I took advantage of the teaching technique called wait-time,
longer periods of time to respond to the questions. Appling that technique
meant when posing a question, the teacher, or in this situation the
interviewer, allowed silence to build as the person processed a response to
the question. For example, an early participant, pondered each question
with lengthy, 30 to 40 seconds pauses before replying. Each time I
remained silent after asking the question. I learned from this early
experience to respect the reflective silence of the participant and employed
the wait-time technique throughout the remainder of the interviews.
Ethical Considerations
I received IRB certification on July 11, 2019 (see Appendix K).
All participants received a copy of the Participant Bill of Rights
(Appendix J) with the invitation to participate. All participants signed a
consent form via Docusign.com (www.docusign.com) including
acknowledgement they had read the Participant Bill of Rights (see
Appendix A).
All interview data were confidential. No data showed the
breakdown of the number of lay teachers who participated from each LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 98
school. Otherwise, it could become too easy to identify a specific
participant.
I changed all participant names to pseudonyms to preserve their
anonymity. Following the conclusion of the interviews, most participants
emailed me to request a copy of this dissertation after its completion. I
honored these requests from participants to receive a copy of my
dissertation.
I stored all electronic files on a home MacBook Pro and on Google
Cloud had password protection. All computer laptop hard drives, email,
and thumb drive back up document data remained secure with passwords.
Additionally, all recorded interviews stored on Zoom.us (www.zoom.us)
had password protection and files named with pseudonyms. I stored all
participant consent forms on Docusign.com (www.docusign.com) and
those files had password protection as well as file names with
pseudonyms. I destroyed all transcripts, recorded data, and transcripts, and
identifying participation information of any kind once the dissertation
defense happened.
I did not inform the JSN Executive Director if a school did not
agree to participate in this study. And no school administrator knew
whether a teacher agreed, declined, or did not respond to my request to be
interviewed.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 99
Summary
This phenomenological study sought to explore how lay teachers
made the Ignatian charism manifest in their teaching practice. It captured
the experience of lay classroom teachers who work in Jesuit secondary
schools using qualitative phenomenology.
Recruitment of teacher participants took place over 14 weeks from August
to November 2019, with potential participants who received hard copy
invitations letters and follow-up email messages. As a courtesy, mailed
letters and email messages informed school administrators about the study.
I collected all data through 26 one-on-one interviews of lay
secondary teachers from six Jesuit Schools in the USA East Province of
the Society of Jesus. The online video software, Zoom.us (www.zoom.us),
recorded the interviews while interview transcription took place using
Rev.com (www.rev.com). As a recording back-up, an Apple iPhone memo
function recorded interviews too. All transcript data received hand editing
and coding. The computer software program, Atlas ti 8 Mac
(www.atlasti.com), helped me analyze codes and recognize emergent
themes.
The next chapter shows the findings from this research study. It
provides rich data from interview participants about their experience
discerning the Ignatian charism while working in a Jesuit school. And it
supplies analysis of the interview data and communicates seven themes
that emerged from the analysis of the data. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 100
CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS
Introduction
The analysis results appear in this chapter. They come from
interviews of 26 lay teachers who teach in six Jesuit secondary schools in
the USA Northeast Province. The purpose statement, aim statement, and
summary findings follow. The data produced eight themes. Examples
from the interview data appeared in the summary and findings section.
Purpose Statement
The purpose of this phenomenological investigation for my
dissertation in practice was to understand Jesuit lay secondary school
teacher discernment of the Ignatian charism while working in Jesuit
secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus.
Research Question
The expectations from administrators of lay teaching faculty at
Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus
to understand the Ignatian charism has increased over the past 35 years
(Christensen, 2013; Fussell, 2016). It is the teachers’ responsibility to
immerse the Ignatian charism into their work as a core teaching practice.
Understanding this practice was the rationale for this study. The following
research question guided this qualitative study: How do lay faculty
integrate the Ignatian charism into their teaching practice when teaching at
Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of
Jesus? LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 101
Aim Statement
The aim of this study was to create an evidence-based set of data
that guided Jesuit secondary school administrators who have lay teachers
working in Jesuit schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus
to better understand whether lay teachers make the Ignatian charism a part
of their work. Understanding the intentionality of lay teachers working in
Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus
in-order-to explain how they understand the Ignatian charism when they
teach was a part of it.
Summary and Presentation of the Findings
I invited 122 teachers in Jesuit secondary schools to participate in
the study. There was a 22% participation yield from those invitations,
producing 26 participants. Participants averaged 18.1 years of teaching in
Jesuit schools. The range of teaching experience for participants was four
to 44 years. The participant with four years of teaching experience in a
Jesuit school had studied for four years at a Jesuit high school and four
years at a Jesuit undergraduate college.
Participant lay teachers may or may not have participated in a
Jesuit teacher induction program. Teachers who had more than 20 years of
experience, generally had not participated in a formal teacher induction
program. Rather, they learned more about the Ignatian charism through
Jesuit secondary school colloquiums, their school’s Kairos retreat
program, Ignatian Evenings, 19th Annotation Retreats, or by reading LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 102
foundational documents such as Go Forth and Teach (Kolvenbach, 1987),
What Makes a Jesuit School Jesuit? (Jesuit Conference, 2007), or pursuing
Ignatian Spirituality through deeper prayer (Bangasser, 2012).
Most Jesuit secondary schools required induction programs for lay
teachers, especially during the early part of their teaching experience
(Christensen, 2013) but the type and contents of each program varied for
each school in this province. For example, Boston College High School
required teachers who were new to the school to participate in a two-year
teacher induction program regardless of their teaching experience and
Fairfield Preparatory School required its new teachers to participate in a
five-year induction program (Rebore, 2012). Most induction programs
lasted one to three years.
Because teachers at Jesuit secondary school had a shared
experience of the Ignatian charism from working in the school
environment, this study centered upon whether the Ignatian charism
manifested itself in their work. Their experiences contributed to the shared
fabric of lay teacher understanding of the Ignatian charism (Currie, 2011).
Lay teacher study participants revealed whether they had been
prepared to carry forth the Ignatian charism. Their agency to advance the
Jesuit mission of the school was complex and critical to the long run
success of Jesuit schools and all Catholic schools (Whitney & Laboe,
2014). This was especially true because there were fewer priests and LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 103
vowed religious women and men working in all Catholic schools in the
United States (Buijs, 2005; Currie, 2011),
Preceding the findings is an explanation about the coding of the data. That
explanation appears next.
Coding Results
I coded and wrote memos for all 26 interviews once the final
interview occurred. After analyzing the interview data five times, I
identified 157 codes. These codes appeared most frequently from the
interview data: Ignatian (n = 1190, Jesuit (n = 765), mission recognition (n
= 485), education of charism (n = 400), spirituality (n = 399), charism (n =
393), Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) reference (n = 350), and
Graduate at Graduation (n = 338).
These results began to confirm that lay teachers sought to advance
the Jesuit mission of the secondary school. Six teachers did not understand
what the Ignatian charism was, nor did they recognize it in their teaching
practice.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 104
Themes That Came From Participant Responses
After analyzing the date from 26 participant interviews, seven themes
emerged about lay teacher understanding of the Ignatian charism. Here is a
list that parses out their understanding from this data:
1. Teaching in a Jesuit school became a spiritual calling for lay
teachers.
2. The formative influence of retreat and service programs upon the
teacher’s recognition of the Ignatian charism in their teaching.
3. Desire to learn more about the Ignatian education– especially once
the teacher learned some of the Jesuit terminology such as cura
personalis and Magis.
4. The Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools
Network, 2019) required prayer, discernment, and time to learn
and incorporate into the teaching craft.
5. Lay teacher understanding of the Ignatian charism and time frame
to learn about the Ignatian charism.
6. Lay teacher understanding of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm
(IPP).
7. Love and care for the student catalyzed a ministerial function for
the lay teacher.
8. An explanation about each theme from the data findings appears
next. Each explanation LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 105
has supportive quotations from the interview data. And each theme
follows according the list presented above.
Teaching in a Jesuit School Became a Spiritual Calling
One interpretation of a spiritual calling means a person discerns
and moves beyond occupation or career to something greater in service to
God (Martin, 2012). There were 12 participants who described their
decision to work in a Jesuit secondary school as a calling and six
described it as an awakening.
There were teachers who described their decision to continue to
work in a Jesuit secondary school as a calling. Teachers from foreign
language, math, social studies, science, and theology departments said
their teaching role was a calling or a spiritual responsibility. Here are
examples:
Participant 81 had taught for over 15 years in a Jesuit secondary
school. As a science and as an Ignatian educator, this teacher related his
work as a calling:
We had a faculty day retreat where we went to a soup
kitchen. I worked so hard …But in that, feeding God's
people was a profound event. Do I want to do that every
year? No. But it helped me to realize our calling is a lot
more than just teaching a subject. It's about affecting the
world. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 106
Likewise, Participant 87, a social studies teacher who had taught for over
25 years in a Jesuit secondary school, directly described his work as a
calling:
It has to be kind of like an act of calling. It takes a while to figure out...I
think it's the greatest challenge trying to like, come alive, because you’ve
really got to deal with 135 personalities in a day.
I asked participants about their understanding of the Ignatian
charism. Their responses included comments about spirituality and a deep
explanation about their intertwining of teaching and spiritual
responsibility. Participant 106’s comment illustrated this idea, “Ignatian
spirituality is calling for being deeply attentive to the interior life, and also
to how God is moving in the exterior world.” Participant 106 was a
theology teacher with over ten years of teaching experience in a Jesuit
secondary school as was Participant 104 who had taught for an even
longer time, over 25 years in a Jesuit school. When answering about his
understanding about the presence of the Ignatian charism in his teaching,
Participant 104 said:
That's what's made it rewarding, is trying to live up to these ideals,
to live out this calling that I think Ignatius extends to anybody who wants
to be part of this order, and its mission. It's life-giving. It's challenging.
Again, it allows me to be open to everything, and then to try to understand
the world and my own experience through it. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 107
There was comfort when relating the presence of Jesus, Christian
spirituality, and religious charism to the teaching practice. Participant 3, a
foreign language teacher, was a fine example of this. She had over five
years teaching in a Jesuit secondary school and spoke directly about a
relationship with Jesus as well as indirectly about the Ignatian charism:
I take it back to Jesus’ last words. Go and make disciples of
all nations and teaching them to obey everything I have
commanded you, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, and surely, I'll be with you to the very
end of the age. That to me is the mission. And that's an
amazing mission. What an amazing calling you know and it
does fit in with a person for others.
Seventeen participants spoke animatedly about an awakening and
the religious effect of teaching at a Jesuit school. Participant 106
encapsulated that sentiment this way: “I know this might sound pious, but
forming people to transform the world, to do their part in bringing about
the Kingdom of God. And I believe that at their best, that's what we do.”
Recognizing the presence of God in the teacher’s work was a common
theme among participants. There was a hopeful, spiritual, aspirational
message expressed by Participant 106 that melded with this comment
about serving God expressed by Participant 81, a science teacher, "Maybe
you realized that you're going to be here for a little while, what keeps you LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 108
going, what keeps you moving, there's some sort of epiphany that goes on.
There's some sort of divine intervention that you're part of a divine plan.”
Similarly, Participant 8 described his calling more as a spiritual
rousing. He was a foreign language teacher with less than five years
teaching experience in a Jesuit secondary school. He recognized the
unique purpose of the charism in his teaching when speaking with more
experienced teachers at his school and recognizing a spiritual presence
among his students:
There was excitement for teachers who recognized this
awakening, I don't know, it's just really opened my eyes to
a deeper understanding of who these guys are and that's
helped, it helped me to, I mean, at least to touch upon. The
loving, the opening growth. I mean, religious, I mean,
everything is almost intertwined and those different
experiences that you can, you can have with the boys.
Participant 61, an English teacher, described a spiritual experience
that helped her understand teaching in a Jesuit school involved emotion as
well as knowledge of the subject matter. She said:
I think that Kairos was a watershed for me in terms of
recognizing on a heart-level and an authentic felt-level
what love is and therefore who Christ is and how Christ
behaves. I think that became very real for me on my first
Kairos…I had not understood, again, not cerebrally, but on LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 109
a heart level, kind of how these relationships and how God
is in all thing…And so it broke it open for me in terms of
feeling a sense of it, really from.
Overall, the responses from these participants revealed a deep spiritual
experience understanding about their work that transcended the classroom.
Participant 20 had an epiphany about the presence of the Holy Spirit after
discerning an experience from an Ignatian Evening—spiritually centered
discussions with colleagues— conversation about St. Ignatius’ life.
Participant 1 described a spiritual awakening he had while he attended
college at a Jesuit school.
Participants cited in this section said they had prayed and discerned
about the Holy Spirit’s presence in their work. There was animated
passion and emotion from participants who referenced their work as a
spiritual calling. The enthusiasm with which participants spoke about their
recognition of spiritual presence in their work was palpable. The remarks
by Participants 81, 8, and 61 shown here exemplify this exuberance.
More than half of participants did not state anything about a spiritually
awakening moment. Rather, participants cited the influence of Jesuit
priests while in Jesuit college, the influence of a more experienced Jesuit
school lay teacher, or a program such as a retreat or service program that
shaped their understanding. For example, Participant 61 did not
matriculate at a Jesuit college. She had no experience with Ignatian
education prior to working at a Jesuit secondary school. Participant 61 said LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 110
understanding the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm meant she had to have
the spiritual experience to recognize it, and she had that experience on
Kairos retreat. Additionally, she was struck by how holistic the Graduate
at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) was, citing the Sophomore
Conversation—a high school midpoint reflection exercise for students and
parents using the tenets of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools
Network, 2019)— that led sophomores and their parents “to reflect and
engage in a communal reflection activity.”
The next section explains how the teachers’ role extends beyond
the classroom through retreat and service programs and how retreat and
service programs bring forth the Ignatian charism for teachers.
Formative Influence of Retreat and Service Programs Upon
Every participant (n = 26) in this study referred to its Jesuit
school’s retreat or service program positively. All participants had
experienced more than one retreat. Participants used descriptions such as
life-changing, transformative, and significant to describe the experience
with retreat and service programs for their students. Participants also
explained how equally transformative the retreat and service experiences
had been for them professionally and personally.
The influence of retreat and service programs upon the teacher’s
recognition of the Ignatian charism in their teaching was broad and
pronounced. Teachers cited Kairos retreats, Emmaus retreats, service
immersion programs, and single day school service experiences for LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 111
students and for themselves. Kairos retreats occur primarily in secondary
schools. According to Miller (2019), “Kairos or ‘God’s Time’ was a
retreat grounded in Christian incarnational theology for high-school-aged
students…The goal of the Kairos retreat was to deepen students sense of
God working in their lives” (p. 20). Emmaus retreats are similar to Kairos
retreats only shorter. Emmaus retreats last two days and Kairos retreats
last four days.
Participants included 19th Annotation retreats, marriage retreats,
and faculty retreats as spiritually formative experiences for adults in each
school community. The 19th Annotation retreat is also known as the
Spiritual Exercises in everyday life because this retreat is a less
concentrated version of the Spiritual Exercises. Retreatants meet weekly
with a spiritual director, rather than daily as is the practice of the Spiritual
Exercises. And the retreatant prays daily for an hour over many months
(Martin, 2012). Overall, the retreat experience appeared to be highly
impactful upon faculty experiences, and according to faculty, the student
experiences. What follows are retreat and service experiences shared by
participants.
Most notably was this exultant comment by Participant 8 about the
influence of the Kairos retreat upon him:
When I when I refer the boys to go on Kairos, I tell them
that it's a top five experience of my entire life. And I mean
my entire life. And they know me for traveling the LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 112
world...And I tell them that Kairos has been…literally, one
of the top five most impactful things I've done with my life.
The profound impact of Kairos retreat upon Participant 8
illuminated what other participants asserted about the necessity to have lay
teachers experience retreats as a part of their faith formation. These two
experienced teachers, Participant 5 and Participant 1, comfortably used
Kairos retreat as well as Ignatian language frequently during the
interviews with discernment, Magis, Jesuit, 19th Annotation, and cura
personalis as examples.
Participant 5, a social studies teacher with over 20 years of
experience in a Jesuit school, learned most of the Ignatian pedagogy
informally. His induction program lasted three days. He gained an
understanding about the Ignatian charism through Kairos retreats—of
which he has participated on five during his teaching career—than any
formal training, “And I've done the Kairos retreat…marriage retreat… 19th
Annotation… I think having new teachers participate on Kairos is a great
way for them to sort of see the charism in action.” While Participant 1
said: “And certainly, you know, as far as here, cura personalis goes at [the
Jesuit secondary high school] was all those things, because that's what
we're all about Ignatian education, Magis, cura personalis at [the Jesuit
secondary high school].”
The other retreat program referenced by participants was the
Emmaus retreat. The Emmaus retreat is different in structure from Kairos LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 113
retreat and inescapably important to students. Participant 103, a math
teacher with over 20 years of experience, spoke with detail about the
influence of it upon students:
Emmaus retreat, that's a junior retreat. Very well
subscribed. I think some places do a Kairos retreat. Our
guys doing an Emmaus retreat. So, it's a group of maybe 25
juniors and five teachers and five senior leaders. There is
group work and then there's a highlight moment where they
receive letters from family and friends, talking about why
they are loved. Then a faith sharing at the end or cross
sharing. I guess you'd say where they try to affirm each
other after the two and a half days that we've been away.
Yeah, and for a lot of the kids, it's a highlight experience
when they remember.
Participant 108 was a science teacher with over five years teaching at a
Jesuit school and over 10 years teaching in Catholic education. He spoke
glowingly about his experiences on Emmaus Retreats:
I would say the first time I went on an Emmaus Retreat it
was eye opening for me because I did not participate in the
Emmaus Retreat as a student. So, I think that's one aspect
especially where we as a school and the Jesuit community
has made a much-concerted effort to be present for the
students, so I would say that's another charism that we LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 114
allow faculty and students to experience grace and God in
those things.
Participant 1, an English teacher with over 30 years of experience,
responded in a similar way that new teachers learn more about the
presence of the Ignatian charism from spiritual reflection provided by
retreat experiences:
Sending first year teachers on retreats. It's possible to honor
a two-day retreat. … I also think that Ignatian evenings or
some type of that format…I remember that being extremely
powerful because we were a bunch of first year teachers…I
just said, oh my god, this is fantastic. You know, we're
talking to, you know, we're praying. We're going to be
talking about, you know, about the lives of these children
and I thought it was just extremely inspiring. It is also very
welcoming and very non-threatening and very fun and kind
of soft way of learning about Ignatius.
Participant 22 remarked “I'm definitely on retreats. I actually was part of
the, the first Kairos retreat. And so, setting that up was really amazing and
then going on a couple others after that there is there's something
incredible.” This participant was an English teacher with over 20 years of
experience.
The benefits of the retreats extend beyond the student’s spiritual
nurturing. There is spiritual growth derived from the retreats for lay LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 115
faculty members too, according to Participant 17, a theology teacher with
over 20 years of experience. Participant 17’s comments mirrored
Participant 1’s observations. Participant 17 reflected about the spiritual
developmental benefits of retreat participation:
But to kind of pull-in, especially faculty or staff or
administrators that have kind of lived it, that have made it a
part of their spiritual practice, their teaching practice and to
kind of give those types of stories. Because there's been
many people throughout the years that I have known that
have benefitted...Especially, and I learned this the most on
retreat, going with other faculty and staff members, how
much that type of experience has meant to them.
Service trips had a similar, spiritual developmental function for
students (Hooker, 2011). Participants blended the two experiences, retreats
and service trips, as benefitting student formation. For example,
Participant 8 spoke about the array of service opportunities available to
students and how the spiritual opportunities benefitted him too:
If you want to go on an immersion trip, there's immersion
trips. If you want to go and build a house or someone you
can do that. Like, there's also Habitat for Humanity. Like,
there's just so many opportunities for students to feel
connected to the school and, especially, I would say, our LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 116
Kairos experiences and our urban plunges and things like
that.
Participant 20, a theology teacher with over 20 years of experience,
expressed more about how service trips and retreats built student
understanding of being committed to doing justice and brought them to the
religious, core tenets of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit
Schools Network, 2019):
I just love like the emphasis of our, like, the justice work
that we do is so important. And it's like by engaging kids
through justice, they will come eventually come to know
and understand the religion piece. But I feel like that the
door we bring them through— and the service and the
retreats— we bring them through that door and they might
eventually come to know and understand like the deeper
meanings of our religion and our rituals.
Sometimes I feel like, in the other settings, you have the externals [co-
curriculars and justice initiatives] come first and then, if you're lucky, you can get
down to that deeper [religious] stuff. Whereas I think we start there and then it
brings them to: ‘Oh, and that's why I want to go to church because I want to have
this experience’… Yeah, I just think I like the order of operations at our Jesuit
institutions.
Just as Participant 20 commented about student retreats and
service, Participant 55 spoke well about adult spiritual formation programs LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 117
such as the 19th Annotation. Participant 55 said for lay teachers, 19th
Annotation grew knowledge of the Ignatian charism and the mission of the
schools. As a theology teacher who had taught more than 15 years in a
Jesuit secondary school, he acquired more knowledge about Ignatian
spirituality from adult-centered retreats such as the 19th Annotation, and
group prayer meetings called Ignatian Evenings:
Now, some of the things that the lay faculty have been
entrusted with, that I think are huge positive, positive
things: we have an adult faith formation team, there's
options for the 19th Annotation for faculty members. All
sorts of kind of good, good stuff that we can do as a
spiritual community. I feel like we could even do more, is I
guess what I mean. I think that we should have some of our
folks who are our leaders within, our people, they should
do the [Spiritual] Exercises in full…I think that we should
have some spiritual directors who are training. I think we
have to take seriously, as an institution, what it means to
have lay leadership.
Participant 8 participated on a teacher induction retreat and expressed this
enthusiastic comment about his desire to go on a silent retreat:
I would love to do a silent retreat like please, like sign me up, like relax
me, please. But, um, maybe, like, something like that. I would I think it's
just, it's so helpful, like those retreats, where you can relax and you know LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 118
you don't have anything on your mind and you could just learn like these
different ideas.
Participants said student retreat programs, such as Kairos and
Emmaus retreats, served to shape student formation, and it was very
apparent the student retreat programs serve a dual purpose of forming lay
teacher spirituality too. Furthermore, there were adult formation programs
offered by Jesuit secondary schools such as 19th Annotation, Ignatian
Evenings, silent retreats, and marital retreats that provide an underpinning
for a lay teacher to discern the Ignatian paradigm.
Evident from comments by participants about their retreat
experience showed an increasing understanding of Ignatian terminology.
If the role of lay teachers on retreats assumed the “identity of the lay
leader as pilgrim” (Schreiber, 2012, p. 171), then only a passing
comprehension of Ignatian language was necessary. Participants noted
how the frequency of their involvement on retreats increased the longer
they worked at a Jesuit school. And consequently from those experiences,
their knowledge of the Ignatian charism grew. I inferred from the
interview data that an additional benefit of retreat programs included
greater lay teacher discernment of the Ignatian charism.
Service programs provided a similar discernment purpose for lay
teachers as they did for students. Participants said the primary purpose of a
service program was to develop student empathy for others and to teach
students how they could learn about a ministry of presence and a ministry LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 119
of service, as people for and with others (Arrupe, 1977). Service programs
also taught younger lay teachers about the presence of the Ignatian
charism in their work outside of the classroom. For example, Participant
86 said as a veteran teacher, he wanted to be a role model for younger
teachers. So, when he worked in a soup kitchen during a faculty service
retreat, he said:
I think the challenge is to make sure that the people who
see their work at [this Jesuit school] as an intentional
response to their own response to the gospel challenge, to
make sure that those people are comfortable enough
articulating that…So for them to hear from a veteran, like,
this is not about me cooking meals, this is the way that I
respond to this challenge that I see in the gospels, and to be
willing to be outwardly Catholic, and willing to say that
this is a faith response.
The role of the lay teacher is to “act as a guide for the student,
contextualizing experiences of service with a critical analysis of social
justice and guiding the formation of relationships based on solidarity”
(Hooker, 2011, p. 162). Participants referred to their experience of having
an informal adult mentor who served as role model and taught them about
the importance of the Ignatian charism. Participant 61 said gratefully:
And I just feel that experience of having a mentor I trusted
invite me to see beyond into something I could become LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 120
caused me to reflect a lot on the call that we ask of our
students as teachers. I think that was my first entree into
really recognizing that the power of the paradigm, the
Ignatian paradigm…
Eleven teachers referenced an experienced mentor from a Jesuit
school who understood the responsibility to be a role model for younger
teachers and intentionally explained why understanding the Ignatian
charism mattered so much when working in a Jesuit school. From those
mentor relationships, participants said there emerged for them a desire to
comprehend more about Jesuit education and the Ignatian charism. The
next section presents data about lay teacher predilection for Jesuit
education.
Desire to Learn About Jesuit Education
Because Jesuit secondary schools rely upon the lay educator’s
understanding of mission (Reilly, 2017), it is necessary for them to carve
space in the work teaching practice to include discernment about Ignatian
terminology such as cura personalis and Magis. Miedema, and Biesta
(2003) wrote that there was a higher expectation for teachers working in a
religious, mission driven school to understand the specific mission, when
compared to teachers in a public system.
The following observations by Participant 32 and Participant 17
provided historic context about the decline in the number of Jesuits LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 121
teaching in secondary schools and the shift to the Ignatian charism being
carried forth by lay teachers.
Said Participant 32, a math teacher with over 40 years of teaching
experience:
And once we started having less and less Jesuits, the focus
became on the bigger picture, Ignatian spirituality, the Grad
at Grad, the different documents that have come down from
formerly JSEA (Jesuit Secondary Education Association),
now JSN (Jesuit Schools Network). And I think it became
more of a focus.
This comment from Participant 32 highlighted a shift from schools
operated by Jesuit priests who lived in a Catholic religious order and
schools inhabited by lay teachers.
A theology teacher with 20 years of teaching experience,
Participant 17 explained that difference. He said there was a difference
from Jesuit mission and Ignatian spirituality explaining that a lay person
cannot live the life a Jesuit priest lives because a lay person does not take
vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience (Martin, 2012):
Let's just say it became less of a Jesuit mission and more of
an Ignatian mission. In the sense that Jesuit spirituality
versus Ignatian spirituality, even though that they obviously
are interwoven...It's one thing to be able to live a life of a
Jesuit and their particular call…versus a lay person kind of LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 122
living out their experience coming from an Ignatian
perspective. It's lots of crossover but distinct.
Participant 32 lived through the transition of Jesuit secondary schools once
inhabited mainly by Jesuit priests to the current situation where most
schools have largely lay faculty:
Our schools are never going to be what they were when they were
primarily populated by Jesuits. I don't see that as well-intentioned. As
much as we try to educate people to the Jesuit mission, as much as people
might embrace it in their heart, I think until you...If you're not devoting
your life to that mission, there's a difference, and there will always be that
difference, and I think we have to be careful guardians of what we can
keep going, is what I would say.
Participant 17 divulged that not only did he have a desire to learn
more about Jesuit education, it is a necessity for lay teachers to become
stewards of Ignatian education. “So, I would say as the years went on, the
focus on Grad at Grad has increased. And I still think there's lots of
opportunity for growth.”
The onus to carry forth the mission of Jesuit education falls upon
the shoulders of the lay teacher. Participant 32 essentially echoed this.
Among the 26 participants in this study, Participant 32 had taught the
longest in a Jesuit school at over 40 years. She contextualized the notion
that lay teachers had to learn about Ignatian education: “When I first
started, it was there, but it didn't become more prominent until we had less LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 123
Jesuits. And I think that there was this...How can I put it? A lot of the time
with so many Jesuits in the building, everybody thought: Well, the Jesuits
do this work.”
Other participants expressed similar responsibility falls upon the lay
teacher. For example, Participant 86 recognized the necessity to learn
about the Ignatian charism: “I think the challenge is to make sure that the
people who see their work….as an intentional response to their own
response to the gospel challenge, to make sure that those people are
comfortable enough articulating that.”
Participant 22 was an example of a lay teacher who recognized an
obligation to be a guardian of Jesuit education. When asked about this
obligation, she declared the necessity to make cura personalis a part of the
teacher’s practice. She added it was imperative for the students to
understand papal encyclicals such as Rerum Novarum’s (Leo XIII, 1891)
call to bring forth economic justice, defend the poor, and understand the
imperfect nature of St. Ignatius:
You know I think our, our new teachers coming in, they get
told a lot…And I would take them through an experience of
guided imagery…of a classroom… I would take them to that
classroom where there's a place for the Spirit and there is a
place for everything in your teaching… I would use guided
imagery to take them there… I would tell them the story of LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 124
Ignatius and, you know, just his story of being that
knucklehead, and that pride.
Participant 22’s idea to teach young teachers about the life of St.
Ignatius showed a mindfulness about the void new teachers have about the
Ignatian charism.
Participant 103 observed there was an enormous amount of
information about Jesuit education for new teachers to absorb: “I think as
a new teacher in a high school there, you're absorbing an awful lot. Mostly
you're absorbing by observation, I would say.” He included cura
personalis and Magis, terms that require an intertwining of prayer,
discernment, with teaching as significant when a new teacher begins to
understand the Ignatian charism but he said it was demanding to learn
while teaching:
So, I learned to teach I think, before even understanding much
about what Ignatian charism is. I'm not exactly sure how you
define it. Did somebody talk to me about cura personalis?
They might have said something whether I knew what they
were talking about at that particular point in time, I don't
know. Did somebody talk to me about Magis? Maybe I might
have read that, The Go Forth and Teach book …I don't think
they really talked much about Ignatian education at the
beginning. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 125
Likewise, Participant 86 asserted new teachers spoke hesitantly
about the Ignatian charism because:
… they're not seeing themselves as having a sufficient
expertise or a knowledge base. And feeling as if maybe
they couldn't name the types of things, and then being
uncomfortable, and then maybe feeling like they
wouldn't be very helpful …that you have people who in
the beginning of their career are so worried about
teaching the content well, that their sense of the charism
and the pedagogical framework in which that learning is
supposed to take place is still something that hasn't
emerged for them as a priority.
By contrast, though, Participant 22 confidently concluded that
learning more about the life of St. Ignatius was beneficial to her teaching:
…I'm learning all these new, new, words and everything like
cura personalis, and …Rerum Novarum, and… it's so exciting
to have this new vocabulary. But I do think there is something
about…Ignatius’ experience in the cave at Manresa and
everything and the expectations that you have coming in as a
new teacher, and then the reality, just like Ignatius, your
expectations and, reality and just this opportunity to learn
more about it. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 126
Her reference to the life of St. Ignatius in Manresa, Jesuit terminology,
and her desire to bring spirituality into a classroom were examples cited
by other participants too. Some participants said the opportunity to learn
more about Ignatian education has become an expectation because of the
dearth of Jesuits present in the schools.
For example, of all participants in this research study, Participant 32
had a depth and breadth of knowledge about the Jesuit education that best
exemplified the detail of lay teacher understanding. She provided candor
and never claimed that anything was ideal. Rather there was an evolution,
of learned discernment present in her understanding of the Ignatian
charism. Twice she emphasized the necessity for lay teachers to dedicate
their lives to the work of the Jesuit mission. Acknowledging it was
difficult to do because lay people get pulled into other directions because
of family commitments:
Well I think that in the last 10 to 15 years,...there became a
time when there was a lot of discussion about how you
contributed to the school, and your contribution to the
school was no longer viewed as adequate if it was just your
academic contribution, and your contribution had to be also
involved in mission related activities. Since then we began
to articulate—and in some cases count— mission related
activities. How many retreats have you participated in?
How many service projects have you involved yourself in? LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 127
Participant 32 said there was a sea change to hire lay teachers who
either understood the Ignatian charism or agreed to learn more about the
Ignatian charism:
And I think that was probably about 10, maybe 12 years
ago that I would say there was a switch in how people were
viewed, who maybe had been viewed as being excellent
faculty members because they were excellent in the
classroom. But if they weren't doing anything else, they
were no longer held to that high standard and that's when I
think we saw that, and a few years after, that is when we
began to hear the phrase ‘hire for mission’ as opposed to
‘hire for academic excellence’ in the teacher.
In conclusion to this subsection, Participant 103 understood that
Ignatian education became intentional for him: “Now there's a whole
component that has to do with Ignatian education or Ignatian charism. It
also includes something of the history of the Jesuits, particularly in
education. So, I think it's become much more deliberate now.”
This next subsection examines participant responses about their
understanding of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit
Schools Network, 2019).
Graduate at Graduation Requires Discernment and Prayer
Commonly called a foundational document of Jesuit education, the
Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019), I LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 128
asked participants when they first recognized the presence of the Profile of
the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) in their
teaching. Most participants said they could not recall a specific moment
when they saw the document at work in their teaching. Rather, responses
ranged from expressing how important it was to the participants’ teaching
practice to it not having a direct influence on their teaching practice at all.
Participant 5 said the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit
Schools Network, 2019) takes time to learn. He did not think forcing lay
teachers to learn it quickly was appropriate. He asserted the more often
experienced teachers spoke openly about the mission and the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019), the more likely
younger lay teachers were more likely to become aware of its presence in
their teaching, “You know, it takes a while to get inside you a little bit and
you plant roots in the community and their roots grow and you pick up
more obviously the longer you've been here.”
In addition to lay teachers, Participant 81 tried to bring the beauty of the
Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) to
his students too:
So, yes, it talks about technological things that are coming
but it also talks about developing yourself, the cura
personalis, the care for one another. If we're all cogs and
robots, we're not going to be able to interact effectively and
grow a society that cares for one another. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 129
Here are sample of overarching comments about the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) in other lay
educators teaching experience. For Participant 104 said “The Grad at
Grad, I see as a very insightful document. I think the criteria that they've
identified are really bulls-eyes.” And Participant 45, a theology teacher
with over 20 years of experience maintained, “I certainly, abide to the,
especially the Grad at Grad, and I like the experience, reflection and action
approach. I think that's probably always been part of my mentality, my
pedagogy.” Whereas this comment from Participant 33, a Classics teacher
with over 10 years of teaching experience, framed his understanding of the
document differently: “it's definitely a part of any discussion that we have.
It's not necessarily part of my everyday class activity though.”
Distinguishing how the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation
(Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) laid bare to the vitality and inner working
of the Jesuit school was evident among most participants. Whether it was
referencing a specific tenet of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation
(Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) such as: intellectual competence, loving,
commitment to doing justice, openness to growth, and, religious, or
overall spirit of the document the comments from participants showed the
document was the lubricant that drove each Jesuit school’s engine in this
study. Participant 104 explained the functional significance of the Profile
of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019): LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 130
If you're not seeing growth in your students over the course
of a year, not only in terms of their understanding of the
knowledge you're trying to transmit but in them
understanding what it means to mature, and to be a man for
others, and not just in the service sense, but being a good
guy, I think you've missed an opportunity to really live out
the vocation of a teacher.
And Participant 33 cited a specific example where the Profile of
the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) functions as a
guidepost for formative school programs like the Sophomore
Conversation:
We have something here called the Sophomore
Conversation where each of us is paired with three
sophomores and we kind of look at the graduate graduation
with them kind of at their halfway mark that happens at the
end of their sophomore year and we kind of ask them if
there's any particular kind of attribute that jumps out at
them as far as something that they feel like they are kind of
in the process of becoming or conversely if there's
something that they feel like they haven't had much
experience with or they feel like they're not necessarily
growing towards that. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 131
It is noteworthy that the participants knew I would ask them about
the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019)
because it was one of the sample questions included in the invitation
(Appendix C); however, the detail with which participants spoke and the
examples they provided illuminated a deep understanding about this
foundational document’s tenets. What follows are examples of participant
responses about each tenet: intellectual competence, loving, committed to
doing justice, open to growth, and religious.
Intellectual Competence
First, here are sample comments about intellectual competence
tenet of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools
Network, 2019). Participants spoke with pride about the academic rigor
and intellectual competence of their schools such as Participant 20, “Well,
we are a tough school. Like I think in many regards it's understood that
(we) have higher standards than some of the other schools. I think that's a
good thing. I think we're asking kids to reach their potential and they're
capable of it,” and Participant 8 noted, “And yes, we're trying to graduate
intellectually competent men. I mean, it literally is based, it's the Grad at
Grad. And our mission statement.”
With over 20 years of social studies teaching experience,
Participant 58 said: “What gets spoken about the most, we’re a school,
intellectual competence would obviously be one,” and Participant 45
affirmed “…certainly the intellectually competent thing is something that LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 132
we pride ourselves in. We have very, very demanding courses and I think
that some teachers may be perceived as being a little bit overly
academically oriented and they're lacking in other areas.”
Many participants stated that the intellectual competence of the school was
obvious because Jesuit education was known for its excellence (Modras,
2004). This next subsection shows comments by participants about the
tenet, loving.
Loving
Participants quickly referenced the tenet loving in a paternal way.
For example, Participant 1 explained: “I think a lot of my teaching kids
has to do with loving them and being patient with them, recognizing each
student, as very unique individuals even though they are all wearing the
same jacket,” and Participant 61 said “…the mission is the spreading of
the word. The mission is the spreading of the love, the availability to be
kind of communicators of that through deed and word.”
Participant 7 had over 20 years of teaching experience and had held
many different roles including teaching computer science. Jesuit schools
have a disciplinary detention system called JUG that is based upon
atonement. Students think it is an acronym meaning, ‘justice under God’
but the root of it is from the Latin word jugum or yoke. Its meaning comes
from the notion of atoning for a burdensome sinful act (St. Ignatius High
School, 2017). LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 133
Participant 7 addressed the balance between loving a student and
meting out discipline with a student: ‘I will say, you know, I can say
things to a student like you know I love you, but you've got to stop eating
in here, or I'm going to give you JUG…We talk about loving and being
loving to each other.”
Participant 7 encapsulated the distinguishing, loving tenet by
explaining how her Jesuit school culture embraced the eccentric and
unconventional students:
They're always in every in every class will have a few of the
few kids that you can, you know, who are kind of odd, you
know, could be on the spectrum could just be a little odd. And
over the years, I've seen kids that I think in a public school
would be marginalized, or really bullied become
and…become endeared to their classmates.
Participant 29 was a 20-year foreign language teacher who spoke
with an awareness and care that was endemic to many participants: “I
think that reflection, the looking for connections, that global
understanding of just being loving and compassionate and understanding
none of us are perfect and only God is perfect. But how do we move in a
direction that God wants us to move in”?
Participants provided insight into the interpretation and practice of the
loving tenet from the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 134
Schools Network, 2019). This next tenet, committed to doing justice, was
referenced by 20 participants during their interviews.
Committed to Doing Justice
Being committed to doing justice was a constant tenet referenced
by participants. Whether it was a specific directive like this comment from
Participant 1: “We hear a lot about committed to justice and we hear a lot
about being a person for other,” or from Participant 58: “If one of our
goals is to be committed to doing justice, I think [students] have to know
where injustice appears in our history, throughout our history in order to
begin to do justice,” there was consistent support for this tenet by the
participants in this cohort. Some, such as Participant 104, enthusiastically
expressed support about the significance of this tenet: “I guess those are,
the commitment to openness to culture, to social justice, and to fight for
that, to put it into action, that faith, is terribly exciting as well and others,
like Participant 45 communicated mild skepticism: “I think committed to
doing justice is viewed as important, but it's not as explicitly or
consciously aware in people's minds. I think that the open to growth thing
is pretty, people are comfortable with that certainly than, you know, loving
and religious.”
Comfort with the tenet included participant understanding of its
magnitude in understanding the Ignatian charism. Participant 85 said
“Justice is big for us” and Participant 29’s comment: “[Teachers] might
speak to the justice, I think, sense of justice because they are very quick to LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 135
notice if somebody in our community is suffering to try to…”
And Participant 104 summarized why many participants contended
lay teachers continue to teach at a Jesuit school: “I knew I was drawn to
the Jesuits because of their reputation. Not only as educators but being real
smart about the subjects that they had studied and about their commitment
to social justice.”
While each Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools
Network, 2019) precept guides teachers as they work with students, being
committed to doing justice is teachable, aspirational tenet. So, too, is
openness to growth. I have referred to this tenet when students resist
change or oppose an idea that challenges their thinking. This next
subsection presents comments by participants about it.
Openness to Growth
Openness to growth was explained by participants as an
aspirational goal for students and a precept guidepost for lay teachers.
Participant 55’s comment highlighted most participant responses:
If you come into (school name) and you're open to
growth…these are the three things that we'll offer you.
We'll offer you an education, you'll be intellectually
competent. We'll offer you some service opportunities,
you'll be committed to doing justice. And we'll offer you
some spiritual growth, you'll be religious. And I was like, LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 136
and if you leave taking advantage of those opportunity,
you'll become a more loving person.
And Participant 35 described there was a limitation to being
purposeful when teaching students about being open to growth: “You're
always trying to be that open to growth, but it is a significant challenge,
because even though you're trying to raise the bar, you're only going to be
able to raise the bar for a certain portion of the kids in the class.” This
comment supported the notion that being open to growth was an
aspirational goal and never a finished one.
Deliberately, I placed the religious precept of the Profile of the
Graduation at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) last in this
section because participant responses varied. Participants spoke the least
about it and said it was least mentioned by their colleagues.
Religious
Of the five tenets of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation
(Jesuit Schools Network, 2019), the religious tenet provoked divergent
responses from participants. As examples, Participant 66 said “I have
heard comments that there's too many masses, there's that kind of thing. I
feel like perhaps that is one of the things, the religious aspect of it is not
held as high as I would like by some colleagues,” and Participant 1
remarked: “At (school) maybe, 60% Catholic of people identify as
Catholic. How many of them are practicing? Pretty darn few. So, it's an LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 137
interesting thing that the spiritual life of the kids is certainly not something
anybody wants to talk about.”
Although the religious tenet was least referenced, participants who
included it described the religious tenet with much detailed thought. Here
is an example from Participant 85 who offered this analysis of the creation
of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network,
2019) and the religious precept:
The religious and the committed to doing justice, those are
the parts that most intrigue me...Well, when I first saw the
(Graduate at Graduation), I thought, "They got that word
wrong. It shouldn't be religious. It should be spiritual." We
should be trying to help our kids become more deeply
spiritual. You know, which of course is true. But the
document says religious, you know, and I think about the
Latin word for religion, religare. It means to be connected.
So, to be religious means to be connected with other
people, with God, even with the church. As you well know,
this is a huge problem today with the kids we're teaching,
and even fellow faculty members and such. I mean, being
connected to church, the Roman Catholic Church, or
whichever church, is a much lower priority today.
The clarity of Participant 85’s observation illustrates the presence
of the religious tenet in Jesuit schools. There were other examples. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 138
Participant 61 provided an example about how prayerfulness
existed in her Jesuit school: “…to live our Catholic and Jesuit mission,
that I had started to recognize along with … the Examen is the lifeblood of
who we are. It's the core of our charism. It's at the heart of our identity.”
And Participant 108 expressed the concern participants had about Mass
attendance by students:
I know like prayer and Mass attendance and that aspect of
spirituality are important. But I would say that's a struggle.
Like, for example, one of the things...weak is not the right
word, because we're trying, but the battle with the students
is we are trying to encourage student attendance of daily
Mass.
There were direct comments about religious formation whether it
was through prayer, meditation, service, or sacrament. The comments
from Participant 61 and Participant 108 exemplified answers by
participants about religious practice.
More specifically, participants elucidated in detail about teaching
and practicing of Catholicism in Jesuit schools. For example, there was
this comment from Participant 55 about teaching the Catholic faith:
I’m teaching theology in a Catholic school; I’ve got to follow the United
States Catholic Conference of Bishops curriculum much more closely.
And we're very fortunate that we're able to show our bishop that we hit
those marks, but that we just do it in a different way. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 139
And there were these references to the importance of the Catholic
Mass as a practice of the Catholicity of the Jesuit school. Here are two
examples with the first comment from Participant 35:
The Mass, a nice simple Mass where the kids all know their
expectations, it's a very stable way of being religious within
the community. You don't need to do anything extra
special. You just have the Mass. The kids know all the
songs.
And the second comment from Participant 22 about the importance of the
Mass:
There's something about the ritual and the cadence of Mass
and something beautiful and, you know, I think that
eventually, it gets in the boys too. You know, the Jesuits,
they do great masses. They say a homily that is worth
listening to.
It is important to note there were participants who said they heard
more references to the word Jesuit and fewer references to the word
Catholic, “I think in some corners, I think a lot of [teachers] who I would
describe as Catholic, my Catholic co-workers, sometimes are far more
comfortable identifying as Jesuit than they are as Catholic.” Participant
103 observed that societal trends have veered away from practicing
Catholicism and overall religiosity: LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 140
Well, religion is not spoken about as much in the society
today as it might have been 30 years ago." I've had a few
say that's a negative effect of the pre-sex abuse scandal
because people are less church-ed. They might be baptized
Catholics. They might be engaging in many of the social
justice works of the church, but as far as the actual practice
of sacraments, that seems to be not as pronounced as it was
as little as 10 years ago.
Participant 85 noticed the approach to religious practice reflected
changing student demographics where fewer students who enroll in his
Jesuit school worshipped as Catholics:
I think the faculty appreciates, I think, the certainly
explicitly Christian and also Catholic demands of the
school. But we're just very much more open, I think, to
other perspectives and we do welcome students from all
backgrounds, religious backgrounds or non-religious
backgrounds. And we do our best with them and we try to
make them feel comfortable.
This analysis by Participant 85 summarized the grappling nature of
nurturing students’ understanding of religion, spirituality, expectations of
the Catholic faith, and the normal questions adolescents have as they
explore and question their belief in God: LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 141
So, the religious (component), you know? We're always
talking about this, what it means to be religious. You know,
we had an excellent discussion the other day. You know,
these brave, articulate students saying, "You don't need
church to find God." You know? "You don't need the
sacraments to find God. I can find God in my personal
prayer and personal relationships, in a walk"...But the issue,
the reason why we're here is, can sacraments help you to
better find God? Can going to church and being in church,
being part of a church, help that?
Participants’ desire to learn about the Profile of the Graduate at
Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) varied from an ability to recall
of the tenets of the document and cite examples of where they saw them at
work in their teaching to confusion with the document as well as the
Ignatian terms cura personalis and Magis. However, once I clarified the
differences between the tenets of the Profile of the Graduate at
Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) and Jesuit terminology like
cura personalis and Magis, those participants also spoke with clarity about
most of the tenets especially, intellectual competence and commitment to
doing justice.
Participants who spoke with great detail about the tenets generally
referenced loving, religious, commitment to doing justice, openness to
growth and intellectual competence in that order. In other words, LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 142
participants who understood said they understood the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) and who could
provide detailed examples of where they saw the tenets at work in their
teaching, spoke the most about the necessity to love their student and to
build their relationship with God. There was no correlation by the
academic discipline taught by the participant. There was a correlation
between the number of years the participant taught in a Jesuit school with
participants who taught more than 20 years speaking with more detail
about the loving tenet and the religious tenet.
Participants who spoke with less detail about the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) or who confused
it with cura personalis and Magis, remarked more frequently about
intellectual competence and commitment to doing justice.
There appeared to be a relationship between the number of years
taught in a Jesuit school and the degree of comfort with which participants
articulated detailed knowledge about the Profile of the Graduate at
Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019). Likewise, the longer a
participant worked in a Jesuit school, the more they said that they wanted
to learn about Ignatian education and the parts of the IPP. This appears to
coincide with the length of time it takes for a teacher to master the subject
matter and then have time to reflect and discern about the broader purpose
of the Ignatian education. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 143
As a reminder, I assumed teachers who agreed to participate in this
research study knew ahead of time that the interview questions centered
upon the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network,
2019) and the Ignatian charism. Every invitation had three sample
questions found in Appendix C. So, the sample of participants showed
facility with various pieces of Ignatian education terminology. And it may
indicate that as long as a school has a small number of experts about
Ignatian education present in the school, then preservation of the Ignatian
charism’s presence exists.
From comments by participants about the Profile of the Graduate
at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019), their understanding of the
Ignatian charism had support by comments in the next section, how
teachers understand the Ignatian charism.
Understanding the Ignatian Charism
I asked participants to describe their understanding of the Ignatian
charism, when the Ignatian charism mattered most in their teaching, and
how long it took them to understand the Ignatian charism. Three
participants of the 26 participants interviewed asked what was meant by
the Ignatian charism. However, the vast majority of participants not only
knew what the Ignatian charism was but spoke with much detail about
where they saw it present in their teaching.
Participant 8, a foreign language teacher, confidently stated that his
colleagues understand the Ignatian charism very well: “I think we're very LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 144
competent about our understanding of the lay faculty’s understanding of
the Ignatian charism and character,” and by contrast, Participant 103, a
math teacher, confided: “So I didn't know much about the Jesuit charism
at all. I think I learned by doing and learned by being in that atmosphere
and (administrators) became much more deliberate about it as time went
on.”
In stark contrast, Participant 29 did not know what the Ignatian
charism was. She thought the lay faculty’s understanding of mission
comes down to intellectual competence and cura personals. And there was
“a school-wide discomfort with openness to growth, loving, and
compassionate behavior.” Participant 29 said there were frequent
conversations directed by the school’s administration about those three
parts of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools
Network, 2019).
Less equivocal was this remark by Participant 1 who asserted most
faculty supported the Ignatian charism but when it comes to learning more
about it, teachers balk at doing that:
I believe they're very, very committed and their hearts are
really into it and understand what this charism is but I think
most people just resent spending time with it. I really do. I
think there's a good number of people just have heard it
before, the same old stuff. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 145
Some participants were distinct about their how they recognized
the presence of the Ignatian charism in their teaching. For example,
Participant 61explained her understanding of it this way “…to live our
Catholic and Jesuit mission, that I had started to recognize along with …
the Examen is the lifeblood of who we are. It's the core of our charism. It's
at the heart of our identity.”
Participant 86 recalled a description of the Ignatian charism that he
heard from a Jesuit colleague. This remark encapsulated the ideal of
Ignatian education:
St. Ignatius's great gift was this idea that disability for
people to reflect on who they're capable of being versus
who they are and being attentive to that gap. And it's the
attention to the gap that really distinguishes and
understanding that if you see yourself as falling short in
some way, shape or form can provide an opportunity to
hang your head or an opportunity to accept the challenge.
And what should give you the confidence to accept the
challenge? And I think this is the key Ignatian piece of it is
the idea of God's unconditional love. That there's nothing
that's not possible. And I think that's at the heart of the
optimism that Jesuit educators and the Ignatian charism
calls educators to approach their work with. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 146
I asked participants whether they could recall a time when the
Ignatian charism mattered in their teaching. Most participants could not
identify a specific time when the Ignatian charism mattered most in their
teaching; rather, they said the Ignatian charism was a part of their teaching
and methodology. Participant 108 explained how he grappled with
including the Ignatian charism in his lessons and how he needed to learn
more about it:
So, I do it more by modeling. Like when I make a lesson
plan I don't...How should I say? I don't force it in if that
makes sense. But the one aspect that I always struggle with,
and I dread it at times is when the students are asked, I
forget how the question's phrased, but it says something
like, “Do the teachers model love through the Grad at
Grad’? I say to myself, what does that even mean? But I get
nervous with that because I'm like, it's (science), like how
do I do that? But that is something I still have to open my
mind to and work on.
An exception was this example from Participant 66, a 10-year
math teacher, who expounded about her deliberate inclusion of the
Ignatian charism in a lesson during Ignatian Identity Week. Ignatian
Identity Week teaches students about Jesuit heritage and highlights the
Ignatian charism through in lessons and through school assemblies. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 147
We do something called Ignatian Identity Week. During
that week, we do talk about, we try to bring into every
different department something, for instance, last year we
talked about Jesuit mathematicians. We brought them in,
and we tried to talk about it a little bit in class throughout
the week. The English Department did similar things. I
guess, I can honestly say, that's probably the only time that
I would say I introduced that into my math class.
The length of time to understand the Ignatian charism varied
among participants. Here are some examples where participants spoke
about how long they thought it takes for a lay teacher to understand the
Ignatian charism.
Participant 55 reflected: “I don't think that that really became
actively present in me, maybe and truthfully, probably not until maybe
two or three years ago, probably after about 10 years.” Participant 5 said:
“[The Ignatian charism] took me a few years to understand the lingo and
some of it's just a different name for concepts that I was familiar with or
thought about my own life.” And Participant 20 disclosed: “So I would
say I became aware and really start thinking about that and really looking
at the mission probably maybe four years into my career.”
Participant 86 did not have the time to be concerned with the
Ignatian charism in the early years of his teaching career because he had to
learn his course material. Rather, his understanding the Ignatian charism LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 148
became more important for him somewhere in during his first seven to ten
years of teaching:
In a substantive way, I would say like year seven through
10. I think the first five years the emphasis was really on
mastering the content and feeling as if I was confident in
presenting the content that I was supposed to be teaching.
Similarly, Participant 55 said it took him a decade of teaching to
recognize the Ignatian charism in his teaching, “I don't think that that
really became actively present in me, maybe, and truthfully, probably not
until maybe two or three years ago, probably after about 10 years.”
Finally, Participant 21 spoke candidly about when he recognized
the Graduate at Graduation in his teaching:
I don’t think I knew about the Graduate at Graduation ’til
probably I was close to a ten-year teacher, maybe, a little
before that. But of course, as soon as I did, the descriptors
lined up with the things that I had seen already with the
best teachers I’d worked with.
Participant 81 said it took him 14 years to recognize the presence of
Ignatian charism in his work. The following remark by Participant 81
supports the conclusions similar to the previous participants:
I think that self-discovery takes a minimum of a decade.
After 10 years, your kind of over all of the: ‘Am I a great
teacher?’ You're just saying, ‘Let me do my job.’ You're LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 149
not so concerned about, ‘Am I doing it right?’ You're just
concerned about doing it. I like to say it's the gospel of get-
it-done replacing the gospel of perfection.
From all of these remarks, it was evident that the Ignatian charism
took time to make it manifest in the teaching practice. Perhaps Participant
35 summarized the notion that understanding the Ignatian charism does
not happen quickly best:
I think it is a long maturity process and an understanding
process, a reflection process...Just to base it upon my own
experiences, it may be different if you are an older person,
if you've taught for a couple [of years]...you've taught 10
years in a school, and then you come to the Jesuit
institution. It may be shorter, just because you kind of have
a lot of the teaching experience underneath you.
This section showed participant understanding of the Ignatian
charism and it addressed the length of time participants took to recognize
the presence of the Ignatian charism in their teaching. Participants said
they recognized the Ignatian charism through service work and retreats.
The depth of responses from participants who knew that Ignatian charism
was a part of this study was noticeable and revelatory. Participants
referenced their own prayerful, intentional discernment about the Ignatian
charism. There were references to the institutional use of the Examen as a
meditation method that enhanced teacher understanding of it too. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 150
Participants said their schools had placed the Examen at the
forefront of schoolwide spiritual formation, although there was not one
single method of praying an Examen. For example, in one school
administrator declared ‘The Year of the Examen’ and had the entire school
hold a weekly Examen over the public address system, thus, causing the
entire school to pause and pray. Another school had its teachers write their
own Examen meditation each week and deliver it in the classroom.
Participants confided about the frustration with communal efforts
to teach or pray about development of the Ignatian spirituality. For
example, Participant 20 described “mission creep” as a complaint from
colleagues who become frustrated when the school community holds a
prayer service, takes students out of class for a service trip, or hold a
Mass.
Participant 55 expressed a similar frustration from lay faculty that
they now have to learn more about Ignatian spirituality and Jesuit
terminology. Participant 55 said the Jesuit terminology was once
perceived by lay teachers as the exclusive responsibility of the Jesuits but
now it is the responsibility of the lay faculty: “You didn't have to codify it
[Ignatian charism]or kind of put it down on paper. You didn't have to tell
somebody like you have to do X, Y, and Z in order to be a Jesuit school.
They were just it.”
The length of time to learn about the Ignatian charism was a by-
product of this new responsibility for lay Ignatian educators to carry forth LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 151
the Ignatian mission of their schools. All participants said it took them
years to learn about the Ignatian charism and the “Jesuit lingo” as phrased
by participants to mean Jesuit terminology.
As the study ensued, I asked more specifically for an estimate in
years when the participants recognized the presence of the Ignatian
charism in their teaching. I asked 21 participants directly. There was no
specific quantity of years given by participants; rather, there was a range
of time given from seven to 14 years with an average of 11.2 years. There
were many variables that made pinpointing a more precise timeframe
difficult. For example, most participants who had studied at a Jesuit
secondary school, Jesuit undergraduate university, Jesuit graduate school
university, or some combination thereof recognized the presence of the
Ignatian charism sooner when compared to participants who had no prior
experience with Jesuit education. Nevertheless, the timeframe for lay
teachers to recognize the presence of the Ignatian charism exceeded the
induction program timeframes for all schools examined in this study.
The Ignatian charism differed from the Ignatian Pedagogical
Paradigm (IPP) because the charism showed spiritual understanding
whereas the IPP identified a purposeful teaching philosophy including
reflection (Lipowski, 2017; McAvoy, 2013).
This next section shows participant understanding of a the IPP,
teaching methodology.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 152
Understanding of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm
This section outlines participants understanding of the Ignatian
Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP). It includes participants awareness of the IPP
and how participants made the IPP a part of their teaching practice. The
data showed that there was a variance in the way participants did that.
Some participants received instruction, some schools directed participants
to include the IPP in their lessons, and some participants decided to make
the IPP a part of their teaching practice after discernment.
Participant 1 received formal training about the IPP:
Well, that was a part of my first-year training. As far as the
IPP, I was also a facilitator of one of the leadership seminar
years. I had to do a little video on that. And then for a few
years, when I was at [high school], we would have to write
our lesson plans with IPP …
And Participant 5 was aware of the IPP early in his career but he does not
use it much:
To be perfectly honest, the IPP itself doesn't occupy a big
place in my lesson planning. I think that but I think some of
it is just good teaching. I think it's just, you know, you need
to set a context for students, you need to know why.
Something is important why they ought to be learning it.
You need to give them the experience of coming to grips LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 153
with the material and then there's obviously some reflection
that goes along with it.
Participants said present-day teacher induction programs at Jesuit
secondary schools included learning, discerning, and preparing lesson
portfolios that showed use of the IPP in class. This comment from
Participant 104 illustrated the point:
It's a multi-year process, where [new teachers] are introduced
to different topics. They read key documents. Have some
exercises in Jesuit Ignatian spirituality.
Some participants said they wanted to make the IPP a part of their
teaching practice, that it was the inclusion of the Spiritual into their
teaching. For example, Participant 20 made a deliberate decision to make
the IPP a part of her teaching practice during her eleventh year of
teaching:
I really dived into that part of my teaching and my
development. I would say now in the last five years, as
much as I still love that, I would say my focus in the
classroom, in my professional development is really more
on like pedagogy, current contemporary pedagogy. I still
am so embracing the Jesuit piece, but I actually feel like,
"Oh, like a really good teacher needs to have both.
Participant 81 had similarity intentionality to make the IPP a part
of his teaching. You may recall that he was a science teacher with over 15 LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 154
years of teaching at a Jesuit secondary school. Participant 81 synthesized
three factors about science advocacy using the IPP: Could a student do
well in a course? Could a student assume the view of a scientist? And did
teacher efficacy support the work of a student who studied science? He
asserted:
All those three things are animated by the IPP, but not
explicitly stated. So, it helped me to realize my
understanding as a quantitative researcher of what my
teaching should be doing. It should be growing people who
are thinking about science as it relates to society.
Participant 87 said the IPP brought forth a reflective thinking
process that aided a student’s intellectual development:
I think that's the advantage of the IPP. It's that search for what
would be truthful and listening and developing arguments and
stuff. So, it fit a lot of my teaching style. Just the crossover I
guess between the Jesuits and my approach, I guess.
By contrast, not all participants said they made use of the IPP. For
example, Participant 33 noticed the tension between covering curriculum
demand, especially Advanced Placement course expectations and the IPP,
“I'm worried about my content coverage … I mentioned the material
content, sometimes seeming like we're all worshiping at the god of content
and not necessarily keeping in mind the larger Jesuit education framework
at all times.” LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 155
And Participant 104, a theology teacher, observed time constraints
and class size sometimes makes checking student reflective practice
challenging but necessary:
I would love to be able to do all of it all the time, and when
you see it working, and you get a taste of it… But if a
teacher has 130 students, it's hard to walk each one of them
through the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm all the time. It's
trying to find that balance, I think, is the challenge of
covering the curriculum that you need to yet making it
authentically Jesuit education.
The vast majority of participants said the IPP makes a Jesuit school
distinctive and that its practice helped to form students to become better
people. Here are two examples. The first was from Participant 32 who
asserted the IPP was a differentiator for Jesuit education in the
marketplace:
It is a distinguishing characteristic of Jesuit education: I think it's
an awareness that I need to keep a finger on all of them and not run with
the pack that seems to understand what I'm doing. I mean, there is that
consciousness always. There's also that consciousness that comes, I think,
from the IPP of giving them time to breathe and think about what I just
taught them. That's very deliberate. And I think giving them an
opportunity to show that they've changed. That if they didn't get it the first
time, they get it the second time, so nothing is so big that we can't LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 156
look at it again.
In addition to be an educational differentiator, I asked Participant
21 whether the IPP was relevant to his teaching today? He responded
emphatically:
Absolutely! That reflection piece is vital: experience,
reflection, and practice are important for them. Assessment,
experience, reflection, action, and the context. Again, it is just
very countercultural. We were not in a society that values that
reflective component. But to get them to participate in their
life in a way where they're not just kind of voyeurs of their
own history that it's not just kind of learning things that
they're asked to learn, jumping through hoops, but always
trying to get underneath, trying to find the right question to
get them to start seeing their education. In a different light,
the reflection piece is really vital.
Similar to participants’ understanding of the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019), there was deep
understanding of the IPP from participants and there was scant
understanding of it. One participant asked to be reminded what IPP was,
while another participant used it weekly because it helped his students
recognize their own growth with the subject matter.
It appeared participants’ knowledge about how to use the IPP
varied too. There was no distinction made about the use of the IPP by LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 157
academic discipline. Participants from all academic disciplines referenced
use of the IPP in their work and there was no separation by school grade
or level such as honors or advanced placement courses.
Impediments to the use of the IPP included class size, worry about
the proper steps to complete the its use properly (see Figure 1), and time to
allow for reflection at the expense of moving onto the next part of the
academic content that had to be covered. These concerns illustrated the
necessity for more explanation about how to weave the IPP into classroom
instruction. The teachers who said they used the IPP frequently, spoke
about its seamless use in the classroom and how beneficial they thought it
developed student understanding of personal growth with the subject
matter.
Overall, these deep explanations by these participants about the IPP
led me to wonder why some lay teachers now assume a ministerial
responsibility and others do not? It is a question that brings us to the next
theme, the lay teacher as minister.
Lay Teacher as Minister
Over 30 years ago, Participant 32 worked with Jesuits and other
lay teachers in her Jesuit school to prepare initial documents about
teaching as ministry, especially teaching conducted by the laity:
And that's when the Jesuits started talking about the fact that your teaching
was a ministry and started articulating what they meant by that for LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 158
laypeople and gave you something to really think about. And very much,
opening up the avenues of discussion of participating in the mission.
Participant 17 asserted it was necessary to distinguish between the Jesuit
and Ignatian culture because at one time lay teachers, like him, thought
Ignatian mission was the responsibility of the Jesuits. “Now that has
changed so the responsibility falls upon the lay teachers. This is
communicated to the adult community in many ways.”
Participant 32 concluded Ignatian educators eventually feel drawn
to the Jesuit mission. Here she offered an anecdote that she told a group of
high school seniors:
So, I led a reflection group with seniors who began doing
service, so I would say that was one of the first things that I
would say was very specific that I felt, I'm being drawn
into this mission. I'm being asked to promote this aspect,
which has nothing to do with my curriculum.
To examine the distinctive depth of Ignatian education
understanding by the lay teacher, I asked participants whether they would
teach in the same way if they were a teacher in a different setting other
than a Jesuit secondary school? Participant 61 quickly replied, “No”,
because of the imbedding of spirituality into her teaching practice. An
English teacher, Participant 61 invited students to move beyond their self-
imposed limitations, so as to experience the action and reflective
evaluation of the IPP. She said her relationship with students “becomes an LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 159
act of prayer.” Her work on Kairos retreats helped her feel loved and
answered who is Christ for her. She noted from her retreat work, “the act
of finding God in all things allowed me and my students to see the small
things”. The word choices used by Participant 61 were Ignatian and
reflected the notion of the lay teacher as minister.
To the same question, would you teach in the same way if you
were a teacher in a different setting other than a Jesuit secondary school?
Participant 106, a theology teacher, quickly replied yes to the same
question “because it's just in my DNA now and I've been doing it so long.
I mean it's just a part of the way I was formed, and it's what I believe in.”
When I asked how a Catholic theology teacher could work in another
setting, he clarified saying Ignatian pedagogy is a part of who he is as a
teacher. Likewise, Participant 1 remarked about the type of educator he
was:
You know, I am a Jesuit educator. I don't know what else I
can do, I know I can probably find a job somewhere else,
but I just consider myself as a Jesuit educator. And I don't
know that every, most people in my school would not say
they were Jesuit educators. They would just say they were
teachers.
And Participant 58, a social studies teacher, asserted nothing
should change with any Ignatian educator because the core parts of
teaching with the Ignatian pedagogy involves deep thinking: LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 160
I think there's nothing I would change if I was teaching at a
public school. I feel the idea of addressing the whole
person, meeting a student where he is, the idea of our goal
is to develop the hearts, and the minds, and the souls, and
the characters, and the intellect ...Shouldn't that be the goal
of every teacher? Isn't that why we teach?
Participants contended the Ignatian pedagogy was ensconced in
their teaching practice. Some participants used religious language, such as
Participant 29 and Participant 21 who invoked Jesus and God when
describing their classroom work and care for their students. Participant 29
said: “All just breathing that sense of community and justice and
connection to Jesus,” and Participant 21 proclaimed: " I have a love of
God and a love of my students.”
Participant 87 explained his teaching this way “When it comes to
getting the Ignatian spirituality across, is whether or not you're going to be
this professional narrow teacher or is it going to be something broader like
a Jesuit educator.”
The notion of lay teachers as ministers was well expressed by
Participant 103 who described his work as vocational. He added that he
could not do the same type of work in a public-school system:
Whether it's staying late after school, helping a kid with his
work or making a kid come after school to help with his
work or going on a …trip with the kids in the summer to LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 161
work with Habitat, service classes, any number of things
that we're allowed to do that make it a vocation.
Using adjectives such as transcendence and metanoia, Participant
61 described her work in the same way: as a minister who tends to her
flock. She emphasized the necessity to understand the Ignatian charism
and Jesuit mission. She made multiple references her use of the Examen
when teaching:
Each year the mission has clarified itself for me as offering
students an experience that invites them to become more
beyond their own self- imposed limitations. Of course,
having a compassion and respect for their contexts. Inviting
[students] into reflection on that experience.
I asked participants what their colleagues would say about the lay
faculty’s understanding of the Ignatian mission at their school, by and
large if they knew no one would trace their responses? The responses to
this question helped form this theme because participants said they and
their colleagues care deeply about the formation of their students wholly,
including their spiritual development. They said it was more challenging
to develop students spiritually today because there were so few Jesuits in
their schools.
Additionally, participants commonly said that their colleagues
speak about religion and religious practice indirectly. They said there was
a separation among their colleagues from the notion of being Catholic and LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 162
being Jesuit with teachers expressing more comfort with Jesuit, Ignatian
educational ideals, and Ignatian pedagogy when compared to overall
Catholic teaching.
Participants maintained it was necessary and vital that Jesuit
schools maintain their Catholic identity. They added that increasing
secularism in American society and the effect of the sexual abuse scandal
by priests within the Catholic Church that pulled families away from
church attendance and practice of the Catholic sacraments had brought a
disconnection between the mission of the Jesuit school and its students.
Participants explained they currently taught a generation of baptized, non-
practicing Catholic students in their schools who were unchurched. So, a
part of the Ignatian educator’s role, no matter the academic discipline, had
become to develop student’s religiosity.
Participants described their work as bridging the gap between the
absence of priests and the necessity to form the student fully, including
spirituality and religious practice. Interestingly, participants used cura
personalis frequently to explain their reasoning why their ministerial role
was necessary. As Participant 81 proclaimed: “If you can't realize that
your job is ministry, that your job is the ministry to the child and to the
family and to present God's hope, you are in the wrong business.”
Asking participants to define student formation showed the imperative that
their students become good loving people who serve others. Participant 21
said: "But this idea that you are called into a love relationship with the LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 163
world. That God creates in the people of God that your education is a way
of attaining excellence as an act of loving service.”
Developing students’ ability to love was a purposeful part of the
lay teachers teaching practice in a Jesuit secondary school. Participants
explained their intentionality to love students and, when doing so,
developing them to become caring people. Participant 8 described his
purposefulness as a teacher: “I'm also very loving and very caring to them
and, I mean like, I'll report a kid for cheating and I'll look at them and I'll
say that I, I'm doing it because I care about you.” Whereas Participant 33
indirectly declared something similarly: “I'm not just delivering a lesson to
the class but having to reiterate with a struggling student just to show that
I care about the individual's progress in my subject area.”
Because there were so few Jesuits in Jesuit secondary schools,
participants repeatedly said that the responsibility to be ministerial rested
on the shoulders of lay teachers. Participant 87 summarized the notion this
way:
I think the strength of (our Jesuit school) is we've got
people in key positions that understand the importance of
the ministerial walk, so their hopefully guiding people
along the way. But I think that's the big battle when it
comes to getting the Ignatian spirituality across, is whether
or not you're going to be this professional narrow teacher or
is it going to be something broader like a Jesuit educator. I LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 164
really don't think that a good Jesuit educator is just that
narrow focus. It has to be a broader focus.
Participant 87’s conclusion about the strength of his Jesuit
secondary school extended to other Jesuit secondary schools in this study.
The analysis that follows explains how participants said the Ignatian
educator holds a broader responsibility to advance the Jesuit mission of
the specific school.
Discussion
The participants in this study spoke with deep care about many
facets of Ignatian education. From the detailed examples that supported
each part of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools
Network, 2019) to explicit respect for the goal of cura personalis for each
student, lay teachers in this study revealed an extensive understanding of
the Ignatian charism. Aside from the sincere concern for the whole
development of the student, there was no single identifier that pinpointed
how participants recognized the Ignatian charism in their teaching.
The interview data produced the following key findings.
Participants said the spiritual development of students was a significant
component in student formation. Participants spoke about how their
teaching practice or school programming nurtured student spiritual
development. For example, 92% of participants cited the significance of
retreat programs in the spiritual development of students. And a large
percentage of participants, 84%, spoke about the importance of prayer in LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 165
the school’s culture or within their classroom’s culture. Likewise, 80% of
participants specified the formational notability of Kairos or Emmaus
retreats and 73% of participants spoke about the magnitude of service
programs.
Interestingly, 46% of participants referred to themselves as
Ignatian educators and 46% of participants made specific reference to their
teaching practice as vocational work. Recognizing these two percentages
were identical, different participants called themselves Ignatian educators
and others called their work vocational.
These results suggested that lay teachers at Jesuit secondary
schools regarded their work as vocational and themselves as ministers.
The data did not suggest that a majority of lay teachers thought of
themselves as ministers in a clerical sense; rather, the notion of perceiving
teaching in a Jesuit school as a spiritual calling was pervasive among
participants.
Concerning prayerfulness and meditation, 32% of participants
cited the importance of the Examen as a basis for the spiritual life of their
schools and 27% of participants referenced their participation in the 19th
Annotation as a significant part of their personal spiritual formation.
Participants expressed a pronounced care and concern for the
development of each student. All participants remarked how they worried
not only about student academic development but also about students’
formation as a whole people who recognized the importance of their faith LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 166
development and their responsibility bring forth a more just society.
Participants said they wanted their students to recognize how important it
was for students to “discover the joy of sharing their possessions, and
talents with each other” (Starratt, 1978, p. 12).
There was inconsistency about the participants experience with
teacher induction programs. With ranges of a nothing to a few days to five
years, it was striking how varied the participant experience differed when
learning about the Ignatian charism, the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm
(IPP), and Jesuit terminology. Most participants (68%) spoke with great
detail about the function of the IPP in their teaching practice. Importantly,
there was a less overt understanding of the IPP among 32% of participants
asked for additional explanation asking what was the IPP. However, of
this sub-group, 80% then proceeded to speak about the importance of
reflection in their teaching practice. So, having an inexact knowledge of
the Jesuit terminology by the participant did not preclude their practice of
the IPP.
How long it took participants to recognize the presence of the
Ignatian charism in their teaching practice was a part of the interview data
collection. Participants provided ranges of years from seven to 14 years. It
was difficult to pinpoint a specific year of teaching when participants said
they recognized the presence of the Ignatian charism in their teaching.
I invited 122 teachers from six Jesuit secondary schools to
participate in this study. Most importantly, only three participants, who LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 167
had less than 10 years of teaching experience in a Jesuit secondary school,
agreed to be interviewed. This low participation rate led me to conclude
that teachers with less than 10 years of teaching experience in a Jesuit
school may not have confident knowledge about the Ignatian charism or
the IPP.
There were other reasons why recruits declined to participate. I had
three recruits decline the invitation to participate citing family situations
and I had five decline stating they were too busy. And I had one recruit
reply he did not know enough about the Ignatian charism to participate.
There were limitations to this dissertation research study. This
study had no participants reject the importance of Jesuit education, the
Ignatian charism, or the IPP. There was enthusiastic support for the
Ignatian charism among participants. It is very important to remember that
lay teachers who agreed to participate in this type of study most likely had
a working understanding of Jesuit education, the Ignatian charism, or the
IPP and had a favorable experience when teaching in a Jesuit school.
Participants spoke about the varying degree of understanding about
the Ignatian charism among their colleagues. Additionally, there was a
Roman Catholic implication to the focus of the study and that implication
may have limited participation. Participant 45 estimated 80% of the lay
faculty fully support the school’s Jesuit mission and 20% were cynical
about it. “Many refer to cura personalis and intellectual competence.
Traditional Catholic behavior such as genuflecting and Eucharist have less LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 168
comfort for the faculty. The religious component has a varying degree of
understanding and acceptance among the faculty.”
Similarly, Participant 85 noted that differences existed with the degree of
understanding and support for the Jesuit mission:
I know that there are people who probably don't share the
mission. I mean, occasionally you hear a teacher say, We’re
going to church too much, or, We pray too much. Not
often, but occasionally. Or, There's too much emphasis on
service and ministry.
Since I informed recruits about the scope of the study and included
sample questions that would be asked, the Ignatian spiritual bent of the
study was obvious. Participant 66 described about a tension between the
religious culture of the school and the academic expectations that exist in
her Jesuit school:
I feel like perhaps that is one of the things, the religious
aspect of it is not held as high as I would like by some
colleagues. The whole idea of seeing God in all things, that
kind of, I don't know, I would say probably that.
Participant 86 explained the degrees of lay teacher understanding in his
Jesuit school by in three groupings:
I would say there are at least three different categories of
people who started at [this school]. They're the people have
gone through Jesuit education, love it, are committed to it, LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 169
want to know as much as they can about it. And want to
practice it. There's another group of people who are called
to [this school] because of the quality of the education and
they see it as a good school and a place where they can
teach. And they're given a fair amount of autonomy. And
then there's other people who are called to it because of the
service activities and things but there's this generic
humanism that they become voices of.
I welcomed recruits from all three categories elucidated by
Participant 86 but the people who participated fell into the first category
that he explained.
I sought teachers from a variety of the major academic disciplines
found in Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the Society
of Jesus. This study had the most participants from the theology lay
teachers and the least participation from science teachers. I invited 14
theology teachers to participate and yielded eight theology teacher
participants whereas I invited 19 science teachers and had only two
science teacher participants.
Given the spiritual focus of this study that included research about
the Ignatian charism, it was no surprise that there was robust participation
from theology teachers. The ratio of social studies recruited to
participants, 25 recruits to four participants, appears to be small; however,
I had three additional social studies recruits respond late agreeing to LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 170
participate after the study concluded. I listed those three participants in the
data as no response because the study had concluded.
Why there were so few science teachers who participated in this
study was a question that I asked the two science teachers who did
participate. Six science teachers politely declined my invitation to
participate with email messages where one teacher expressed discomfort
about participating. A third science teacher agreed to participate but did
not respond to multiple date and time requests to setup an interview.
Since there were only two science participants, this response from
Participant 108, a science teacher, may encapsulate science teacher
sentiment about participating in this research project:
Part of it, I wonder, because I've discussed this, not this
specific interview, but in general when I first started here I
would bring up to the other science teachers this Grad at
Grad and there was always this reservation about science
being so focused with its own curriculum that I think
sometimes, if there is a hesitancy I wonder if it's because
sometimes science teachers...like how I struggle with quote
focusing on love and the loving aspect. I wonder if other
science teachers feel the same way. Like: How do I talk
about openness to growth in biology?
This quotation represents one teacher’s interpretation. However,
the perception of science teachers to relate their work to the Graduate at LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 171
Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) may indicate a disconnected
understanding about how the document fits in with science teaching.
Science teacher connection to the Ignatian charism is an area Jesuit
Schools Network can reassess.
Summary
The strength of this dissertation in practice study (DIP) was that it
communicated the experience of lay teachers who work in secondary
schools of the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus. The data
showed a deep commitment to the Ignatian charism by these lay
participants. Participants expressed deep care about their students and the
many facets of Ignatian education that help students develop to whole
people.
Among the findings, seven themes emerged. The first was that
teaching in a Jesuit school became a spiritual calling for lay teachers.
Participants said the Ignatian charism included guiding students to become
develop their spirituality and ultimately to become good people. They said
how the Ignatian charism drew them to teach at a Jesuit school because of
the social justice component and spiritual development promoted by
Ignatian education. Secondly, the impact of retreat and service programs
upon teachers’ recognition of the Ignatian charism in their teaching was
formative for lay teachers. Participants cited the influence of Kairos
retreat, Emmaus retreat, and various service programs as having a LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 172
profound effect upon student formation and lay teacher spiritual formation
too.
From these experiences expressed about a calling to the Ignatian
charism and lay teacher spiritual growth, the third theme emerged. It was a
desire to learn more about Ignatian education– particularly once the
teacher learned about Jesuit terminology such as cura personalis and
Magis. In theme four, participants spoke about how that the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) required prayer,
discernment, and time to learn before incorporating it into the teaching
craft.
Themes five and six included descriptions from participants about
how lay teacher understanding of the Ignatian charism melded with a time
frame to learn about the Ignatian charism. There was extensive
explanation about how lay teachers did and did not understand the
Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) in the teaching practice.
The seventh theme concentrated upon the love and care for the student
because both catalyzed a ministerial function for the lay teacher.
Participants understood their role in Jesuit schools became vocational.
While lay teachers recognized they cannot perform the sacramental
functions of a priest, they viewed their responsibility as a ministerial one.
That role included nurturing the student to make active the goals of the
Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019). LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 173
From these themes came comments from participants about the
influence of teacher induction programs and mentorship that they
received. The data communicated there were no consistencies to teacher
induction programs among the Jesuit schools included in this study. While
teacher induction programs had a wide variance of influence from no
effect to a positive effect upon participants, mentorship had a more
substantially constructive influence upon participants. Participants spoke
enthusiastically about the long-run, beneficial effect a mentor had upon
them when forming an understanding of where the Ignatian charism
impacted their teaching practice and supported the benefits of mentorship
found by Gilles et al. (2013).
Thus, participants asserted the increasing role of the lay teacher as
minister, and the vocational responsibility to bring the good news of Jesus’
saving grace to students, had become more significant in most Jesuit
schools where there were fewer Jesuits present among the teaching
faculty.
Furthermore, the length of time it took lay teachers to recognize
the Ignatian charism in the teaching practice grew as an important theme
from this study. Determining a length of time for lay teachers to perceive
when the Ignatian charism appeared in the teaching practice became less
specific from this data. Rather, the data suggested a range from seven to
14 years of teaching service in a Jesuit school before the teacher began to
recognize the presence of the Ignatian charism in the teaching practice. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 174
Also, there was less specificity about the recognition of and decision to
use the IPP in the teaching practice by teachers.
Additionally, there was noticeably little participation from teachers
with fewer than 10 years of teaching experience in Jesuit schools. I
concluded that teachers with less than 10 years of teaching experience in
Jesuit schools may have lower confidence to speak about the Ignatian
charism. Relatedly, there were more theology teacher participants in this
study and only two science teacher participants. Such hesitancy to
participate may indicate a struggle among science teachers to connect the
Ignatian charism to their academic discipline.
Because of the themes that emerged from the data, the next chapter
proposes a consistent number of years for teacher induction programs
occur within Jesuit secondary schools. And since the data suggested that
mentor relationships successfully impacted the development of lay teacher
recognition of the Ignatian charism, I propose a new formalized mentor
program for mid-career lay teachers. Finally, the data communicated the
love and care by lay secondary teachers for their students and Jesuit
secondary school missions. Their rooted discernment of the Ignatian
charism nurtures students and advances the mission of Jesuit secondary
schools. I propose that a recorded oral history about the more experienced
lay teachers in Jesuit secondary schools start and serve as models for
younger teachers. The next chapter proposes practical implications
developed based on these data and explores these proposals in more detail. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 175
CHAPTER FIVE: PROPOSED SOLUTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
This study contributed to existing literature by presenting data
about the understanding of the Ignatian charism by lay teachers in Jesuit
secondary schools. The study’s aim will be addressed by proposed
solutions with supportive explanations for each one. I considered the
practical application for these solutions as they are implemented.
The literature review in this dissertation suggested that lay teachers
carry forth the mission of Jesuit schools today (Gleeson & O’Flaherty,
2016; McAvoy, 2012). Whether this was true for lay teachers in secondary
Jesuits schools became the center of my study. Lay teachers’ knowledge
of the fundamental tenets of the Ignatian charism, centered at the core of
the distinguishing characteristic for Jesuit schools, was also the study’s
aim. Furthermore, since there were few Jesuits teaching in secondary
schools, the degree of lay teacher intentionality to discern the Ignatian
charism as well as when that awareness occurred became an additional
purpose of this study.
Knowing this information will assist secondary school
administrators who plan teacher formation programs, organize on-going
faith formation for teachers, and lay teacher adoption of the Ignatian
Pedagogical Paradigm.
Aim Statement
The aim of this study was to create an evidence-based set of data that
guided Jesuit secondary school administrators who have lay teachers LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 176
working in Jesuit schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus
to better understand whether lay teachers make the Ignatian charism a part
of their work. Results from this study showed the understanding of lay
teachers’ intentionality as they discern the Ignatian charism into their
teaching practice and may assist Jesuit school administrators in their
planning of induction programs for lay teachers.
Proposed Solutions
In my dissertation in practice (DIP) proposal, I suggested it was
possible a participant who may have taught in a Jesuit school for many
years might not have had an experience with the Ignatian charism. That
turned out not to be true. Rather, all participants in this study described an
understanding of Ignatian spirituality that showed, at minimum, a
modicum of discernment, prayerfulness, and action relative to the Ignatian
Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) or the Ignatian charism (Jesuit Institute,
1993).
This commonality expressed by participants concerning their
discernment of the Ignatian charism as well as the consequential
experience for their practice of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP)
showed a disparity of range of understanding for both. There were lay
teachers who expressed a deep understanding of the Ignatian charism and
the IPP and there were other lay teachers who expressed a modicum of
understanding for both. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 177
Therefore, here are solution proposals that come from the
interview data gathered in this research study:
1. New teacher induction programming in Jesuit secondary schools
requires greater formalization and consistency, including in some schools,
a lengthening of the programs to four years at all Jesuit secondary schools.
2. Change the role of mentorship for more experienced teachers in
Jesuit schools to provide support as the experienced teacher discerns the
Ignatian charism.
Create an archival record of the recorded experiences from lay teachers
about why and how they came to understand the Ignatian charism in their
teaching. This should commence to provide a historical model for future
lay teachers.
Evidence that Supports the Solutions
Induction programs in Jesuit secondary schools
I interviewed lay teachers from six Jesuit secondary schools in the USA
East Province of the Society of Jesus. Each school had an induction
program ranging from a few days to five years. The inconsistency of these
programs was stark.
Here are examples that illustrate these differences and
inconsistency. Participant 22 said “Okay. So, what I started [Jesuit school]
did not have a formal training program,” and Participant 7 did not
experience a formal induction program and remembered learning about LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 178
the IPP from a colleague during her seventh year of teaching in the Jesuit
secondary school:
So no, there really wasn't anything until, like I said, and we
started having and I'm pretty sure the first time I heard about
the IPP was when we had faculty meetings where teachers
were saying, oh, we've come back from the colloquium and
we want to talk about stuff here. I'm going to do a sample
lesson that uses the IPP. And it was great because I'm like,
well, that's really helpful. Just as a way to structure lessons
and to think about it. But that was like I said, maybe, I don't
know, when it was the first colloquium. It was probably
fifteen years ago.
Whereas another participant, whose participant number remains
anonymous, was in a multiyear induction program. “Then you might learn
some things but you're not going to, you know, have that full grasp or
there's going to be something that falls through the cracks.”
And in this example, Participant 86 had taught in two different Jesuit high
schools. His school administration at the first school presented information
about the IPP during his second year of teaching. Then while he was at the
next Jesuit school the induction program alternated between Ignatian
education language study and the operational of that particular school:
I guess the first two years that you started at [Jesuit high
school], there was an introduction not only like a new LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 179
teacher orientation for the first two years, and they would
alternate between practical, logistical stuff that was specific
to [Jesuit high school], just as a school, but then we would
also alternate and every other week we'd have a session
where we were looking at foundational documents, like the
IPP, the characteristics of a Jesuit school. Those types of
things to acquaint us with what the magic behind the
curtains was.
I am deliberately not including the following participant’s number
to preserve anonymity. Anonymous Participant A started midyear at his
Jesuit school, so the school administration required him to attend a three-
day induction. When I asked the participant to describe the current
program the participant said:
It's been the same sort of setup since I've been...since I
started, a three-day teacher academy put on by the
administrators. There's a retreat. The retreat just happened.
The retreat happens [during] the first quarter to kind of...as
like a touch base, but it's also with other teachers and other
Jesuit high schools…Actually, now, there is a new
feature… They do meet like every other [week], and there's
a reading assigned to them, something along those lines.
These examples illustrate substantial differences with the teacher
induction experience. All of it appeared to be centered upon the early part LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 180
of teacher formation or, in the example from Participant 22, no formal
training of any kind.
Participants like Participant 35 and Anonymous Participant A said
there were more robust induction programs now in their schools.
However, the data from this study showed that teachers do not begin to
recognize the importance of the Ignatian charism in their teaching until an
average of the eleventh year of their teaching because of their focus upon
learning the subject matter.
School follow-up from induction program information varied from
none to an on-going, required creation of tenured teacher portfolios.
Rebore (2012) found teachers can be taught to use the IPP in their
teaching practice and discern Ignatian charism. Once the training
occurred, whether teachers continued to use the IPP and nurture
understanding of the Ignatian charism remained a significant question.
Participant 104 said the multi-year requirement helped remind
teachers about the necessity to include the IPP in their work: “[The
induction program] is very extensive, and on top of that, they've got to
keep a portfolio, as do tenured teachers now, have to keep a portfolio, and
then write a report every three years.”
In this next paragraph, I am deliberately not including the
participant numbers to preserve anonymity. Participants said new teacher
induction programs lasted five years in one school and four years in
another school. Participants explained these programs assisted new teacher LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 181
development effectively. Anonymous Participant B remarked: “Yes, we
have a kind of five-year teacher formation program,” and Anonymous
Participant C described: “[The teacher induction program] continued to
fourth year… what used to be meeting with the principal and assistant
principal we were then once [an academic] quarter…” American
secondary schools that operate on a quarter academic system, divide them
in 10 to 12 week periods of time. Schools have this range because it
depends upon the length of individual school’s academic year. There is
variance by state as well as difference from public and private schools.
Therefore, I propose that there be alterations to existing new
teacher induction development and experienced teacher professional
formation. This idea melds the new teacher program into a two-stage
format. The first stage concentrates upon the first four years of teaching in
a Jesuit school. I named the first stage of this program prima pars, from
the Latin meaning first stage. The second stage takes place later in the
ninth through tenth year of teaching. I named this stage gratia minister,
from the Latin meaning charism attendant. I am using Latin phrasing
because traditionally, the Roman Catholic Church and the Society of Jesus
used the Latin language to name program initiatives.
Teacher induction programs can be redesigned with teacher
formation split into an early stage named prima pars that lasts four years.
It can follow models established that I know exist at Boston College High
School (BC High), Fairfield Preparatory School (Fairfield Prep), or LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 182
Fordham Preparatory School (Fordham Prep). I know about BC High’s
program because I work there. I learned more about programs at Fairfield
Prep and Fordham Prep from participants in this study. Based upon
interview data from this study and my personal experience, these three
schools run new teacher induction programs that last two to five years.
This is why I propose a four-year, prima pars, induction stage. The
participants from this study who underwent longer teacher induction
programs provided positive reactions about their experience.
Chatlain and Noonan (2005) identified a need for a systematic
process of teaching induction “that consciously meet the needs in the
religious dimension for beginning teachers” (2005, p. 499). Brock and
Chatlain (2008) as well as Shockley et al. (2013) found that teacher
induction programs varied in length and scope. It was necessary to identify
a standard definition of teacher induction because such a program can
reduce dissatisfaction and frustration with teaching (Brock & Chatlain,
2008). A teacher induction program alone did not necessarily reduce new
teacher retention (Shockley et al., 2013), but a combination of an
induction program and mentor support improved teacher retention (Brock
& Chatlain, 2008; Marušic et al., 2017).
This information led me to form the basis for two stages prima
pars and gratia minister. A combination of an induction programming
with mentorship to promote an enhanced understanding of the Ignatian
charism is the goal of these proposals. Elongating the timeframe over a LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 183
greater number of years prompted by prayer, reflection, and discernment
addresses one of the findings concerning when participants in this study
said they began to understand the Ignatian charism.
When the teacher begins the first stage, this plan helps the teacher
walk through an induction program with mentor support as the teacher
learns about Jesuit terminology (see Table 4). Support from a mentor is
critical because new teachers then have mentors to share planning ideas,
emotional and pedagogical support, and counsel (Gilles et al., 2013;
Marušic et al, 2017). Shields (2008) supported this idea adding that
mentors can serve as “spiritual guides” (p. 171). As teacher said from the
study by Gilles et al. (2013) about mentor support: “Working with my
mentor is like having a second brain/hand/feet/eyes” (p. 80). So, the intent
of the first semester is to provide check-in opportunities with the new
teachers as well as moments to commiserate with each other about their
teaching practice. Introduction of Ignatian terminology can take place
during the second semester of the first year (see Table 4). A complete year
by year explanation of the prima pars appears in Table 4.
Christensen’s (2013) extensive study about first year teacher
induction showed unplanned meetings between the teacher and the mentor
occurred every other week. Shields (2008) found formal meetings with
first year teachers allowed them to commiserate about their frustrations
and share successful teaching strategies. Christensen (2013) found that
vetting mentor teachers who had an inclination to be supportive, serious LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 184
about the teaching craft, good listeners, and caring was necessary.
Combining the two practices of teacher induction meetings with mentor
relationship formation aids the formation of systemic networking for the
new teacher within the school community (Engvik, 2014).
The second stage, gratia minister, begins when the teacher enters
the ninth through eleventh year of teaching in a Jesuit school (see Table
4). A school administrator, after consulting with the teacher, can decide
when that portion of the program begins. Since the data showed a range of
seven to 14 years to recognize the Ignatian charism, I chose a mid-range of
nine to eleven years. Some teachers may be ready to begin in the ninth
year because they had previous experience with Jesuit education, while
others may not be ready to begin this stage until the eleventh year.
The second stage provides a mentor with whom the teacher can
collaborate to record an interview about the mentor’s experience with the
Ignatian charism. They can use the interview questions found in Appendix
H as a template. That recorded interview is the center of my third proposal
in this section. Also, the teacher can learn why discernment of the Ignatian
charism matters in an Ignatian educator’s teaching from the mentor.
For both stages, I recommend the use of three documents: Go
Forth and Teach (Kolvenbach, 1997), Do You Speak Ignatian? (Traub,
2012), Go Forth and Teach (Kolvenbach, 1987), and A Living Tradition in
the 21st Century (Sosa & Mesa, 2019). Participants referenced the
Kolvenbach (1987) document as having influence upon their discernment LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 185
about the Ignatian charism. The Traub (2012) document is a booklet of
clear and useful Jesuit terminology for Ignatian educators. And the Sosa
and Mesa (2019) workbook, produced by the Society of Jesus’ Secretariat
for Secondary and Pre-Secondary Education, includes reflection activities
that educators can use to learn about Ignatian pedagogy.
I propose these documents be spread out over a number of years as
explained in Table 4. By doing this slowly, prayer, discernment, and
meditation creates an opportunity for the teacher to merge examples from
the teaching experience with the Ignatian terminology.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 186
Table 4
Two Stage Teacher Induction and Mentor Program by Years ______
Stage One in Four Years: Prima Pars Outlined ______
Year 1: Explanation of school policies and protocols, mentor meetings, classroom observation by the mentor and a teacher with mentor retreat. Introduction to Ignatian educator language such as: cura personalis, discernment, Magis, Men and Women for Others (Traub, 2012), and the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019). Meetings by group once per month. Check-in meetings every two weeks with the mentor during the first semester, then monthly meetings second semester. Use of Do You Speak Ignatian? (Traub, 2012), Go Forth and Teach (Kolvenbach, 1987).
Year 2: Teacher presents examples of Ignatian educator language such as: cura personalis, discernment, Magis, and the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) mentor meetings, classroom observation by the mentor, and teachers provide sample reflections where Ignatian educator language occurred in their teaching practice. Meetings monthly for group and with the mentor.
Year 3: Mentors explain how the tenets of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) fits into their teaching practice. The teachers meet with other third-year teachers to reflect about where the tenets appeared in their teaching. Teachers provide sample reflections where Ignatian educator language occurred in their teaching practice. Alternating monthly meetings by group or with the mentor. Use A Living Tradition in the 21st Century (Sosa & Mesa, 2019) as the basis for discussion, prayer, and discernment. Participate at a retreat with the mentor.
Year 4: Mentors explain the purpose of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) and how it fits into their teaching practice. Teachers teach one lesson per month using the IPP. Teachers provide sample reflections where Ignatian educator language occurred in their teaching practice. Alternating monthly meetings by group or with the mentor. Use A Living Tradition in the 21st Century (Sosa & Mesa, 2019) as the basis for discussion, prayer, and discernment. ______LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 187
______Table 4 (continued).
Two Stage Teacher Induction and Mentor Program by Years ______
Stage Two in Two Years: Gratia Minister Outlined ______
Year 1: Administrator and teacher agree it is time to begin stage two during years nine, 10, or 11 of the teacher’s experience in the Jesuit school. Administrator assigns a mentor to the teacher. The teacher interviews and records the mentor teacher using the questions found in Appendix H. The teacher reflects where the Ignatian charism is present in the teaching practice. Participate at a retreat with the mentor. Use A Living Tradition in the 21st Century (Sosa & Mesa, 2019).
Year 2: The mentor centers quarterly conversations about where they recognize the Ignatian charism’s presence in the teaching practice as the basis for discussion, prayer, and discernment. Participate at a retreat with the mentor. Use Traub (2012) for the teacher to provide examples from the classroom. ______
Accomplishing these programs requires attention to and the merging of the
teacher’s professional and spiritual growth by the school administration.
This next section explains the rationale for stage two, gratia minister.
Mentorship and the Ignatian charism
Since study participants spoke with much detail and affection
about the influence of a mentor upon their ability to make sense of the
Ignatian charism, a robust restructuring of mentor programs for lay
teachers in Jesuit secondary schools is necessary. Participants said their
mentors had an influence during their early years of teaching. And
participants spoke glowingly about the influence of the 19th Annotation
retreat, Ignatian Evenings, and retreats that brought them closer to the LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 188
purpose of the Ignatian later in their careers. Here are two examples.
Participant 55 noted the influence of the mentor program:
So, something that was very, very beneficial is that I was
assigned a mentor, a veteran faculty mentor, within my
department. And also, I was very fortunate that I came
about in a time when my department had a very strong
group of very experienced teachers. So, I was kind of the
young guy and not only was I assigned a veteran faculty to
support me, but everybody in the department kind of
supported me and challenged me. So, I mean it was on both
ends of the spectrum, where they were very encouraging as
to what the types of things I was trying to do, and then they
were very critical about some of the things that I was trying
to do. For me, I think the mentorship program is the most
important thing.
And as Participant 66 reflected about an early mentor program:
We did have it, though, throughout the year. We would
meet, I would say, at least once a month, at the time. Where
we would all get together with our mentor-teachers, and it
was actually a good thing for me. I was a veteran teacher,
but I wasn't a veteran teacher at [a Jesuit school]. It was
learning about [the school], and I felt like I learned a lot in
that. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 189
Consequently, I propose blending the two purposes, a mentor and
the guidance structure of the 19th Annotation retreat, together. Thus,
establish a mentor program for lay teachers as they approach the ninth to
eleventh year range of their experience working in a Jesuit school. This
gratia minister, second stage, relies upon a different type of mentor
relationship. Doing this avoids what Participant 86 experienced: “Because
during the first year of teaching it's the only kind of real mentoring stuff I
had when I was there.”
After administrators vet more experienced lay teachers who
understand the Ignatian charism to be mentors, both teachers meet
monthly in the first semester of the first year and then quarterly during the
second semester of the first year and entirely for the second year. The
timeframe provides guidance and check-in for the teacher without making
it burdensome. For example, Participant 106 shared: “And also, I'm a
product of [Jesuit education], and I see the cura personalis made a
difference in my life. I had some great mentors. Not just teachers but
mentors who came through the Jesuit system.”
Participant 32 asserted it takes 10-15 observations of a teacher
before determining the depth of Ignatian charism knowledge and whether
the teacher provides appropriate reflection opportunities for students:
"Where do you give the kids time to absorb what you're doing? What
questions did you ask today that you would consider to be reflective in
nature?" And that's how you try to raise awareness of it.” Similarly, it LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 190
takes time for the mentor to assess what type of guidance the experienced
teacher requires.
Interestingly, this study’s sample of participants trended toward lay
teachers with more than 15 years of teaching experience in Jesuit
secondary schools. For example, of the 122 teachers invited to participate,
three participants had less than ten years of teaching experience in a Jesuit
secondary school. Among all study participants, the average number of
teaching years in Jesuit secondary schools was 18.06 years. I think
teachers who agreed to participate had more confidence to speak about
their experience with Ignatian charism. It led me to conclude that
supporting teachers to develop their understanding of the Ignatian charism
is necessary.
So, the ninth through eleventh year of teaching in a Jesuit school is
the general benchmark I propose as a starting point for the gratia minister.
The reason for a range of years to begin mentorship is that there is a lack
of data to show whether a more specific year was best to start. Participants
cited a range of years when they began to understand the Ignatian charism.
This information leads to this next proposal that addresses the length of
time it takes to understand the Ignatian charism and the experience of how
veteran teachers understand the Ignatian charism.
Create an archival oral history record of experienced Ignatian educators
Beginning in 2005, the then called Jesuit New England Province
recorded oral histories of Jesuits who had lived through the twentieth LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 191
century. For example, two Jesuit priests with whom I worked at Boston
College High School—Fr. Joseph Bennett, SJ and Fr. James Hosie, SJ—
had their interviews published as a part of the New England Jesuits Oral
Histories Program (Feuerhard, 2009). That program gave me the idea to
replicate a similar oral history project for current lay teachers who have
worked for over thirty years in a Jesuit school.
Additionally, because this current cadre of lay teacher are the first
generation to teach in a Jesuit school without many Jesuits, these lay
teachers experiences are unique. Their recorded experiences will serve as
a model for younger teachers to discern the Ignatian charism. Therefore,
capturing these teaching experiences through an oral history method can
preserve the importance of the Ignatian charism for future new teachers in
Jesuit schools.
Recording examples of lay Ignatian educators who, after 30, 35, 40
or more years of working in Jesuit schools, will provide examples for
future young lay teachers to emulate. Their recorded experiences will
illustrate the benefits of how prayerful discernment nurtures a greater in-
depth understanding of God’s spiritual presence in the work that they do in
Jesuit secondary schools.
During this study, Participant 32 revealed she helped write the
original Graduate at Graduation, a foundational document for Ignatian
educators at her school. That document became a model for other schools
too: LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 192
Well I was on the committee that helped write our Graduate
at Graduation document…We didn't have service
requirements, and we decided that we needed those things
in order to promote one of the goals of Graduate at
Graduation. Being open to growth, being committed to
doing justice and being religious…
…I think it was very gradual in the realization that we
should be all starting our classes with a prayer, because I
don't think the laypeople did before that. So, there were
some very visible changes, and then I think our subtle
changes were in how we were dealing with the kids. There
was much more talk about meeting them where they were
than just what's the context.
The experience of Participant 32 must be recorded historically in
order to provide a context and rationale why a lay teacher must bring the
Ignatian charism and the Jesuit terminology into the individual’s teaching
practice. Participant 55 summarized this reasoning effectively:
I think about all the veteran faculty at our school, who have
25 or 30 years more experience. When those people retire,
we lose a great deal of institutional memory, we lose a
great deal of experience, we lose a great deal of
interpretation of Jesuit education. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 193
This current generation of lay teachers in Jesuit schools were the
first to teach in schools predominantly staffed by lay teachers. Without a
record of the teaching experience the spiritual development, and the
application of the IPP into the teaching practice, the context, successes,
and failures associated with discerning the Ignatian charism will be lost.
Evidence that Challenges the Solutions
Lay teacher understanding of the Ignatian charism is a perpetual
work-in-progress. It takes discernment, prayer, and a willingness to pursue
a greater understanding of the Ignatian charism. Because learning Jesuit
terminology takes time, support and guidance for the lay teachers to
discern it must come from school administrators. When the administrator
provides space for the teacher to learn about the Ignatian charism,
participants said they learned about the Ignatian charism successfully.
Here are two examples. Participant 22 received support to learn
more about Ignatian pedagogy from her principal: “Probably for me,
because I started at the halfway point and everything, my mentor teachers
stepped up and I had a fantastic principal who immediately ushered me
towards the [Jesuit Schools Network Teacher] colloquium.” Participant 35
said his principal nurtured teacher understanding of the Ignatian education
by directing teachers to look for the Ignatian pedagogy at work through
class observation: “I would say the most, one of the most profound
instances…We had to observe two colleagues a year. As the principal, my LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 194
first principal said, observe two colleagues every year, one within your
department, one without your department.”
Such a school-wide promotion of Ignatian pedagogical
understanding requires leadership, creativity, and accountability. It also
assumes a base knowledge of Ignatian terminology. That is a challenge for
school administrators because there is a varying degree of lay teacher
background about Ignatian pedagogy.
Participant 106 said it was necessary for administrators to assess
the degree of lay teacher understanding of the Ignatian charism and the
IPP. He worried there was too much assumed by administrators about the
teacher’s understanding of the Ignatian charism when there was really a
low level of knowledge:
I know that there's limitations about what people are going
to be willing to share, but just to find out where they are.
And to have a little bit more of a dialogue with that and just
get a sense of where we all are starting from together. Even
if they're not the deepest of believers or even believers at
all, there's perennial spiritual themes and tasks that I think
all people are called to attend to…
For school administrators to compel teachers to learn about
Ignatian pedagogy was an exemplified turning point for Participant 61 and
work in a Jesuit school: LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 195
And then my first formative principal…held me
accountable, even in the first year of working…it wasn't
until my second year where I was really held accountable to
understand the mission on a very practical level. I had left
meetings early and I would leave gatherings early and he
called me out on it.
Participant 5 observed how teacher induction programs at Jesuit
secondary schools have less formality and that does not promote
accountability:
My sense is it's all sort of done by kind of ad hoc unsystematic
nobody really has much of a program necessarily and think the
danger if it becomes very systematic or comes very sort of
dogmatic or doctrinaire then that's a lot of what turns people off
about the church, too. So, I think there's a fine line to walk in, you
know, for the Jesuits and the order and the administrators in an
evangelizing function.
Participant 108 explained making the Ignatian charism a part of the
teaching practice was part of his teaching evaluation in his Jesuit school:
And they do make it part of our teacher evaluations. We are
evaluated on the Grad at Grad, students are surveyed, and I
get nervous because I teach [a secular academic subject] here.
And I know one of the things is about loving. I try to model
loving as a teacher, but I say to myself, how do I bring that LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 196
into a [a secular academic] curriculum? Like how do I talk
about love when I'm talking about [a secular academic
subject] or something?
While understanding the Ignatian charism differs from learning
about the Ignatian pedagogy because the charism requires prayer and
discernment, Participant 22 reflected that learning about Ignatian
pedagogy was a complex undertaking and difficult to assess:
For me that was an important immersion. You know, you
get you get there and you're given the handbooks. I’m
trying to think…What was that handbook? The hallmarks
of Jesuit pedagogy, you know, you're handed the
handbooks. And you initially, it's like learning a different
language isn't it? And suddenly, there's this this new
vocabulary. And so, at first, like an [English as a Second
Language] teacher, you're, you're throwing these words
around right that you're, you know, I've got this new
nomenclature that I'm using, and but in terms of really
understanding what it is and, and, what you're looking for
and everything that really did take years of just classroom
you know just learning pedagogy.
Less Catholicity and increased secularism also challenge these
notions about lay teacher understanding of the Ignatian charism. Because
Ignatian education is, at its core, based upon Roman Catholic, the LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 197
dichotomy expressed by participants about their colleagues, at minimum,
paying attention to the Ignatian charism is problematic. Separation of the
Ignatian charism from Catholic teachings was indicative of a
disconnection and misunderstanding by lay teachers in Jesuit schools.
Participant 66 asserted comments by colleagues expressed a
distancing from Catholic practice: “I have heard comments that there's too
many Masses, there's that kind of thing. I feel like perhaps that is one of
the things, the religious aspect of it is not held as high as I would like by
some colleagues.”
Being a Jesuit school requires an embracing, not just an
understanding of the Ignatian charism. Until his death, Avery Dulles, SJ
was a Jesuit and leading American Catholic theologian. He once explained
the Ignatian charism as steadfast attention upon God, loving Jesus, and
serving the Church. His explanation of the Ignatian charism included
spiritual and ministerial functions such as Roman Catholic sacramental
practice, spiritual discernment, and evangelization of Jesus’ gospel
message (Dulles, 2007).
More specifically, Participant 20 declared that teachers view full
application of Ignatian values such as service and retreat work as causing
tension with meeting secular curriculum goals:
And with lay teachers, there is frustration expressed by
teachers about the intrusion of faith formation described as
mission creep: When people are like, they're missing LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 198
another class because they're going on a retreat or they're
going on an immersion, and its mission creep. But I think I
get it and I understand why that is frustrating to teachers,
but the mission is not just played out in those [classroom]
settings.
More glaringly, separating Ignatian spirituality to be an Ignatian
philosophy is a growing problem. Participant 1 expressed worry about this
growing phenomenon. He said lay teachers had to put their hearts into
their teaching as an Ignatian educator:
I just thought I just don't think that for that their hearts are,
you know, but, I don’t, I can, I can name people, of course,
that I believe they're very, very committed and their hearts
are really into it and understand what this charism is but I
think most people just resent spending time with it. I really
do. I think there's a good number of people just have heard
it before, the same old stuff.
Participants noted there was a tension between the spiritual
teachings of the Jesuits and the spiritual teaching of the Roman Catholic.
While Ignatian spirituality is rooted in Roman Catholicism, participants
said their colleagues embraced the social justice expectations of Ignatian
education such as being open to growth and being committed to doing
justice. Participant 103 explained it this way: LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 199
I've had a few [colleagues] say that's a negative effect of
the pre-sex abuse scandal because people are less church-
ed. They might be baptized Catholics. They might be
engaging in many of the social justice works of the Church,
but as far as the actual practice of sacraments, that seems to
be not as pronounced as it was as little as 10 years ago.
While there was participant discussion about the Catholic
sacraments and the sacramental purpose to bring students closer to God, it
is unknown whether lay teachers in their ninth to eleventh year of teaching
will accept the notion of learning more about Jesuit terminology and
Ignatian education to bring lay teachers closer to God through the Ignatian
charism.
Participants said dissenting opinions existed about the spiritual
differentiation of Jesuit schools versus them being just an academically
demanding, nice place to teach. This was in response to the question: what
parts of the mission do lay teachers talk about the most and what parts do
they talk about the least? Participant 108 said his colleagues remarked,
during side conversations, more about the service component of faith
initiatives and less about sacramenta components:
You'll occasionally hear teachers say, oh what about our
academics? Are we focused too much on this? And I try to
remind them that no, and I say it openly, it depends who the
company's with. If its people I'm comfortable with I'll say, LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 200
no we can find a balance of both. And then I remind people
that those who often do say negative things unfortunately
mostly likely have not worked at another school. That's
usually what I find as well. But I would say as a whole,
what's spoken about most is the service and retreats.
Similarly, Participant 104 concluded that changes in American
society devaluing the benefits of a school-wide Mass versus the loss of
class-time:
Well, I don't know if it's talked about the least, but the ones
where they're less jazzed about it, I think are the built-in
liturgies, which I think are excellent, but I think that's more
of a reflection on society's valuing or devaluing of Mass,
and penance services, and the like. I think a number of
teachers bemoan the loss of instructional time for that.
The data from participants in this study communicated support for
and benefits from a deeper understanding of the Ignatian charism for
students. There are societal impediments to this cited by participants such
as student inexperience with Catholic sacramental practices, increasing
secularism, and the parsing of Ignatian spirituality and Catholic teaching
by lay teachers.
Significantly, there is a recent reemphasis about the importance of
spiritual development for Jesuit and lay people who work in Jesuit
apostolates by the Jesuit Superior General Arturo Sosa, SJ. Explicitly LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 201
among the four Universal Apostolic Preferences expressed by the Jesuit
Superior General was “To show the way to God through the Spiritual
Exercises and discernment” (Sosa, 2019). This direction included all
people working in Jesuit schools across the world as stated by the
Worldwide Secretary for Education, the Society of Jesus, who published
reflection exercises including exercises about the IPP for classroom
teachers (Sosa & Mesa, 2019).
Implementation of the Proposed Solutions
Induction programming expansion, greater formalization, and
consistency.
When I learned about the different lengths and foci of teacher
induction programs in Jesuits schools, it led me to this solution:
recommend and agree upon a consistent length of time, scope, and
sequence for a teaching induction programs for new teachers. The Jesuit
Schools Network can make specific recommendations for induction
programs with its member schools.
Based upon the limited data from participants in this study, a four-
or five-year induction time frame was more impactful. For example,
Participant 8, when interviewed, was in the third year of a five-year
induction program and he spoke with enthusiasm about his experience:
So, I think that we've developed this great five-year program. And I think
that [the administration] has realized that it can go beyond and it should go
beyond the five-year program. And right now, we're actually in the LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 202
conversation of, okay, so what do you do after five years and, and how can
we, how can we keep teaching and the Ignatian way of thinking?
Participants 81 and 108 spoke about the success of the school’s current
multi-year programs of three or four years. More telling was a reply to this
question that I asked: if induction program was optional, would the
participant have partaken in the program? Participant 81 replied:
Yes, because I think we need help in terms of procedural
knowledge but also in terms of spiritual growth. You can't
do the work that we do without understanding how to
minister to others and how to be ministered to by God.
Participant 108 said the four-year induction program he
experienced successfully included:
They have a program here…for non-tenured faculty
members. So, it's a professional development track. Which
in my first two years here was pretty much pedagogical,
some Ignatian would come up but it was mainly more
indoctrination of the [school’s] way and things of that
nature.
As evidence that a multi-year induction program approach succeeds,
Participant 86 recalled: “It started like a one-year program, and then there
was like a refresher when maybe three or four years in, when they tried to
get maybe more defined.” LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 203
Making the teacher induction program compulsory remains
necessary. For example, Participant 103 confided he might not have
participated unless the induction program was compulsory:
As a new teacher, I'm not sure I necessarily would have taken that first
step. I made some very good friends when I first started, and I think if they
were doing it, I would do it. But I don't know that the impetus would have
come from myself.
Thus, I propose making teacher induction programs compulsory
and consistent from one school to another. The program includes two
stages, a first stage for new teachers that lasts four years and a second,
later stage, occurs place for the teacher who has taught for eight to eleven
years of teaching.
The new teacher induction programs can be renamed prima pars,
from the Latin meaning first stage, and it lasts four years. A second stage
called gratia minister, from the Latin meaning charism attendant, starts
when teachers enter their eighth to eleventh year of teaching in the Jesuit
school.
I based the starting point using the range of years when
participants in this study said they first recognized the Ignatian charism in
their teaching. Participants provided a range from seven years to 14 years
when they said they recognized the presence of the Ignatian charism in
teaching, so I chose a mid-range period of time to begin this of nine to
eleven years of teaching experience. For example Participant 17 reflected LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 204
how he benefitted from the examples of Ignatian pedagogy provided by
colleagues and administrators: “But to kind of pull in, especially faculty or
staff or administrators that have kind of lived it, that have made it a part of
their spiritual practice, their teaching practice and to kind of give those
types of stories.”
Similar to a new teacher mentor program where the mentor
supports and advises a teacher who has started work in a Jesuit school, the
gratia minister explicates for the experienced teacher why the charism
matters in the teaching practice of an Ignatian educator. The gratia
minister shares how one recognizes the presence of the Ignatian charism in
the teaching craft and how the teacher can seek greater discernment of the
Ignatian charism.
My recommendation includes reducing the prima pars teachers
and the gratia minister’s full-time teaching or perfecting responsibilities.
The teaching load can reduce by one or two less classes to account for the
demands of overseeing the prima pars program. It may cost more for
schools to do this and that may limit immediate implementation because it
may require hiring additional personnel to monitor it. The gratia minister
program can include a similar reduction in a class teaching or a reduction
in perfecting or duty periods such as cafeteria monitoring etc.
Mentorship for experienced teachers needs expansion, greater
formalization, and consistency. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 205
According to the data presented from this study, the role of a
mentor for newer teachers has existed in Jesuit schools for many years.
Continuing a similar role is my proposal solution: to create a second tier of
mentorship for teachers who have entered their ninth through eleventh
year of teaching in a Jesuit school.
This second stage, gratia minister, two-year program has a similar
structure to the 19th Annotation retreat. In the 19th Annotation a teacher
meets with a spiritual director over the course of 30 days and commits to
45 minutes of prayer each day (Hampton-Wright, 2016). During this
second stage program, the mentor meets twice monthly during the first
year and once monthly during the second year. The purpose of meeting
twice monthly within the first year helps to establish a relationship
between the mentor and the teacher. “There needs to be some comfort
level, some sense of familiarity, some shared and safe space for the
mentoring relationship to be sustainable” (McLaughlin, 2010, p. 880).
The gratia minister and teacher discussions center upon specific
examples from the IPP where the gratia minister shares faith and Ignatian
spirituality presence in the teaching practice. Pragmatically, this timeframe
allows the experienced teacher who has a better understanding of the
subject matter, more time to experiment with the implementation of the
IPP into the teaching practice.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 206
Create an archival record of experienced lay teachers
Creating an archival record of the recorded experiences from lay
teachers about how, when, and why they came to understand the Ignatian
charism in their teaching. This should soon commence in order to provide
a historical model for future lay teachers.
There is an army of retired lay Jesuit educators who can record
these interviews via an online video service. Teachers in the gratia
minister stage interview and record their mentors about the mentor’s
experiences with the Ignatian charism. Performing this service exposes
teachers to questions that aid in their discernment of the Ignatian charism
and the incorporation of the IPP into their teaching practice.
It can be coordinated with leadership from The Jesuit Schools
Network by directing school presidents and principals to seek the names
of retired lay teachers to complete these interviews. The interviews can be
archived at each member school’s website with the best ones archived at
the Jesuit Schools Network website. As a guideline, the Jesuit Schools
Network can ask the questions used in this study to record the lived
experiences of the current veteran lay teachers.
The best interview results can be sent as models to the Director of
Research Development and New Ventures at the Jesuit Schools Network.
Those best interview examples can be archived on the Jesuit Schools
Network website for referral by all member schools.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 207
Factors and Stakeholders Related to the Implementation of the
Solutions
I plan to send the results of this study to the Director of the Jesuit
Schools Network and to the Director of Research Development and New
Ventures at the Jesuit Schools Network, both are in the United States. The
Jesuit Schools Network supported this research project from its
conception. The Director of Research Development and New Ventures at
the Jesuit Schools Network wants to read the outcome of this study.
Prima pars and gratia minister requires steadfast endorsement for the
goals of long-run induction programming from school administrators. For
example, Participant 104 did not have any teacher induction and scant
instruction about Ignatian education:
I tell you…the extent of new teacher orientation was, after a
relatively short interview with the principal, I was
recommended…The principal met with me maybe a half-
hour or so about where I might fit in, and then he said, Go to
the president's office. I went to the president's office…Handed
me a copy of Go Forth and Teach, and said, Read this at
some point. It's got everything you'll ever need to know about
Jesuit education. I think I started reading it that night, and
then the next day realized that I was in way over my head, just
trying to organize lesson plans. Not sure I ever went back to
it. I've read excerpts and all that, but that was new teacher LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 208
orientation, and I was pretty much left on my own, probably
for the next 11 years or so.
A successful induction and mentor program requires trust between
the new teacher and the mentor (Engvik, 2014). Participant 55 went
through a lengthy induction program. He said that the program and his
mentor helped to hone his teaching craft and to understand better the
Ignatian charism “I think it made me a better teacher because I think along
with a lot of those things I was offered mentorship, I was offered
opportunities to reflect on my craft, and I was offered ways to improve my
teaching.” And Participant 61, who did not have any knowledge of Jesuit
schools when she began to teach at a Jesuit school, said the teacher
induction was beneficial.
Where we would all get together with our mentor-teachers, and it
was actually a good thing for me. I was a veteran teacher, but I wasn't a
veteran teacher at [a Jesuit school]. It was learning about [the Jesuit
school] and I felt like I learned lot in that.
Timeline for Implementation of the Solutions
Here is a timeline for these solutions: create a prima pars, first
stage, of teacher induction, create a gratia minister, second stage, of
teacher learning about the Ignatian charism, and create a recorded archive
of experienced teachers who share their knowledge of the Ignatian
charism. Prima pars and gratia minister require set-up because both
include having a person direct the reflection meetings and assign the LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 209
mentor pairings for the new teachers as well as the pairing of the mentor
with the second stage teacher.
Wood (2005) found the support of the principal matters greatly in
the success of a mentor program for new teachers. This support included
holding discussion meetings, providing development of program content,
or meeting regularly to learn whether participants find the program to be
helpful (Wood, 2005). And Engvik (2014) included the principal as a
direct member of the new teacher’s network of support, highlighting how
important the role of the administrator when forging successful mentor
program in a school.
Prima pars can begin with the 2021-2022 school year. Selecting
the correct people to serve as mentors during prima pars and appointing a
person to implement the program takes proper planning. Fortunately, the
Kolvenbach (1987) and the Traub (2012) documents are readily available
through the Jesuit Schools Network research website. The Society of Jesus
has stored the Sosa and Mesa (2019) workbook on website for the
Secretariat for Secondary and Pre-Secondary Education. So, there is little
cost to acquire the documents necessary to guide the prima pars, and
likewise, the gratia minister programs.
The gratia minister program can begin as soon as the second
semester of the 2020-2021 school year but the planning and the matching
of teacher to gratia minister most likely means this will not begin until the
2021-2022 school year. There were 11 participants in this study whose LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 210
experience and knowledge of the Ignatian charism deserve recording for
an archive. Principals, or their designee, can begin to match the stage two
teacher and with the gratia minister. In a school where there are too many
stage two teachers, mentors can work with more than one of them. Shields
(2008) said that mentoring by experienced teachers built professional
understanding, when supported by opportunities for recollection and
reflection. Once the recording happens, a future stage two teacher can
watch the gratia minister’s interview as a discussion starter. Also, the
gratia minister’s interview can be played for the prima pars participants
too.
I lengthened the teacher prima pars stage one program to create
time for new teachers to digest the meaning of the Jesuit terminology. The
program increases its beginning of more time to see it present in teaching,
while not overwhelming the new teacher. And stage two of the induction
program has a flexible structure of nine to 11 years that allows for a
discussion with the experienced teacher and the administrator about when
the time to begin stage two is most appropriate for the teacher. Once
archived, the initial recordings can serve as resources for prima pars and
gratia minister in the event that the gratia minister has already recorded
an interview.
Notice about the prima pars, gratia minister, and recorded archive
plan will be sent to the Jesuit Schools Network one month following when
my dissertation defense occurs. I will urge the Jesuit Schools Network to LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 211
endorse the mentor stages and the recorded archive plan and send it to the
member schools.
Also, Jesuit Schools Network holds a triennial national colloquium
for member Jesuit schools (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019). Announcing
the oral history archival project can occur at the next Jesuit Schools
Network Colloquium in 2022. This convention would be a great place to
announce implementation of the archival recording project, although that
is two years later from the publication of this document.
Evaluating the Outcome of Implementing the Solution
Assessing whether these solutions work will take time. If a longer
induction and mentor program for new lay teachers in Jesuit secondary
schools lasts four years, that time frame limits measuring its immediate
success. Likewise, the stage two mentor program relies upon the
discernment of the Ignatian charism. It may require another
phenomenological study about the experience of lay teachers who
participated in the gratia minister program. And a repository of recorded
examples from lay teachers who have recognized the importance of the
Ignatian charism in their teaching will require a different research study.
Assuming the Jesuit School Network accepts these proposals, the
use of a Likert-scale survey to assess the usefulness of these solutions can
provide more feedback. For example, an assessment from participants
asking how this new program enhanced or did not enhance their
understanding of Ignatian pedagogy can be conducted by each school with LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 212
the results sent to the Jesuit Schools Network. Soliciting information about
the usefulness of the documents, particularly the newest one from Sosa &
Mesa (2019), will be most helpful to the planning of and future formation
of induction and mentor programs recommended by the Jesuit Schools
Network.
Also, a revisit of the contents of this study in the same six Jesuit
schools with a different cohort of teachers can provide more information
to leaders at the Jesuit Schools Network and Jesuit secondary school
administrators.
Implications
Practical Implications
There are practical implications for these solutions that influence
the experience of lay teacher understanding of the Ignatian charism. The
data communicated from this study revealed that lay teachers had an
inconsistent experience with teaching induction programs. Making these
recommendations to Jesuit schools will enhance the teacher recognition of
the Ignatian charism in teaching practices. Since participants identified the
IPP as a differentiator in Jesuit schools, creating a second stage of
mentorship addresses the implementation of the IPP into the teacher’s
practice.
I am not aware of any data that shows improved understanding of
the Ignatian charism from a lengthier first stage of a teacher induction
program. There are data supporting the benefits of a lengthier teacher LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 213
induction program and improved teacher retention in a school (Kearney,
2017; Kelley, 2004; Brock & Chatlain, 2008). It is possible that a
widespread consistent increase in the length of teacher induction
programs, such as the first induction stage, prima pars, that I have
proposed here, improves recognition of the Ignatian charism for lay
teachers and makes stage two, the gratia minister mentorship a productive
part of teacher formation.
Implementing an archival record expectation of lay teachers serves
a few purposes. It recognizes the important vocational work of lay
teachers who have toiled to advance the mission of Jesuit schools over a
lengthy period of time. Based upon the data collected in this study,
participants provided sincere, caring, and heartwarming reasons about
their relationship with God, their colleagues, and their students.
Assembling a collection of interview data for future new teachers helps to
contextualize the importance of the work done in Jesuit schools.
Teachers in the gratia minister stage interview and record their
mentors about the mentors’ experiences with the Ignatian charism.
Performing this service exposes teachers to questions that aid in their
discernment of the Ignatian charism and the incorporation of the IPP into
their teaching practice. And it creates an archival record for future teachers
in the prima pars stage. Both activities build further understanding of the
Ignatian charism because the act of asking a question and listening to a LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 214
response serves as a model for the teacher and reinforces the work of the
mentor.
Having an archival record gives administrators real witness
examples to use for illustration during faculty meetings and, perhaps,
substantive record that may inspire other, more reluctant teachers to
enhance their discernment of the Ignatian charism.
Finally, seeking the input of retired lay teachers to record and
collect examples from their colleagues provides connection for retirees.
And the status of an experienced teacher in conjunction with retiree who
conducts the interview provides an appropriate audience to produce
substantive content and reflection about the presence of the Ignatian
charism in the work (Lipowski, 2017).
Implications for Future Research
To determine whether the responses by the participants in this
study are unique or indicative of current understanding about the Ignatian
charism by lay teachers, there needs to be a similar sized study cohort
from a different Jesuit province in the United States. The results from
another study may bring support or refute for the data compiled from
Jesuit secondary school lay teachers in the USA East Province of the
Society of Jesus. Additionally, there needs to be a hybrid of lay secondary
school teachers from all Jesuit provinces within the United States. Such a
study will provide more data to support or refute the information presented
in this study. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 215
Length of time to understand Ignatian charism
How long it took participants to learn about the Ignatian charism,
IPP, Jesuit terminology, became a more noticeable included question after
the fourth participant’s interview. Also, it became more noticeable during
the data analysis.
As a reminder, how long a participant had worked in a Jesuit
secondary school was not a limiting requirement criterion for this study,
nor was there a minimum number of teaching years required to participate
in the study. Nevertheless, how long it took a teacher to take all of the
Jesuit-related terminology and make it a part of the teaching practice
emerged as a question that needed an answer.
The data showed participants began to understand the Ignatian
charism between seven and fourteen years of teaching at a Jesuit
secondary school. While acknowledging that learning about the Ignatian
charism and the IPP was a work-in-progress, participants said learning
both required discernment, prayer, and intentionality. The data informed
an imprecise timeframe when participants said they recognized the
presence of the Ignatian charism.
For example, Participant 45 recalled: “I would say in the range of
about 8 or 10 years ago, we have leadership that really made a big
difference. Yeah, making it a more explicit feature of faculty meetings or
retreats, things of that nature.” In response to the question about the length LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 216
of time it took for him to recognize the presence of the Ignatian charism,
Participant 81 estimated:
I would say after year 13, something occurred. After the
10-year mark, something occurred and that's funny because
a lot of people leave before the 10-year mark. Maybe you
realized that you're going to be here for a little while, what
keeps you going, what keeps you moving, there's some sort
of epiphany that goes on.
It was difficult to determine the number of years necessary to
develop this understanding because there were many variables for each
teacher. Among these variables were: teacher prior experience with Jesuit
education whether it was in high school, undergraduate school, or graduate
school. Additional variables included whether the teacher was: raised as a
Roman Catholic, converted to Roman Catholicism, was a Christian who
practiced another faith denomination, one who worshipped in another faith
tradition, a non-practicing Catholic, an agnostic, or an atheist.
Participant 1 stated he was a practicing Episcopalian who learned
about the Ignatian charism over a long period of time but he could not
recall exactly how long it took him to learn about the charism:
It took me a few years to understand the [Jesuit] lingo and
some of it's just a different name for concepts that I was
familiar with or thought about my own life. But, but my sense
of identification, I guess, with a mission is something that's LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 217
developed over time. There's no sort of single point where I
could say, “oh, a switch was flipped.”
Likewise, Participant 17 said he became more curious about the
Ignatian charism after participating in the Spiritual Exercises:
I probably heard of it before but it wasn't really broken down
to be able to look at. I found it fascinating because of the
connection with the Spiritual Exercises. And I think a lot of
teachers looked at it as this is a teaching method. But
understanding the history behind it, seeing that it really kind
of came from the exercises and Ignatius' own experience that
I think kind of drew me in a little bit more, as a theology geek
and Ignatian spirituality geek.
In contrast, Participant 106 said there are ranges of understanding about
the Ignatian charism because some teachers resist learning more about the
Ignatian charism. This happens because those teachers do not recognize it
as important to their teaching: “Okay. Those who fly below the radar,
those who faked it, those who have a different spirituality, and then there's
the ones who just self-destruct.”
Consequently, Jesuit secondary school administrators can promote
more active learning of the Ignatian language in order to engage teachers
in greater discernment of the Ignatian charism in their teaching practice. I
think this can be accomplished with a two staged induction program LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 218
supported by historical oral histories from experienced lay teachers whose
examples may serve as models for future lay teachers.
Implications for Leadership Theory and Practice
I have proposed that lay teachers share their experiences of
teaching in a Jesuit school with new teachers. While my proposal to share
experiences is formal, the decision of an experienced teacher to share
more spiritually intimate experiences about how they recognize the
presence of the Ignatian charism is a clear act of servant leadership.
Greenleaf (2002) wrote that a servant leader makes serving the
primary aim of leadership, not leadership the primary part of serving.
Anyone who acts in the capacity that I have outlined in these solutions
must do so with the intent to support and benefit another person. Whether
it is service as a guide in prima pars or as a gratia minister, the purpose is
to plant a spiritual seed that will sprout when the individual works with
students.
As Participant 61 asserted about the ultimate purpose of the
Ignatian educator:
The mission is to be available to share that charism with as
many people as we can. As we were commissioned, kind
of, by Christ, I guess, or the early apostles. But the mission
is the spreading of the word. The mission is the spreading
of the love, the availability to be kind of communicators of
that through deed and word. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 219
Black (2010) found that a positive atmosphere results from the
implementation of servant leadership in a school. And servant leadership
aligns well with a Christ-centered curriculum that is at the root of the
Ignatian charism. As Neill, Hayward, and Peterson (2007) found,
combining, caring and supportive communication along with a genuine
desire to help the individual grow was highly beneficial for the
community. And importantly, the research by Sousa and van Dierendonck
(2015) found some of the results of servant leadership are “empowerment,
accountability, and stewardship” (p. 21).
For experienced teaches to recognize the responsibility of their
stewardship to advance teacher understanding of the Ignatian charism,
strengthens the work of lay teacher in schools, no longer predominantly
inhabited by Jesuit priests. And, ultimately, the beneficiaries of these acts
of servant leadership are students in these secondary schools.
Summary of the Dissertation in Practice
I have taught for 35 years at Boston College High School, a Jesuit
secondary school. During that time, there has been a decline in the number
of Jesuits teaching in the school (Currie, 2011). The school no longer has a
Jesuit as its president. It raised a question for me whether a Jesuit school
could remain Jesuit with only the presence of lay faculty members
teaching there? How do lay teachers make the Ignatian charism manifest
in their teaching practice? LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 220
I have experienced numerous workshops and retreats intended to
enhance my understanding Ignatian pedagogy, similar to the findings by
Earl (2005) who found spiritual development of Catholic educators
permeates all parts of teaching pedagogy and curriculum. Chatlain and
Noonan (2005) found teacher induction programs enhance an
understanding of the lay teacher to serve as minister in the classroom.
Cook and Simonds (2011) researched how the lay faculty and students on
the university level understand the Catholic charism in Catholic
universities. Their work led me to question whether Jesuit secondary
schools held a similar concern for the future advancement of the Jesuit
mission. And the short answer is that they do!
During this study, I learned lay teachers in Jesuit secondary
schools understand their responsibility to discern prayerfully and how take
action to make the Ignatian charism an active part of teaching practice.
Convey (2012) found similar results in his study about Catholic teachers.
Puclowski (2017) found that Xaverian lay secondary school teachers are
prayerful, spiritual, and discerning. I found similarity in this study about
lay Jesuit secondary school teachers.
During this study, I expected to find lay teachers who do not
understand the Ignatian charism must be present in their work. And, in
some cases, I expected to learn about lay teachers who do not consider the
Ignatian charism to be important in their work. From this study, I did not
find that to be true. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 221
Who interviewed for this study matters most. It is quite possible
while learning about that information as concerning, the data were helpful
to future administrators who hire lay teachers to work in Jesuit schools. A
distinguishing characteristic of Ignatian pedagogy is for teachers to be
reflective practitioners, to discern what the Holy Spirit directs them to do,
and then to take action. As the data displayed, this takes place, lent further
confirmation that the presence of lay teachers to carry forth the Jesuit
mission happens.
The data do not reveal whether new and younger Jesuit lay
teachers regard the Ignatian charism as being all important and that
information is useful to Jesuit school teacher induction planners too.
Consequently, I proposed three solutions: expansion of new teacher
induction program, creation of an experienced teacher mentor support
program, and the gathering of a historical recorded archive of lay teachers
who have 30, 35, and 40 or more years of teaching experience in Jesuit
secondary schools to share their knowledge with future teachers.
This first phase is called prima pars, from the Latin meaning first
stage and it lasts four years with the new teacher being taught about Jesuit
terminology and the purpose of the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation
(2019).
The second stage, proposes the creation of a mentor program for
lay Ignatian educators who are in their ninth through eleventh years of
teaching, called gratia minister. The name comes from the Latin language LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 222
meaning charism attendant. This program connects an experienced
teacher with an experienced mentor who can understands the presence of
the Ignatian charism in the teaching practice.
And the third proposal calls for principals or presidents of Jesuit
schools to seek recently retired teachers to conduct interviews of the
experienced teachers, using the questions asked in my research study.
Once the interview occurs, the Jesuit school stores and uses the interview
models as an example of teachers who made the Ignatian charism manifest
in their teaching practice. Also, the Jesuit school sends its best interviews
to the Jesuit Schools Network to be archived there for other members of
the Jesuit Schools Network to use them as models.
Researching the topic and its various subthemes such as mission,
charism, vocation, and lay teacher responsibility in the Catholic classroom
remains the most interesting part of the dissertation process for me. It was
a pleasant surprise to read how much research exists about the on-going
transformation of Catholic school leadership and ministerial responsibility
away from priests and vowed religious women and men to lay teachers. It
was surprising to find so little research conducted about the Catholic
secondary school level especially concerning the responsibility expected
of lay classroom teachers and whether their presence in the classroom
carried forth the Jesuit mission.
I debated whether to seek lay teachers by subject area for this study
and decided to do that because it was reasonable to expect lay theology LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 223
teachers to speak with aplomb about the Ignatian charism and Ignatian
pedagogy. Whether a similar confidence to speak about the Ignatian
charism existed with teachers from other disciplines was a question whose
answer I sought. The overwhelming majority of participants articulated a
deep commitment to Jesuit education. It is important to note that lay
science teachers spoke with a similar working knowledge about the
Ignatian charism; however, recruitment of teachers from the sciences
became difficult to solicit as participants for this study.
I considered whether to gather the experiences of late career
teachers or perhaps early career teachers only but decided not to do that. It
so happened that the participant data answered this consideration starkly.
Clearly, teachers with more experience in Jesuit schools volunteered to
participate more readily than younger less experienced teachers. An
average participant had 18.06 years of teaching experience in Jesuit
schools. Of the 26 participants, only three participants had less than ten
years of teaching experience in Jesuit schools. I think this reveals that time
to discern the Ignatian charism and comfort with the topic grows the
longer a lay teacher prayerfully seeks to understand it.
Given how little research existed about this topic, exploring
whether there was a correlation between the number of years of
experience by lay teachers in a Jesuit secondary school and when they
recognized presence of the Ignatian charism in the teaching practice may
provide future basis for a research topic. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 224
Finally, these two participants spoke about how the Ignatian
charism had become vocational and a part of their being, that it was more
than just their professional persona. Participant 104 described that the
Ignatian charism had become a part of him:
I feel that it's so much a part of me now…I don't think
there's any way to get these Ignatian eyes out of my head,
or ears off the side of my head. It's part of my DNA at this
point. I could not imagine undoing any of that, or
compromising on any of that now, given the graces that I
have witnessed, that have come through for my students,
but especially for myself. That's what's made it rewarding.
It is trying to live up to these ideals, to live out this calling
that I think Ignatius extends to anybody who wants to be
part of this order and its mission. It's life-giving. It's
challenging.
And Participant 106 identified the Ignatian charism as an ensconced part
of who he was :
Because it's a deep desire. Well, it's a vocation because I
feel I have some gifts for this. I'm not John of the Cross or
Mr. Holland's Opus or something, but I have some gifts for
this. I've been gifted with a spiritual sensitivity. I have a
gift to be able to explain the ideas of spirituality and LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 225
theology in a language that people understand. And I have
found a place where the world needs that gift.
I am optimistic a future researcher can use the results from this
study to establish a grounded theory about the lived experiences of lay
secondary teachers in Jesuit schools (Babbie, 2017). And these results may
assist further planning for lay teacher induction programs and lay teacher
spiritual development at Jesuit secondary schools throughout the Jesuit
Schools Network. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 226
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https://epublications.regis.edu/jhe/vol2/iss1/11
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 250
Wood, A. L. (2005). The importance of principals: Site administrators'
roles in novice teacher induction. American Secondary Education,
33(2), 39-62.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 251
Appendices
Appendix A: Interview Consent Form
All consent forms used Docusign.com (www.docusign.com).
Interview Protocol: Dissertation Study
Time of Interview- ______AM/ PM
Date: 00-00-0000
Place: Zoom.us (www.zoom.us) video link
Interviewer: Nick Argento, Creighton University
Participant:______(Please initial)
Position of Participant:______
Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for this research project on
______. Your responses will remain anonymous and confidential.
The results will be part of the dissertation research for Nicholas Argento, a
graduate student at Creighton University. You may take a break at any
time. You may answer any or all of the questions. You have the right to
refuse to answer questions that are asked. You may stop participating in
the study at any time or refuse to be in the study at all. All transcripts will
be sent to you for verification following the research interview.
Please sign the consent below.
I, ______, have read the invitation letter and participant rights for
this study as explained above.
(Please sign) X______
Name Date LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 252
Appendix B: Sample Administrator Notification Letter
Date
Address of the Principal/President and School
Dear Principal or President ______,
My name is Nick Argento. I am a doctoral student in the Ed.D.
Interdisciplinary Leadership program at Creighton University. I am
currently preparing research for my dissertation. I am also a teacher at
Boston College High School. I have taught social studies at B.C. High for
35 years.
I seek to interview lay teaching faculty members at your school
about their understanding of the Ignatian charism as it relates to their
teaching. The focus of my study is to explore how lay teachers make the
Ignatian charism manifest in their teaching practice.
I want to interview faculty members at ______to conduct one-
on-one interviews. Are there any teachers who you recommend I contact?
A copy of my interview protocol is attached. I want to begin interviews
during the autumn of 2019.
This research project has the support of the Jesuit Schools
Network.
The names of the participants will be replaced with pseudonyms
and the proper names of schools will be replaced with pseudonyms. There
will be no direct reference to any person interviewed or to participant’s
school name. Rather, a generic reference will be made to Jesuit secondary LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 253
schools in the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus. Interviews will
be recorded and then transcribed to identify common themes. Once
completed, all recordings, notes of any kind, and data transcriptions will
be destroyed.
I would like to discuss this project with you further. Shortly, an
email message will follow this formal request seeking a specific day and
time when we can speak. I anticipate this conversation will last 10 to 15
minutes.
Thank you in advance for helping to advance the mission of Jesuit
education. I am optimistic this study will help schools and school
administrators better understand how lay educators make their prayerful
discernment of the Ignatian charism a part of their teaching.
Here is my phone number: (xxx) xxx-xxxx and email address
All the best,
Nick
______
Nick Argento
Creighton University and
Boston College High School LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 254
Appendix C: Sample Study Questions Included in the Administrator’s
Letter
1. When did you first recognize the presence of the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) in your teaching
at ______?
2. Give an example where you have recognized the Ignatian charism
present in your work?
3. If you knew no one would ever trace or know where the response
came from, what would you say about the lay faculty’s understanding of
the Ignatian charism?
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 255
Appendix D: Sample Lay Teacher Participant Invitation Letter
Date
Address of the Teacher and School
Dear Dr./Mr./Mrs./Ms. ______,
My name is Nick Argento. I am a doctoral student in the Ed.D.
Interdisciplinary Leadership program at Creighton University. I am
currently preparing research for my dissertation. I am also a teacher at
Boston College High School. I have taught social studies at B.C. High for
35 years.
I want to interview lay faculty members at your school about their
understanding of the Ignatian charism as it relates to their teaching. The
focus of my study is to explore how lay teachers make the Ignatian
charism manifest in their teaching practice.
This project has the support of the Jesuit Schools Network.
A copy of sample interview questions is attached. I want to begin
interviews during the summer of 2019.The interview will take
approximately one hour to complete. We can conduct the interview over
the Internet through Zoom.us (www.zoom.us), a free online video tool. I
will send you a link to Zoom.us (www.zoom.us).
Your name will be replaced with a pseudonym and the name of
your school will be replaced with a pseudonym. There will be no direct
reference to any person or school interviewed. Rather, a generic reference
will be made to Jesuit secondary schools in the USA East Province of the LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 256
Society of Jesus. Interviews will be recorded and then transcribed to
identify common themes. Any identifying information will be removed
from the study. Once completed, all recordings, notes of any kind, and
data transcriptions will be destroyed.
I would like to discuss this project with you further. Shortly, an
email message will follow this formal request. Please reply with a specific
day and time when we can speak or if you want to participate, tell me by
email. I anticipate a conversation will last 15 minutes.
Thank you in advance for helping to advance the mission of Jesuit
education. I am optimistic this study will help schools and school
administrators better understand how lay educators make their prayerful
discernment of the Ignatian charism a part of their teaching.
Here is my phone number: (xxx) xxx-xxxx and email address
All the best,
Nick
______
Nick Argento
Creighton University
and Boston College High School Social Studies Department
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 257
Appendix E: Sample Study Questions Sent
With Lay Teacher Invitation Letter
1. Describe a moment where you first recognized a part of the
Graduate at Graduation, intellectually competent, loving, religious, open
to growth, or committed to doing justice, was present in your teaching at
BC High?
2. Give an example where you have recognized the Ignatian charism
present in your work?
3. If you knew no one would ever trace or know where the response
came from, what would you say about the lay faculty’s understanding of
the Ignatian charism?
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 258
Appendix F: First Follow-up Email Message
Dear ______,
I hope this message finds you well.
This is a follow-up to my letter sent to you earlier about my dissertation
research at Creighton
University. Would you be a participant in my doctoral dissertation study?
The formal invitation is attached here. I would really appreciate your help.
All the best,
Nick
______
Nick Argento
Creighton University Doctoral Candidate
and Boston College High School Social Studies Department
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 259
Appendix G: Second Follow-up Email Message
Dear ______,
I am following up on my invitation letter and email message. Would you
be an interview
participant in my doctoral research study? The interview lasts about one
hour.
Here is my phone number: (xxx) xxx-xxxx and email address
Thank you for considering my request.
All the best,
Nick Argento
Creighton University
Doctoral Candidate
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 260
Appendix H: List of Questions Asked During Interviews
Interview Questions
1. Background and mission
2. Tell me how you came to become a teacher at
______High School
3. You have taught at ____ High for _____years. Why have you
continued to teach here?
4. Recognition of Mission
5. When did you first recognize the presence of the Profile of the
Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2019) in your
teaching at ______?
6. Explain how your perception of the school’s Jesuit mission has
changed since you began teaching in the school.
7. Discernment of mission
8. Take me to a time when you thought a part of the school’s
mission mattered most in your teaching.
9. If you were King/Queen for a day, how would you teach new lay
teachers about the importance of the Ignatian mission at
______High?
10. If you knew no one would ever trace or know where the response
came from, what would you say about the lay faculty’s
understanding of the Jesuit mission? LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 261
11. If you sat with group of faculty members and they were speaking
about the school’s Jesuit mission, what parts of the mission would
they talk about the most? What parts would be mentioned least?
12. Describe a time when you actively sought to understand the Jesuit
mission better?
13. Discernment of charism
14. Describe your understanding of the Ignatian charism.
15. Describe a moment where you first recognized the Ignatian
charism in your teaching at ______High.
16. Where has the influence of Ignatian Spirituality had an influence
upon your teaching?
17. Give an example where you have recognized the Ignatian charism
present in your work?
18. Describe a moment where you first recognized any part of the
Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network,
2019) was present in your teaching at ______school?
19. Take me to a time when you thought a part of the Ignatian
charism mattered most in your teaching. What was that like?
20. Would you teach in the exact same way if you were not at a Jesuit
school? Why or why not?
21. Induction programs LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 262
22. Did you participate in a teacher induction program at your (Jesuit)
school? If no, how did you learn about the Ignatian charism? If
yes, was an induction program requirement of your employment
at the Jesuit school? How long did it last?
23. If it was optional to participate in that induction program, would
you have participated? Why or why not?
24. Describe a memorable moment from your experience in that
teacher induction program.
25. Describe a time when you actively sought to understand the
Ignatian pedagogy better?
26. What is the most challenging part of incorporating the Jesuit
mission into your teaching?
27. Is there anything I missed that you would like to share? LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 263
Appendix I: Email Solicitation of Support to JSN
Fr. William Muller, SJ
Executive Director
Jesuit Schools Network
Dear Fr. Muller,
I hope this message finds you well. I am graduate student at Creighton
University in the Interdisciplinary Leadership Doctoral Program. I am
about to begin my dissertation journey at there and want to share with you
my proposal. I want to examine lay secondary teacher understanding of
the Ignatian charism.
My goal is to offer information that will assist lay teacher spiritual
formation by and large when lay teachers begin teaching in a Jesuit
secondary school. Attached is a copy of Chapter 1, which explains its
purpose. I also teach at Boston College High School and have worked
there for 35 years.
Is this topic something that would help the JSN with its work?
All the best,
Nick Argento
Creighton University &
Boston College High School Social Studies Department
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 264
Appendix J: Bill of Rights for Research Participants
Bill of Rights for Research Participants
As a participant in a research study, you have the right:
1. To have enough time to decide whether or not to be in the research
study, and to make that decision without any pressure from the people
who are conducting the research.
2. To refuse to be in the study at all, or to stop participating at any
time after you begin the study.
3. To be told what the study is trying to find out, what will happen to
you, and what you will be asked to do if you are in the study.
4. To be told about the reasonably foreseeable risks of being in the
study.
5. To be told about the possible benefits of being in the study.
6. To be told whether there are any costs associated with being in the
study and whether you will be compensated for participating in the study.
7. To be told who will have access to information collected, about
you and how your confidentiality will be protected.
8. To be told whom to contact with questions about the research,
about research-related injury, and about your rights as a research
participant.
9. If the study involves treatment or therapy:
a. To be told about the other non-research treatment choices you have. LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 265 b. To be told where treatment is available should you have a research-related injury, and who will pay for research-related treatment.
LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 266
Appendix K: IRB Approval
Institutional Review Board 2500 California Plaza • Omaha, Nebraska
68178
phone: 402.280.2126 • fax: 402.280.4766 • email: [email protected]
July 11, 2019
TO: Nicholas Argento
FROM: Creighton University IRB-02 Social Behavioral
PROJECT TITLE: [1452583-1] Ignatian Charism and Lay Teachers New
Project
SUBMISSION TYPE: New Project
ACTION: DETERMINATION OF EXEMPT STATUS
DECISION DATE: July 11, 2019
REVIEW CATEGORY: Exemption category # 2
Thank you for your submission of New Project materials for this project.
The following items were reviewed in this submission:
Amendment/Modification-
LettersofConsentArgento.docx(UPDATED:07/11/2019)
Amendment/Modification-
InterviewQuestionsArgentoCreightonUniversity.docx(UPDATED:
06/25/2019)
Amendment/Modification-IRB Argento
402 Application for Determination of Exempt Status Observation, Survey, LAY TEACHER UNDERSTANDING 267
Interview (RCR) (1).doc (UPDATED: 06/25/2019)
Creighton-IRB Application Form-Creighton-IRB Application Form
(UPDATED:06/25/2019) This project has been determined to be exempt
from Federal Policy for Protection of Human Subjects 45CFR46.101 (b) 2.
All protocol amendments and changes are to be submitted to the IRB and
may not be implemented until approved by the IRB. Please use the
modification form when submitting changes. If you have any questions,
please contact Kathleen Stibbs at (402) 280-2126 or
Please include your project title and reference number in all
correspondence with this committee.
This letter has been electronically signed in accordance with all applicable
regulations, and a copy is retained within Creighton University IRB-02
Social Behavioral records.