Important School Issues

I've been told it is important to give keep a professional appearance while working here at the highschool- so I always wear a button-up collared shirt with short sleeves.  With dress pants and shoes and a cross around my neck, I have been told I look very clerical.  Day in, day out, that is how the students see me - and the rule is that they call Jesuit novices and candidates 'brother'. 

The students are very friendly and where ever I walk, stepping along the crowded grounds over the hot, sub-baked concrete, students stop to say "hello, brother".

This morning I showed up in the same attire as usual only to find that it was one of those themed days during which the students don't have to wear a uniform.  It seemed fine as most teachers keep their participation minimal it seems.  So we carried on with business as usual.  The students were decked out in gaudy white, black, and red: Jesuit colours and also the school colours.  There were a lot of girls wearing sequined red bows in their hair, etc. 

But I went home for lunch and found some black jeans and my red t-shirt: all topped off with my awesome Jesuit baseball cap: red black and white with an IHS on the front.

It was like I'd come back in a martian costume.  All the kids were giving my high-fives and acting like they couldn't recognize me. The joke went a bit too far when a gaggle of female students started hollering that I was 'Justin Bieber'.  We're both Canadian and the similarity ends there. 

Because it was a 'Spirit Day' I taught them a little bit about Edmund Campion, the saint for whom the school was named.  But after that subject was exhausted, I declared a 'free period' in which students could work on their own, read, or chat quietly. 

Some bored students asked to have a discussion.  So I took a page from the book of the venerable Fr. Joe Mroz and gave a lecture on Zombie Survival.  The kids learned that chainsaws wear down and stop working when they get blood in the gears and that strong melee weapons are preferable to guns because of the need for ammunition.  The ideal equipment is a katana, the samurai sword being designed for repeated and effective wear and tear.  Let the schoolboard never say that Jesuit religion teachers do not prepare kids to face the practical difficulties of real life.

It's good that I can be playful with the students.  Otherwise both them and I would quickly drive each other crazy.  Although there's a case to be made that I'm already on the cusp... :>