Healing of the Man Born Blind. El Greco, 1567.
Educators make judgment calls. This presupposes that they also get calls wrong, which is true both figuratively and literally. I’m not talking about a shallow judgment of someone’s character based merely on physical appearances, but rather a judgment based on observations of the human person’s display of intent, desire, and actions. And when you are in another’s presence for 35 hours a week, there are a lot of observations! You can apply this axiom within the school walls to things like participation, use of language, and grading. However, this premise becomes most apparent when purely considering human behavior. So, what is it that guides educators in making decisions regarding discipline?
The benefit of making judgment calls within a school setting is aided by the development of authentic human relationships. Relationships can also serve as the greatest point of contention regarding any judgment call within a school. I read somewhere that when a Father sees his child walk by, he sees an extension of himself and his family name or lineage. And when a Mother sees her child walk by, she sees a piece of her heart go by. In either relationship, there is a uniquely personal connection that a teacher will never fully comprehend or compete with. This reality also helps explain why parents often react with raw emotion when any situation unfolding at school involves their child. This is why nearly every parent phone call I made from a school line started with, “This is not an emergency; your child is fine.”
For eons, parents have entered into a partnership with educators when choosing to send their children to school. This partnership is founded on the premise that all of the adults at home and school are sharing in the formation of the child, and not a provider/consumer relationship. In fact, parents are surely not purchasing a product, but rather, parents are investing in the vision and mission of the school in the hopes that the two groups will work for the same goal to ultimately benefit the student. When a parent drops off their child(ren) at a school, they are entrusting that the school will uphold this partnership of formation and keep all eyes focused on this vision and mission. Likewise, the school entrusts that when the child goes home each afternoon, the vision and mission are not lost or dismantled but found as a stronghold within their domestic church.
Over my years in education, I had to confront student behavior on a nearly daily basis. When a child makes a mistake, the hope is that the school and parents can speak with one accord to the child in order to restore them back to behavioral health. In one sense, this is where the partnership was regularly put to the test. After all, it is people and not policies that form students. Policies will serve as guardrails but never replace the role of human formation. Schools should avoid falling for the trap of writing policies that dictate how administrators will explicitly judge an offense. Instead, policies should convey the possible repercussions but not the exact consequence. A black-and-white policy can inhibit your ability to discern what is best for the child.
In the midst of these tests in the partnership regarding disciplinary action, I was met with all sorts of reactions to the conflict, including denial, defense, admission, shame, guilt, and resolve to make amends. There were situations where I did not have all of the evidence, where it was one person’s word against another’s, other times where someone fabricated a story, as well as examples of great honesty when someone confessed their actions. In moments of great sensitivity and vulnerability, I had to remind myself that these were not my actions but those of others and that it was my job and my duty to restore all parties back to behavioral health and, in many cases, recommend the confessional. There were some cases where students and parents alike displayed heroic virtue; however, one thing is certain: it was hard to predict how people would truly feel about the whole situation until they learned of the consequences.
This brings me to the heart of the matter. Over time, I found that it is critical to adhere to the wisdom of The Church in balancing both mercy and justice in school discipline.
It is worth noting how the moral decline of the culture has crept into both schools and families. In 2020, Bishop Robert Baron addressed the Knights of Malta, wherein he identified four philosophers that led to the social responses around the world during 2020. He singled out Marx, Descartes, Nietzsche, Foucault. It was quite a telling lecture that painted a vivid picture of how and why people think in today’s world. To summarize, Bishop Baron explains how Communism, Existentialism, Nihilism, and Relativism have been a slow and steady drip on the social foreheads, leading to a renunciation of Truth and God. Moral relativism led to social oppression and influenced many to protest, followed by instant social media outrage, mob rule, and finally, the cancel culture. I cannot help but think how this thought pattern leads some adults to believe that this is how we should treat children during adolescence. Then, of course, there is the influence of something like an absolute zero-tolerance policy. This language fails to acknowledge the supposition that you’re actually teaching human persons in a fallen world. I only know of one perfect person who made it through their childhood, and He was still formed by his parents!
I had to be the bearer of difficult and heavy news with parents in these matters. Adults would pose questions like, “Are you serious?” “Well, aren’t you going to expel the student?” “That’s all you’re going to do?” or “How is my child supposed to be in that kid’s presence ever again?” Or perhaps even worse, the statement, “We don’t believe in punishments in our family; we just talk things out.”
These questions forced me to think deeply about the human person and the repercussions of these situations. I went back and thought about these conversations a lot. If the principal is judging the conditions of a very specific situation and ultimately using his judgment to best form the individuals involved, why is he then pitted as the bad guy? Critiques will happen, and folks are entitled to an opinion. I’m sure any judge of a modern courtroom knows that in any sentencing, there is one group that is satisfied while another is devastated. But I was searching for some certainty that my rationale was guided by reason and not merely a policy or a feeling.
After several puzzling parent conversations, I did a lot of thinking and praying. I talked through the scenarios again with my pastor and other administrators and sometimes even posed anonymous situations to third parties to gauge their reactions. It was only after my time in administration that I searched and searched and found some clear answers from both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, which validated my experiences.
Their words helped me greatly in acknowledging how difficult it is for adults and students involved in conflict to see the union of mercy and justice. Man has separated the two and, in today’s world, tends to err on the side of pure justice, somehow making amends on its own. Pope Benedict artfully penned a heartfelt address to prisoners (who are naturally searching for mercy) when he said,
“Justice and mercy, justice and charity on which the Church’s charity is hinged, are two different realities only for the human person. For we distinguish carefully between a just act and an act of love. For us “just” means “what is due to the other”, while “merciful” is what is given out of kindness. One seems to exclude the other. Yet for God it is not like this: justice and charity coincide in him; there is no just action that is not also an act of mercy and pardon, and at the same time, there is no merciful action that is not perfectly just.” (Pope Benedict XVI’s Justice and Mercy in the Logic of God address to the inmates of Rome’s Rebibbia District Prison, December 18, 2011.)
Do not mistake me; administrators are not playing God, but they do need to mirror His love and seek the good of the individuals. Furthermore, I found that there were cases in which balancing mercy with justice was the most virtuous thing to do. Or, as Pope St. John Paul II states, keeping the two together can be seen as an act of love:
“In this way, mercy is in a certain sense contrasted with God’s justice, and in many cases is shown to be not only more powerful than that justice but also more profound. Even the Old Testament teaches that, although justice is an authentic virtue in man, and in God signifies transcendent perfection nevertheless love is “greater” than justice: greater in the sense that it is primary and fundamental. Love, so to speak, conditions justice and, in the final analysis, justice serves love. The primacy and superiority of love vis-a-vis justice — this is a mark of the whole of revelation — are revealed precisely through mercy. Mercy differs from justice, but is not in opposition to it, if we admit in the history of man — as the Old Testament precisely does — the presence of God, who already as Creator has linked Himself to His creature with a particular love.” (Pope St. John Paul II’s Dives in Misericordia, November 13, 1980.)
These words gave me great consolation and helped me see the intended purpose and goals of proper discipline in Catholic schools. Acknowledge the conflict, address the need to restore order and health, and consider the person who needs both Justice and Mercy in formative discipline. In closing, it is of equal importance for educators to practice honest apologies with students and parents. Doing so shows your students that you, too, make mistakes and you also know the proper channels to resolve the order within a school. After all, serious mistakes can have consequences for adult behavior as well.