Called Forth By The Child To Teach

Abstract

There is a pressing need to re-awaken in teaching the prophetic call to serve the liberation of children, whose complex humanity remains systemically marginalized. This proposal is grounded in a study of the Lasallian tradition of education, which originates from John Baptist de La Salle (1651-1719), founder of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in seventeenth century France and the patron saint for Christian teachers of the young. From a Lasallian perspective, the prophetic call to teach for children’s liberation is rooted contemplatively in a Christian mysticism of faith, which energizes an incarnational mission of education in zeal, shaped by a preferential option for children as the poor and marginalized. This preferential option for children is a hermeneutical key that reads the Lasallian mission of education forward into the twenty-first century. I develop this idea of a preferential option for children, locating it in an interpretive study that critically synthesizes a Lasallian theology of child with literature in childhood studies, spirituality, critical pedagogy and participatory action research. Building on the Lasallian imagination, this study contributes to a Christian spirituality of education as it examines how contemporary theological perspectives on children and childhood serve as a lens that deepens the interconnection between Christian mysticism, liberation, and child in teaching as a prophetic vocation. To teach for children’s liberation is to promote their flourishing as full human beings created in the image and likeness of God. It attends to conditions that protect children in their social marginalization while engaging and developing their social participation as responsible agents in our common belonging to God as God’s children and siblings-in-Christ. It demands just presence in teaching, which begins with listening as receptivity to the mystery of the child as graced irruption. The prophetic call to teach for children’s liberation is mystically rooted in contemplative wonder at the Incarnation. Such wonder must also open the teacher to being disturbed by the scandalizing action of God, who steps out of God-self not only to be with the poor, but also in the least as a human child in Jesus Christ. It is this recognition of God’s presence in each child and with children that calls forth the responsibility of teachers, making an ethical claim on them to be courageously present in ways that prioritize the human dignity of children in education.