“Cathedral boys need to understand the challenges that confront and confound our world. They need to develop a sense of humility and context as they face profound issues and develop a sense of responsibility as future stewards of our world.”
involved. An example of this type of work would be partnering with a public or charter school and having Cathedral boys and their students working side by side on a common project, such as a garden, where all the students would be leaning on their strengths and sharing/teaching others about them.” As the School makes curricular and service choices, we can begin by defining how we want our graduates to think about community and service, and their obligation to each. The Cathedral School for Boys’ Mission, deeply rooted in the Episcopal faith, can be a guide. Drawing upon the School’s Mission, if we seek to shape boys who are “respectful of and welcoming to people of all religious traditions and beliefs;” if we seek to cultivate “social responsi- bility through exemplary programs of outreach and service;” if we intend to “create a community bonded by open-hearted- ness, hope, compassion, and concern,” then our boys need to be serving beyond our school walls. Cathedral boys need to be interacting with people of all faiths, races, and socioeconomic circumstances. The boys need to be working side-by-side as equals; not as part of noblesse oblige, as the privileged few who can transform a stranger’s world by giving an hour of their time. In age-appropriate ways, Cathedral boys need to understand the challenges that confront and confound our world. They need to develop a sense of humility and context as they face profound issues and develop a sense of responsibility as future
stewards of our world. They also need to learn that they are not always the saviors with the big ideas who lead from above. Often service means sweeping floors or washing dishes so that the real experts can better do their jobs. Among our peer schools, Cathedral is uniquely positioned adja- cent to the Tenderloin and Chinatown. We have the proximity, and perhaps responsibility, to work with our neighbors. Grace Cathedral already performs countless hours of service and has many programs in place. Cathedral’s Statement of Philosophy asserts that “(w)e set equally high standards in civic and social responsibility.” Civic and social responsibility cannot be born out of book learning alone. To breathe life into the final words of our Mission: “(t)o create a community bonded by open-hearted- ness, hope, compassion, and concern,” our boys must be out in the community learning more about the world they will inherit and for which they will be responsible. Before we get any further, it’s worth acknowledging that service at the elementary and middle school level is fraught with challenges. For starters, in many cases, it is the students who learn lessons at a cost to the partner organization. Young children have minimal skills to contribute. It can be messy as young people take on tasks with which they are not familiar or when they begin navigating relationships with other people. This can require a lot of adult support. An organization may need to devote many precious resources to enable one student project. And it can be hard for students (particularly younger students) to understand the needs that an organization is meeting. After all, what does hunger or homelessness mean to a student who has never known either? When an organization opens its doors to Cathedral students for serving learning, they are looking to the future and they are offering our community a service. The direct benefit to the organization is typically minimal. It’s not unlike parents teaching their child to wash the dishes: it’s far messier, takes much more time, and the outcome is inferior to just doing the job themselves. However, as parents, we know that the invest- ment is worth it, and in the future, hopefully we will wash fewer dishes and our kitchens will be cleaner. Organizations often make the investment without any hope of direct return for their individual organization. They place their faith in the hope that this experience will help shape children’s attitudes about serving and contributing to other organizations in the future. For service to be meaningful and for students to develop the mindset that serving is valuable, students need to make personal connections to their lives. If they are working with other people, those relationships should ideally be fostered and developed over a sustained period, much like Yash experienced. His partnership with that young student was made possible through Cathedral’s program with Redding Elementary School, led by the School’s chaplain, Father Mehrdad Abirdari, and
seventh- and eighth-grade history teacher Peter Mundy. However, a sustained commitment can be challenging with a school calendar with a rotation schedule. To help students better understand with whom they are working, why the need exists, and how they can best help, students need to be educated about the group they are serving. They need to learn how a polluted beach hurts the local wild- life if they are helping with an environmental clean-up. They should understand that some people do not have family to go home to on Thanksgiving if they are helping to prepare a Grace Cathedral Thanksgiving dinner. Preparation and reflection are critical. Students need to be able to ask uncomfortable ques- tions such as “Why does this problem exist?”; “Why does this person not have food or a home?”; or “Why are there so many more students in a classroom than I have in mine?” Teachers can help them better understand resource gaps and the inequi- ties in our world by facilitating these types of conversations. Without them, the result can be a cultivation of pity for those perceived as less fortunate and assumptions are made about others’ needs. Authentic relationships and mutual respect cannot be forged without an emphasis on our shared humanity. Unfortunately, unintended messages are common in service projects. They are almost always the result of very good inten- tions on the part of schools, teachers, and organizations. So how does a school avoid this outcome and align intent with impact? While the school community continues to support various chari- table drives (often initiated by students in response to the needs of other communities) and local organizations with which it has a long-standing relationship (such as Grace Cathedral’s Bayview Mission), a team of administrators and teachers have started working to expand the School’s community engagement and service opportunities. By exploring larger themes and addressing them through the lens of individuals, communities, and different cultures, the School hopes to move students from understanding their personal needs to the needs of others and the intercon- nectedness that exists for all of humanity on a global level. This team envisions a program that fully integrates “service” into the School’s human development and global education programs, and explores issues from personal, community, and global perspectives while providing developmentally appro- priate-learning activities.
One person on this team is Jim Schmidt, who explains that his involvement fits well with his role as Cathedral’s Director of Development in helping to create a culture of philanthropy and volunteerism at the School. Jim explains: “Altruism is a char- acter virtue that needs to be nurtured in humans from an early age and modeled through action as we get older. It begins with simple lessons such as learning how to share and understanding essential human needs such as food, shelter, and love, and then the lessons get more complex as we get older and our sphere of consciousness gets larger. Part of being an adult is the delicate balancing act of fulfilling one’s individual needs with the needs of others in our world, and this involves appreciating what we have been given, and sharing our gifts with others. “Take food. I think we can all agree that food is essential to human survival. However, there is a service tendency to tend to jump right to addressing a big issue like “world hunger” without fully appreciating how, on a daily basis, our individual and personal community needs are met. So, a first step in our Lower School is understanding the importance of daily nutri- tion and caring for oneself through healthy eating (in part through our lunch program). There is also the community aspect of sharing meals (whether at school or at home) and understanding where our food comes from and who prepares it for us. And then there is the opportunity of exploring how people around the world eat and how communities share meals. “Part of one’s daily service should be to eat well and help provide for one’s immediate family and community. This is part of the School’s philosophy in boys sharing daily communal hot lunches with teachers and faculty, and taking the time to acknowledge our gratitude for the food and hands that helped prepare it for us. In addition, there are parents and other adults who volunteer in our lunchroom each day and, as students get older, they support their own lunch program by helping out through their advisory ‘Lunch Bunch’ groups. “By understanding how food plays an integral part in our personal and school life, we have a strong foundation to begin exploring how food helps support other communities. This past year, we partnered with Grace Cathedral and boys helped support a variety of food-related programs, including monthly senior lunches and several Winter Interfaith Shelter dinners for homeless men. Our chaplain, Father Abidari, also arranged for
The Rev. Canon Nina Pickerell and Cathedral boys load up a truck with donations headed for the Bayview Mission.
16 | CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS
FALL 2017 • RED & GOLD | 17
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