Dedication,
hard work,
integrity: a student learns all these traits
in
school, in addition to the traditional “
reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic”.
For a full two
semesters, he must dedicate himself to learning all he can
about a given, unfamiliar subject. He must learn to work hard, for even with
vocabularly lists that would put Shakespeare’s mastery to question, you must
perservere and seek to learn, to know, to understand. One also learns integrity:
more than once I have been told I am taking two tests, and if I must fail
one, don’t let it be the one of
honor. And these are all important, vital
lessons to learn, but there is another lesson that is often missed in the
classroom: compassion. It is rather ironic that the lesson so many teachers
live- a lesson of selfless giving, a lesson of staying after or coming early
to help a struggling student, a lesson of taking time to make education personal
for a student- is one that can pass by without being properly absorbed. And
such a crucial lesson it is: from the Judea-Christian tradition to Hinduism
to even the more secular philosophies of the Greeks and modern thinkers,
it is recognized that
compassion is a fundamental measurement of a
man.
But unfortunately, today’s
society doesn’t foster this quality: getting
ahead means getting ahead of someone else, and often pushing the
competitor
aside. A society’s education system only reflects that society: scholastic
competition divides a class into a group of individuals, not a group that
is interdependent. In this environment, student-level compassion is not rewarded,
and is often detrimental to one’s own standing. There can only be one valedictorian,
only one editor-in-chief, one Student Council President. This is not to say
that
compassion does not exist: the sight of a student helping another
with a difficult math problem during their
lunch break or a basketball
starter spending his
Saturdays training another to perfect his free throw
is not uncommon. But the school environment doesn’t foster these “random
acts of kindness”. This compassion comes from another source, outside of
school.
My source of compassion has a name: Mrs. Nancy McHugh. She actually was a
teacher, though not at my school. She worked with at-risk children: her district
was lower income, her pupils classified as “
at risk”, their futures dim
and uncertain. Yet what she gave to those kids extended so far beyond the
three R’s mentioned earlier: she gave of herself. Her husband was succesful,
they lived in an affluent neihborhood, they had bright, popular children.
But instead of contenting herself with raising a family and being active
in bake sales and can drives, she had to make a more direct difference: she
decided to keep her job despite pay decreases, and she only grew more active
in her students’ lives. She stayed late every weekday working with or counseling
a student. They, in turn, quickly found someone they could turn to for help:
on the weekends she visited and checked up on her students and invited them
over for dinner. She became involved in their lives, and occassionally what
she discovered about these lives was shocking:
malnourishment was the norm
rather than the exception,
child abuse cases became tragically regular
occurances, and children came to her as the first adult they could trust.
Mrs. McHugh took action on behalf of the children, who were only in gradeschool:
she battled abusive parents and legislative red tape with equal ardor. How
many lives she rescued from daily torment will never be known.
I met Mrs. McHugh through my
church: as if she wasn’t active enough in
her educational endeavors, she also took on the
junior high religious
education. And the energy she put into this program was just as amazing
as the energy which she invested in her work, indeed, the energy she invested
in everything: she transformed a stuffy, sermonizing regime into a program
that involved us in everything from serving soup to the homeless to painting
an elderly gentleman’s home and doing his yardwork. What could have been
rote memorization of
prayers instead lead us into a deeper understanding
of Christ’s message: compassion. The point of service wasn’t to make us look
or feel good, but to elevate our fellow man. We learned not only compassion
through service, but also watching her as she listened to us: while before
adults had either ignored or overruled us offhandedly (how many time have
we all heard, “Because I’m the
parent”?), she listened to us, treated us
with respect, and then worked with us to reach a common goal. It would have
been much easier to just do things her way (it was, after all, a monumental
task simply running the program), but her listening, her compassion for us,
made the experience so much deeper and lasting. Yet still Mrs. McHugh’s heart
swelled, as if the more she gave the more she loved. And her compassion was
infectious: when she began a day camp for local
refugee children, I quickly
signed on as a
counseler.
As with everything she touched, “
Camp Friendship” was a success, and a
model of compassion. It is easy to turn our backs on immigrants: marking
them off as “foreigners”, attributing to them social problems such as rising
crime, and accusing them of taking “our” jobs. But by learning their story
one truly learns compassion: their homes burned, their lives threatened,
their property stolen. To become involved in these lives was to learn this
lesson more poignantly than words can describe. And Mrs. McHugh continued
to care, to work selflessly, to love.
In addition to raising her biological children, she adopted three more: troubled
kids she had met through her teaching. They were argumentive, violent, and
desperately alone, yet she opened wide her doors and heart. A more loving
family could not be found: everywhere they were together, smiling, joking.
The room brightened as they entered. Yet one of her adopted sons was still
troubled by his past: he couldn’t get over what had happened when he was
younger, and he remained violent and unruly. Finally, when he was nineteen,
he was banished from the household. Mrs. McHugh was visably shaken: the smile
was still there, but all the years of giving and loving had taken their toll.
Her son returned to visit one day when she was alone at the house. She warmly
invited him in and later took him shopping, already forgiving him and accepting
him as family again. That same day, he murdered her and fled the body.
Mrs. McHugh made the ultimate sacrifice for her belief in compassion, and
hers is a legacy that can’t be taught in school. Yet it is a belief in compassion
that- as
poets,
prophets, and
philosophers agree- elevates mankind
to a greater state of being. At the end of her life, I believe the greatest
teacher I ever knew had no regrets, nor should she have. Many virtues are
taught in school- persistence, honesty, hard work- and these are important.
However, they are all personal virtues, and without compassion they are
hollow ideals.
Compassion is love, and with this love all other
aspects of our lives are deeply enriched.
I am merely a representative of the thousand of others of students
who have struggled with me for academic excellence. Yet I have found that
without compassion, without love and selfless giving of ones’ self, all our
efforts are vanity and are sure to pass away as dust in the wind. But with
compassion, the legacy of learning stands firmly as a beacon for those who
come after us to follow.