Upon This Education, I Stand
A mentor once asked me, "What event in your life made you... you?" I thought long and hard about that one boy who broke my heart, that one car accident on Rt. 40, and that one time I stayed out late with my sister and didn't tell Mom. Those single events certainly shaped me as a woman. But what really made me me is not a single event. It happened over 12 long, conservative years. What you're about to read is a very long answer to a very short question...
One night I sat at a local dive bar across from a very nice young man. We exchanged smiles and cheap beer until the pleasantries were exhausted and he asked me the one question I knew would come eventually but hoped wouldn’t.
“What high school did you go to?” he asked.
I replied with a very confident “Mount de Sales Academy” and followed with, in a single exhaling breath, “that all-girls Catholic school.”
I met his stare with one of my own, right at the Star of David hanging around his neck. And with intrigued eyes that seemed a little too excited, he replied, “Did you wear a uniform?”
Funny, I usually lose people at “all-girls.”
I then continued with the following confirmations: Yes, I wore a uniform. No, it was not like Britney Spears. Yes, nuns ran the school. No, none of them ever wacked me with a ruler.
Although… I really thought it was coming when I quoted the comedian Dane Cook and his facetious Catholic Church jokes in my freshman religion class. I insisted God had a sense of humor and that my clergy teacher, obviously, did not.
That memory comes second, however, to the time the principal reprimanded me for wearing a ring that wasn’t considered “approved jewelry.” Let it be known that the only approved jewelry was the school-sanctioned Miraculous Medal necklace, the Mount de Sales class ring, and, graciously, one pair of small stud earrings.
Thinking quick on my teenage feet, I followed suit of the Jonas Brothers and called my piece of unapproved jewelry a purity ring. Surely that would have bought me brownie points... or at least enough time to run away from the impending demerit slip. She decided, reluctantly, to believe me but insisted with sympathetic eyes that I take off the ring. “Exceptions would have to be made for everyone.”
I like to tell myself that it was because of this exchange that my sympathetic principal wrote purity rings into the dress code under “approved jewelry” for the following school year. This was, and still is, my claim to fame.
But really, underneath the knee-high socks, I was just a girl like everyone else. That’s if everyone else had a deep appreciation for Christian rock concerts and whipped out fun facts about JP2 as an icebreaker.
Or maybe that’s just it. Maybe I’m not like everyone else. There’s only a small sector of the American population that is familiar with the rock upon which I stand.
I grew up in the bubble of the parochial school system for a solid 12 years. I didn’t drink until I could do so on my own legal accord and had always stopped to pray upon hearing a whaling fire truck siren. According to the Council for American Private Education, more than 5 million students joined me inside that bubble by the time I was a senior in high school in 2010. However, that was only 10% of all U.S. students.
The council found, though, that 74% of Americans with private schools in the area feel that those private schools do a better job maintaining discipline and order in children; a fact that takes me far back into my Catholic education.
I learned very early on how to practice discipline and order in all aspects of life — in kindergarten, specifically. I learned there is a time and a place for everything. I learned that a fire drill is not the time to wet your pants in a startled panic and that the nuns will call your mom if you do. I also learned that algebra class is not the place to assert your jest by circling “x” and telling the teacher that you have, in fact, “found the variable X.” I can now apply these life lessons to any adult situation, private and public alike.
Since then, I’ve spent many nights relaying these stories to a secular audience at crowded parties. Over a chardonnay, I’ve demanded with animated fervor that I liked to stick it to the man and that I wasn’t the average Catholic schoolgirl.
Oh, but I was.
The education council states, “private high schools are four times more likely than public high schools to have a community service requirement for graduation.” When I realized one week into my education that I couldn’t graduate from the Academy without fulfilling my community service requirement, I took matters into my own hands.
My sophomore year, I proclaimed to my lay religion teacher that I would fulfill the semester’s community service hours by participating in a charity walk with Hanson. Yes, that 90’s brother band that MMM’bopped their way into pop culture and stapled their signature blond locks into the hearts of girls everywhere. As she laughed at my grandiose plan, I accepted her challenge.
Not coincidentally, the next weekend the Hanson brothers hosted a local charity walk to raise money for the treatment of HIV/AIDS in Africa. After rubbing elbows with the somewhat rich and somewhat famous, I waltzed into my Monday morning religion class and slammed my community service paper down on my teacher’s desk. On that photocopied form will forever lay oldest brother Isaac Hanson’s signature confirming that I fulfilled my 2008 community service requirement. Naturally, I kept the original copy.
Serving the community didn’t stop there.
The parochial school system instilled in me the innate want and need to volunteer my time wherever needed. I’ve spent ample time at local soup kitchens, retirement homes, assisted living complexes and, during the occasional cram when I lost track of the assignment’s deadline, in my mother’s kitchen on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any random Tuesday afternoon.
I am built upon a pretty solid rock and the private school system provided me with that rock.
The council also found that Americans are split down the middle when it comes to choosing a school system that teaches kids to get along with others on the playground. I have to say, though, that I would not be the loving, Bible-app-hugging woman my friends have come to know had I not been asked to chant the words “Love thy neighbor” from giant laminated banners on a daily basis since I was 4.
Because of my private education, I choose respect, discipline, and love above all — even if said neighbor sits at the bar stool across from me with the Star of David hanging around his neck. I can only hope that he just as equally loved the crucifix hanging around mine.