How Proud Can I Be?

Rose has a teacher who's very popular with the students. For many of these freshmen, its the first time they've come across a "college style" teacher. You know the kind I mean. He's funny, larger than life, and loves to break away from world history to riff about other things. Problem is that he's so busy riffing these days that very little teaching gets done. And the things he's "teaching" the kids boil down to 90 minutes of talking about his personal philosophy of life for way too many classes. I think that he thinks he's teaching the kids to "think outside the envelope." The fact that he's generally preaching to the choir with his liberal, culturally based agenda hasn't occurred to him, but whatever. Rose would rather have him actually spend time teaching but she'll let it flow over her. No one ever disagrees with him. Why would they? He's smart, he's the teacher and ... he'll take you down and make you look like a fool if you try it. So no one ever dares try that in front of the whole class. Except, of course, for Rose yesterday.

The teacher was using the Great Schism as a jumping off point to talk about why priests should be married and in the process asked the class, "Why are we here?" They had been primed by previous speeches and dutifully replied, "To procreate." Except for Rose who raised her hand to point out that we are here for much more than mere procreation. Battle was joined. It ranged over a wide field of religious subjects ... with Rose steadfastly resisting the teacher's declarations that humans are simply animals, the Bible can't be trusted because it was written by men, and the Church has no authority because it is run by men. They were about to tackle the subject of faith when she was saved by the bell.

This was no easy task for her. Rose is quiet and reserved. Certainly no 14-year-old willingly opposes one of the school's most popular teachers in front of a class of her peers. However, as she told me, she knows how influential this teacher is and it infuriated her for him to use his authority about matters of religion when he was not following Church teachings in her Catholic school. As she said, "This is important. It is the truth!"

Talking it over with us last night, only one thing bothered her. Carried away by the argument she had several times, "had a tone" with the teacher. Even though the teacher also had been carried away and less than respectful a few times, Rose wanted to make it right. "Even though he's wrong, he has the right to his opinion and I should have been more respectful." So today she is seeking him out to apologize. Not for the content but for the occasional tone of the argument.

How proud can I be? Rose stood up for the truth in daunting circumstances, she is self aware enough to see her flaws, and she is a big enough person to apologize when it may put her at a disadvantage. I'm thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis proud!