Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm

The IPP was developed by the International Commission on the Apostolate of Jesuit Education (ICAJE) in response to the expressed need of teachers throughout the world on how to make the principles and orientation of the Characteristics of Jesuit Education more useable for teachers and how the Ignatian values can be incorporated in a practical pedagogy for use in the daily interaction between the teachers and students in the classroom.

With help from many lay and Jesuit educators throughout the world, ICAJE prepared seven drafts of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm. The members of the commission were convinced that staff development programs in each Jesuit province and school are essential in making teachers not only cognitively oriented to the IPP but really apply it in their daily class activities.

In April 20 to 30, 1993, forty persons from twenty-six nations with six people from Jesuit education from each continent met in Villa Cavalletti, just outside Rome to be trained, i.e. to learn about, practice and master some of the key pedagogical methods involved. They, in turn, prepared training workshops for teams of people from provinces in their areas of the world, who in turn would be equipped to initiate school level staff development programs.

In the Philippines, Jesuit basic education teachers of Luzon met at Ateneo de Manila University High School during the summer of 1993 for the IPP training. In July 1993, the basic education teachers of the Visayas and Mindanao met at Sacred Jesuit of Cebu. The XUHS team which participated then were composed of six administrators and teachers. The XUHS Team then trained all the XUHS Faculty on the IPP during the for four full days during the summer of 1994. XUHS formally adapted the IPP as a pedagogy in June 1994.

It is therefore, important to note that as a Jesuit school, the IPP as it reflects the spiritual journey of St. Ignatius encompasses the curriculum the university will adapt. It is therefore the heart of whatever curriculum.

Pedagogy, the art and science of teaching, is the way in which teachers accompany the learners in their growth and development. It cannot simply be reduced to methodology. It must include a world-view and a vision of the ideal human person to be educated. These provide the goal, the end to which all aspects of an educational tradition are directed. The Characteristics of Jesuit Education expresses the ideal of Jesuit education which is amplified in the following manner by Fr. Hans Kolvenbach S.J., former Superior General of the Society of Jesus:

The pursuit of each student’s intellectual development to the full measure of God-given talents rightfully remains a prominent goal of Jesuit education. It’s aim, however, has never been simply to amass a store of information or preparation for profession though these are important in themselves and useful to emerging Christian leaders.

The ultimate aim of Jesuit education is, rather, the full growth of the person which leads to action – action, especially, that is suffused with the spirit and presence of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Man-for-others. This goal of action, based on sound understanding and enlivened by contemplation, urges students to self-discipline and initiative, to integrity and accuracy. At the same time, it judges slip-shod or superficial ways of thinking unworthy of the individual and, more important, dangerous to the world he or she is called to serve. (Fr. Kolvenbach S.J. Address, Georgetown, 1989)

Ignatian Pedagogy is intended not only for formal education provided in Jesuit schools, colleges and universities, but it can be helpful in every form of educational service that in one way or other is inspired by the experience of St. Ignatius recorded in the Spiritual Exercises, part IV of the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, and in the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum.

Since the publication in 1986 of the Characteristics of Jesuit Education, a frequent question of teachers and administrators alike in Jesuit schools has been: “How can we achieve what is proposed in this document, the educational formation of the youth to be men and women for others, in the face of present realities?”

The answer to this question necessarily must be relevant to many cultures, applicable to various disciplines, and must appeal to multiple intelligences and learning styles. Above all, it must relate to the preferential love for the poor which characterizes the mission of the Church today. What is needed is a model of how to proceed that promotes the goal of Jesuit education, a paradigm that speaks to the teaching-learning process, that addresses the teacher-learner relationship, and that has practical meaning and application for the classroom.

The paradigm must be geared towards holistic formation of both the teacher and learner. Learning though no matter how fundamental or intricate must bring the learner to a deeper and wider knowledge and understanding of the lesson learned thus making it applicable in the here and now as well as for the future.

The first decree of the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, “Companions of Jesus sent into Today’s World,” encourages Jesuits in the regular apostolic discernment of their ministries, both traditional and new. Such a review, it recommends, should be attentive to the Word of God and should be inspired by the Ignatian tradition. In addition, it should allow for a transformation of peoples’ habitual patterns of thought through a constant interplay of experience, reflection and action. It is here that we find the model of bringing the Characteristics of Jesuit Education to life in our schools today, through a way of proceeding that is thoroughly consistent with the goal of Jesuit education and totally in line with the mission of the Society of Jesus. The IPP then gives pre-eminence to the constant interplay of EXPERIENCE, REFLECTION AND ACTION.

A distinctive feature of the IPP is that, understood in the light of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, it becomes not only a fitting description of the continual interplay of experience, reflection and action in the teaching-learning process, but also an ideal portrayal of the dynamic interrelationship of the teacher and learner in the latter’s journey of growth in knowledge and freedom.

The Spiritual Exercises involves rigorous exercises of the spirit wholly engaging the body, mind, heart and soul of the human person. Thus they offer not only matters to be pondered, but possibilities to be explored, options to be considered, alternatives to be weighed, judgments to be reached and choices of action to be made – all with the expressed aim of helping individuals to seek and find the will of God at work in the radical ordering of their lives.

A fundamental dynamic of the SpEx is the continual call to reflect upon the entirety of one’s experience in prayer in order to discern where the Spirit of God is calling. Only after adequate reflection on experience and interior appropriation of the meanings and implications of what one studies can one proceed freely and confidently toward choosing appropriate courses of action that foster the integral growth of oneself as a human being. Hence, reflection is the pivotal point for St. Ignatius I the movement from experience to action, so much so that he consigns to the Spiritual Director or Guide engaged I the Spiritual Exercises primary responsibility for facilitating their progress in reflection.

The SpEx leads every learner as well as the teacher to a deeper meaning of their everyday learning, thus both journey towards the fullness of oneself in relation to others. The IPP being the heart of the teaching-learning process eventually forms the learner and teacher to become truly man/woman for others.

It is the teacher’s primary role to facilitate the growing relationship of the learner with truth, particularly in the matter of the subject being studied under the guiding influence of the teacher. The teacher creates the conditions, lays the foundations and provides the opportunities for the continual interplay of the student’s EXPERIENCE, REFLECTION and ACTION to occur.

A comprehensive IPP must consider the context of the learning. In addition, it should point to ways to encourage openness to growth even after the student has completed any individual learning cycle. Thus five steps are involved: CONTEXT (C), EXPERIENCE (E), REFLECTION (R) , ACTION (A), and EVALUATION (E) OR CERAE.

Before St. Ignatius would begin to a direct a person in the Spiritual Exercises, he always wanted to know about his predisposition to prayer, to God. He realized how important it was for a person to be open to the movements of the spirit. Based upon this pre-retreat knowledge, St. Ignatius made judgments about readiness to begin, whether a person would profit from the complete exercises or an abbreviated experience.

Similarly, personal care and concern for the individual (cura personalis), which is a hallmark of Jesuit education, require that a teacher become as conversant as possible with the life experience of the learner. Since human experience, never occurs in a vacuum, we must know about the actual context within which learning takes place. As teachers we need to understand the world of the student and the institutional environment of the school that create an atmosphere for learning. It is by knowing where students are at that teachers will know where they must meet them and respond to their need.

Experience for St. Ignatius meant "to taste something internally". This calls for knowing facts, concepts, and principles. This requires one to probe the connotation and overtones of words and events, to analyze and evaluate ideas, to reason.

But Ignatian experience goes beyond purely intellectual grasp. St. Ignatius urges that the whole person - mind, heart and will - should enter the learning experience. He encourages use of the imagination and feelings as well as the mind in experience. Thus the affective as well as cognitive dimensions of the human person are involved because without internal feeling joined to intellectual grasp, learning will not move a person to action. Experience then is used to describe any activity in which in addition to a cognitive grasp of the matter being considered, some sensations of an affective nature is registered by the student.

Throughout his life, St. Ignatius knew himself to be constantly subjected to different stirrings, invitations, alternatives which were often contradictory. His greatest effort was to try to discover what moved him in each situation: the impulse that leads him to good or the one that inclines him to evil; the desire to serve others or the solicitude for his own egotistical affirmation. He became the master of discernment because he succeeded in distinguishing this difference.

For St. Ignatius to "discern" was to clarify his internal motivation, the reasons behind his judgments, to prove the causes and implications of what he experienced, to weigh possible options and evaluate them in the light of their likely consequences; to discover what best leads to the desired goal: to be a free person who seeks, finds and carries out the will of God in each situation.

We use the term reflection to mean a thoughtful reconsideration of some subject matter, experiences, idea, purpose or spontaneous reaction, in order to grasp its significance more fully. Thus, reflection is the process by which meaning surfaces in human experience:

• by understanding the truth being studied more clearly.
• by understanding the sources of the sensations or reactions I experience.
• by deepening my understanding of the implications of what I have grasped for myself and for others.
• by achieving personal insights into events, ideas, truth or the distortion of the truth
• by coming to some understanding of who I am (what moves me and why?) and who I might be in relation to others.

For St. Ignatius, the acid test of love is what one does, not what one says. "Love is shown in deeds, not in words". The thrust of the Spiritual Exercises is to know the will of God and to do it freely. So too, Ignatius and the first Jesuits were most concerned with the formation of students' attitudes, values, ideals according to which they would make decisions in a wide variety of situations about what actions were to be done.

Reflection in the IPP would be a truncated process if it ended with understanding and affective reactions. Ignatian reflection, just as it begins with reality of experience, necessarily ends with the same reality in order to effect it. Reflection only develops and matures when it fosters decision and commitment.

Action in the IPP communicates the moral aspect of the faith of every person. This call to act is the fruit of what the human senses can grasp like what they see, touch, hear, feel etc. A profound reflection results to a meaningful action. Teachers know that learning takes place when students are able to engage into a deeper and meaningful reflection of the things they are learning.

The term "Action" here refers to internal human growth based upon experience that has been reflected upon as well as its manifestation externally. It involves 2 steps:

1. Interiorized Choices

• After reflection, the learner considers the experience from a personal, human point of view. Here in the light of cognitive understanding of the experience and the affections involved (positive or negative), the will is moved.
• Meanings perceived and judged present choices to be made. Such choices may occur when a person decides that a truth is to be his or her personal point of reference, attitude or predisposition which will affect any number of decisions. It may take the form of gradual clarification of one's priorities. It is at this point that a student chooses to make the truth his or her own while remaining open to where the truth might lead.

2. Choices Externally Manifested

• In time, the meanings, attitudes, values which have been interiorized, made part of the person, impel the student to act, to do something consistent with this new conviction.

Ignatian Pedagogy aims at formation which includes but goes beyond academic mastery. Thus, periodic evaluation of the student's growth in attitudes, priorities and actions consistent with being a person for others is essential. Comprehensive assessment probably will not occur as frequently as academic testing, but it needs to be planned at intervals. A teacher who is observant will perceive indications of growth or lack of growth in class discussions, students' generosity in response to common needs, etc. much more frequently.

In time, the students’ attitudes, priorities, decisions may be reinvestigated in the light of further experience, changes in his or her context, challenges from social and cultural developments and the like. The teacher's gentle questioning may point to the need for more adequate decisions or commitments, what St. Ignatius called the "Magis" (more). This newly realized need to grow may serve to launch the learner once again into the cycle of the Ignatian learning paradigm.

This mode of proceeding can thus become an effective on-going pattern for learning as well as a stimulus to remain open to growth throughout a lifetime. This is shown in the CERAE diagram on top section of this page.