“Aquick search of the definition of Rigor reveals words such as severity, strictness, exactness, rigidity, inflexibility. In our field of education we might use the word more broadly to describe learning experiences that are academically and intellectually challenging. In the conversations surrounding the creation of a new course, for example, we might ask, ‘Is this class sufficiently rigorous for our school?’ Or after a curriculum review, we might reflect, ‘the content in the junior year should be more uniformly rigorous in our department’ or perhaps ‘we need to increase the rigor of the assessments next year.’
Rigor comes from the Latin word for stiffness, or toughness. We most commonly hear the word as it pertains to the difficulty of a task or process. We might use the term when describing student workload, or the so-called grind of an academic program. We might tell students in advising them on course selection for example that they ‘need to pick a more rigorous schedule of classes.’ With our traditions of academic excellence, overflowing course loads and late-night homework routines are often viewed as a sign of commitment to rigor. It can be reasonable to infer that the term means to pile on the work or to make assignments more difficult. We can often think that for an academic pursuit to be ‘good’ it has to be hard. Yet we also know that a focus on rigor means to challenge students to think in new and interesting ways. With this lens, rigor is not reflected in more work or being difficult. Rather rigor is relevant, challenging, deep understanding…there is a lot to unpack in our own interpretations of the concept of rigor that will frame our conversations.”
--Introduction to the Jesuit School Network’s 2023 Spring Symposium Academic Rigor in Jesuit Education
…schools are working to balance caring for the well-being of students with upholding expectations of academic rigor.
The deep dive into “academic rigor” explored via the Jesuit School Network’s Spring 2023 Symposium emerged from listening to principals attending our annual meeting in the fall of 2022. Principals across North America shared how schools are working to balance caring for the well-being of students with upholding expectations of academic rigor—including our own expectations of the learning we foster, the traditions of our school communities, parents, college admissions, the pressures of an achievement culture and so much more. At the time I wrote the introduction to the Symposium quoted above, we hoped to spark dialogue encouraging schools around the Network to consider the messages they send through expectations, routines, and ways of being. This inaugural issue of Ignatian Pedagogy in Practice, “Reimagining Rigor: Elevating Learning in the 21st-Century,” is a wonderful example of the flame we hoped to ignite in the Symposium.
Through the experience of leading these conversations and listening to educators across the JSN, I have learned to redefine rigor as a depth of learning we foster among our students.
Through the experience of leading these conversations and listening to educators across the JSN, I have learned to redefine rigor as a depth of learning we foster among our students. Even more importantly, I have come to value this depth we aim to cultivate in our students as a core mission-centered Ignatian value that teachers and leaders can embody in their own professional growth. So often in discourse around the concept of academic rigor we focus on students. I propose it is equally important to consider how academic faculties can model this key value to the young people in their care. Rather than merely telling our students about the value of embracing a depth of learning in their studies, educators have the potential to show them through their own pursuit of professional growth and development.
Rather than merely telling our students about the value of embracing a depth of learning in their studies, educators have the potential to show them through their own pursuit of professional growth and development.
In the foundational document A Living Tradition An Exercise in Discernment on Jesuit Secondary and Pre-Secondary Education in the 21st Century (International Commission on the Apostolate on Jesuit Education, 2019) Global Identifier #10 is noted as Jesuit Schools are Committed to Life-Long Learning:
Our task, as educators, is to refresh and deepen our own spirituality…How can I make use of my God-given gifts and talents to respond to the needs of people in my family, my locality, my region of the world, and the global community? These have always been the questions beneath the questions in Jesuit classrooms…Thus, the ultimate success of our educational endeavor cannot be measured by who the graduate is at the moment of graduation… Instead, the gift of Jesuit schooling is best measured by how graduates engage life in the decades after graduation… (pp. 83-84)
As leaders in our own classrooms and offices, we must ask ourselves, how do I engage in life in the decades after graduation? In other words, how do I, as a professional, model for my students the values I hope to see in them? How do I encourage the big picture of the learning I seek to foster so it may trickle-down to the young people sitting in front of me?
We can think of Jesuit historian Fr. John O’Malley’s book The First Jesuits (1993), where he describes the characteristics of Jesuit Schools, and he points to “the teaching under the teaching” (p. 226) —how Jesuit educators in the early days “tried to influence their students more by their example than by their words. They repeatedly inculcated in one another the importance of loving their students, of knowing them as individuals, of enjoying a respectful familiaritas with them” (p. 227). Imagine how we can influence our students today with our example as life-long learners.
This lens of educators modeling rigor to their students through their own engagement in life-long learning is a crucial one in appreciating how Jesuit education can be reimagined in a myriad of school contexts.
This lens of educators modeling rigor to their students through their own engagement in life-long learning is a crucial one in appreciating how Jesuit education can be reimagined in a myriad of school contexts across the JSN, especially in the quickly evolving landscape of schooling. Though educational trends and fads change by the day, the teacher’s own intellectual curiosity in their professional development can remain constant. A focus on life-long learning by faculty is very likely the steadiest way to grow a culture of excellence in a school community. In A Living Tradition’s (International Commission on the Apostolate on Jesuit Education, 2019) Global Identifier #9, Jesuit Schools are Committed to Human Excellence, we are reminded that considering the “…rapid global changes we are experiencing, excellence in any of our schools will require an ongoing dialogue on how we educate: What pedagogies? What curricula?” (p.80). This challenge was highlighted by Father General Arturo Sosa at JESEDU-Rio:
Though educational trends and fads change by the day, the teacher’s own intellectual curiosity in their professional development can remain constant.
It is important for our institutions to be spaces for educational investigation, true laboratories in innovation in teaching, from which we can draw new teaching methods or models. This means that we’ll explore what others do and what we can learn from them, as well as what educational science proposes for a world that’s increasingly technical and shaped by the digital culture our students were born and raised in. Our institutions need to be aware of the anthropological and cultural change we’re experiencing, and they need to know how to educate and train in a new way for a different future (p. 80)
Recognizing that the core of our institutions is its teachers, Fr. General’s charge calls us to ask ourselves, how are we, through our own actions and modeling, contributing to the ongoing dialogue of how we educate? Life-Long Learning and Human Excellence are at the heart of the innovative Educational Inquiry work we have been seeding across JSN in recent years. We are eager to encourage a spirit of inquiry across the many layers of our work in Jesuit education, envisioning “our particular brand of Ignatian Inquiry to be: The art of inquiry as seen through our Ignatian lens; asking questions and exploring issues that matter in our schools through the frame of our shared Jesuit mission” (Jesuit Schools Network, 2024). Through various new modes of delivery to all educators across our 91 schools—from the Ignatian Inquiry Podcast to Virtual Sessions, Symposiums, the creation of original JSN Learn virtual courses and innovative Summer Master Classes—we aim to energize busy educators through exploring relevant topics that have emerged from their work. We seek to be a resource for teachers to be students—urging Ignatian educators to first BE the students they hope to see in their schools.
From listening to the needs of the Network over the past few years, we have explored in our Inquiry programming topics such as mindfulness and well-being, women in leadership, accompaniment and faith formation, ecosystems of support for marginalized students, the complexities of online learning, the first-year principal experience, reconciling with Jesuit Slaveholding in the United States, caring for our common home by learning from Integral Ecology, Ignatian pedagogy, intercultural communication, teaching and learning in the age of artificial intelligence, and college admissions, to name but a few. Just as we hoped with the conversations around academic rigor, we aim to spark and enliven learning around our schools that is rooted in mission and grounded in professional excellence. As we all know, feeling professionally alive and energized makes us stronger educators, calling to mind the words attributed to St. Ignatius Whatever you are doing, that which makes you feel most alive is where God is.
We can imagine the power inherent in young people seeing their teachers as curious, active, and engaged inquirers in their own learning.
We can imagine the power inherent in young people seeing their teachers as curious, active, and engaged inquirers in their own learning. In the trailblazing work, Repositioning Educational Leadership: Practitioners Leading from an Inquiry Stance (Lytle et.al., 2018) it is noted that when “educational leaders position themselves as inquirers, their leadership can illuminate and improve many aspects of institutional life and create intellectually demanding and rich learning environments – for both adults and children.” (p.1): The authors explained:
Practitioners leading from an inquiry stance was conceptualized in Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (2009) theory of inquiry as stance. According to this framework, inquiry as stance is perspectival and conceptual - -a worldview, a critical habit of mind, a dynamic way of knowing and being in the world of educational practice that carries across professional careers and educational settings (p.120). The work encourages educational leaders to be “leaders of learning” (p. 9) developing cultures that promote openness and dialogue.
This theory of inquiry urges us to imagine ourselves as “leaders of learning” in our own context and is crucial to nurturing the care and excellence for which Jesuit schools have been known throughout our history. Teachers, staff, school leaders—and every position in between—can find motivation in reflecting on their work with this inquiry stance, which is deeply aligned with Ignatian pedagogy. Nurturing an inquiry stance as a “critical habit of mind” through reflection might look like this:
How do you want students to embrace learning and rigor in your classroom? Embrace a depth of learning in your own professional life.
In what ways do you desire to foster a community that enlivens lifelong learning and excellence among its students? Aim to nurture a culture where the educators embrace these values in their own professional lives.
Let us collectively imagine the tremendous depth of learning—of academic rigor—students would benefit from in watching their teachers as students.
We know that our highly capable Jesuit school students notice and see everything we do in schools, absorbing all of the subtle and not so subtle messages we send. Let us collectively imagine the tremendous depth of learning—of academic rigor—students would benefit from in watching their teachers as students: growing, inquiring and thriving in their own professional learning.
Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S.L. (2009) Inquiry as stance: Practitioner research for the next generation. Teachers College Press.
International Commission on the Apostolate on Jesuit Education (2019). Jesuit schools: A living tradition in the 21st century - An ongoing exercise of discernment. Society of Jesus Secretariat for Education, General Curia.
Jesuit Schools Network (2024). Inquiry Programming. Inquiry | Jesuit Schools Network
Lytle J.H., Lytle, S.L., Johanek, M.C., & Rho K.J. (2018). Repositioning educational leadership: Practitioners leading from an inquiry stance. Teachers College Press.
O'Malley, J. (1993). The first Jesuits. Harvard University Press.
