December 2023

Adam was a self-proclaimed “screw up.” He had never had success in school. He had skirted by with low grades and was often in trouble for class disruptions or not completing assignments. He had a peer group who behaved in pretty much the same way. In short, he did not have much in the way of positive things going on in his life. So when he came to high school, he didn’t expect things to be any different than they had been for the previous nine years of his school life.

For some reason, Adam connected with me in 9th grade English. I was the high school drama director at the time, and after many conversations I convinced Adam to help us on set crew for our production of Grease!. That would have been great in and of itself, but Adam’s story gets better.

One of our male leads quit the show, and in the middle of rehearsal season we had to shuffle parts. We were one guy short. We needed Adam to take a small onstage part as a radio DJ. He agreed and spent the next several weeks doing a great job in that part.

And then, nine days before opening night, another male lead was forced to leave the show. We had to call on Adam to again change his role--and to become one of the leads. He did. That week he stayed late and learned the lines and songs and dances.  On opening night, there was Adam, dancing on the hood of greased lightning and singing solos. He’d never done anything like that in his life.

Years after graduation, Adam would tell my co-director and I that night changed his life. He had experienced success, and it reframed his own vision of himself.

My experiences as an educator have shown me time and time again the power and importance of helping young people develop a strong, positive identity. One of the most challenging aspects of teaching high school was trying to convince students who had little to no success in school for the previous nine years that they could, somehow, now become successful. Some of the students I taught had internalized the idea that they were not good students--or, even worse, the idea that they weren’t good in general. They had come to believe that they were the troublemaker. The lazy kid. The C or D student. The “bad kid.” It was part of their identity.

Changing these kids’ stories about themselves required more than just providing them with tutoring or offering incentives to change behavior. Rather, we had to get them to re-think their own idea of who they were as a person. We worked to help them believe that they were good. Capable. Worthy. Valued. Loved.

In a public school environment, these things are, of course, possible, as Adam’s example shows. In our Catholic schools, however, we can speak freely about our true identities--we are, every single one of us, children of God. We are created in His image and likeness, and as a result endowed with an incredible dignity that endures no matter the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We have been made with a purpose, and we are loved by the God who made us.

Our young people are searching for their identity, especially in their middle school years. And unless we show them the truth of who they are, they will find their identity elsewhere, perhaps from TikTok, celebrities, or social media. It is our hope, of course, that our young people will form their identities with the guidance they receive from you, their parents, supported by our school staff and the examples of Christ and the saints.

Over the next few months in this column, I would like to dive more deeply into the subject of guiding our students to better understand who they are made to be, and how we, as their guardians, parents, and teachers, can work together to help them develop a true and positive identity for themselves. 

“For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance..." Ephesians 2:10