Page 124 - Gonzaga at 60
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GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
From that moment the onus comes upon each and every one of us to implement
in the real world what we have been taught here: to make our ideologies of today
the standards of the future. The success of a Gonzaga student is measured not
by what he achieves during his ime in the school but by what he later does with
what he has learned.
Brendan Lannoye, School Captain 2009
The tradiion of Rhetoric in Jesuit schools has always been intrinsic, in that it informs across a
number of disciplines and develops an aitude useful in communicaion whatever the topic: a
clear embodiment of the noion of cura personalis. In his prospectus from the very early days of
the College Rev. Joseph Veale SJ puts it thus:
Learning should be uniied and made alive by some organizing discipline by which
a man can be trained to assimilate reality in a fully human way.
At its best Gonzaga can boast a wide variety of interests and backgrounds, a teaching staf
willing to engage with pupils and each other and share ownership of the process of educaion,
and an intellectually curious student body. At its worst it can become self-interested and
arrogant. When communicaion breaks down and ownership is not shared, people duck and
cover. Nobody gives, nobody beneits. That is how important the expression and communicaion
of knowledge is to the spirit of the College.
When I was asked in 1993 to formulate a brief Transiion Year module in Rhetoric and to
restructure An Chómhdháil, it became apparent that there had developed a climate of arrogance
when it came to debaing in the College. Debates in An Chómhdháil were held on Friday nights
and, if the minute book is anything to go by, were a laugh a minute. The problem with a succession
of fun debates, though, is that the art of listening is replaced by the art of listening for something
to mock, a decline which runs contrary to my preferred deiniion of Rhetoric: “inding in a topic
all that is in it”. Making jokes at the expense of Muckross girls hardly qualiies and although there
is a skill in wriing leters of apology it’s hardly what the auditor of a debaing society signs up
to do. By then compeiive debaing was conined to one or two teams and, by contrast with
the outstanding successes in naional and internaional debate in the early years, there had
been comparaively litle in the few years immediately preceding, Eugene Downes and Marcus
Dowling (’00) and Nicky Devlin (’01) notwithstanding. The students were immensely talented but
a new perspecive was overdue.
An Chómhdháil was clearly in danger of losing its roots. Its members were not really beneiing
in any meaningful way. I concentrated on compeiive debate, adding to the parliamentary style
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
From that moment the onus comes upon each and every one of us to implement
in the real world what we have been taught here: to make our ideologies of today
the standards of the future. The success of a Gonzaga student is measured not
by what he achieves during his ime in the school but by what he later does with
what he has learned.
Brendan Lannoye, School Captain 2009
The tradiion of Rhetoric in Jesuit schools has always been intrinsic, in that it informs across a
number of disciplines and develops an aitude useful in communicaion whatever the topic: a
clear embodiment of the noion of cura personalis. In his prospectus from the very early days of
the College Rev. Joseph Veale SJ puts it thus:
Learning should be uniied and made alive by some organizing discipline by which
a man can be trained to assimilate reality in a fully human way.
At its best Gonzaga can boast a wide variety of interests and backgrounds, a teaching staf
willing to engage with pupils and each other and share ownership of the process of educaion,
and an intellectually curious student body. At its worst it can become self-interested and
arrogant. When communicaion breaks down and ownership is not shared, people duck and
cover. Nobody gives, nobody beneits. That is how important the expression and communicaion
of knowledge is to the spirit of the College.
When I was asked in 1993 to formulate a brief Transiion Year module in Rhetoric and to
restructure An Chómhdháil, it became apparent that there had developed a climate of arrogance
when it came to debaing in the College. Debates in An Chómhdháil were held on Friday nights
and, if the minute book is anything to go by, were a laugh a minute. The problem with a succession
of fun debates, though, is that the art of listening is replaced by the art of listening for something
to mock, a decline which runs contrary to my preferred deiniion of Rhetoric: “inding in a topic
all that is in it”. Making jokes at the expense of Muckross girls hardly qualiies and although there
is a skill in wriing leters of apology it’s hardly what the auditor of a debaing society signs up
to do. By then compeiive debaing was conined to one or two teams and, by contrast with
the outstanding successes in naional and internaional debate in the early years, there had
been comparaively litle in the few years immediately preceding, Eugene Downes and Marcus
Dowling (’00) and Nicky Devlin (’01) notwithstanding. The students were immensely talented but
a new perspecive was overdue.
An Chómhdháil was clearly in danger of losing its roots. Its members were not really beneiing
in any meaningful way. I concentrated on compeiive debate, adding to the parliamentary style
