We Can’t Leave Belonging to Chance

Written by Jessica Patterson, principal, St. Madeleine Sophie School, Archdiocese of Seattle, [email protected]

There is a phrase we hear almost every time we visit a school or an organization, “Everyone belongs here.” It’s truly a beautiful sentiment. It has become almost universal in education. We print it on banners, include it in mission statements, say it at back-to-school nights, and hope families feel it when they walk through our doors. But over the past several years as I have worked at St. Madeleine Sophie School, and spent time in many other school and institutions, I have found myself asking a different question…

What does belonging actually require of us?

Not, what does it sound like? Not, how do we describe it? Truly, what does it demand from the adults who have accepted the responsibility of forming children under the offer of belonging?

That question has quietly become one of the most important questions for my leadership. Because…. We offer it all the time.

As principal of St. Madeleine Sophie School, I have the privilege of walking through classrooms, standing at morning drop-off, greeting families after Mass, and lingering in doorways listening to student conversations. In those ordinary moments, I realized something I never fully appreciated when I first became a school leader.

School culture is not built during assemblies. Or in Social Media blasts…

It is built in the thousand ordinary interactions that no one applauds.

It is one of our teachers kneeling beside a frustrated nonverbal student.

It is one of our parents choosing to ask a curious question instead of a gossipy criticism to a co-parent.

It is an eighth grader instinctively waiting for one of our kindergartners to catch up to walk with them up to the church for Mass.

It’s one of our faculty members staying after a difficult meeting because a colleague simply needed someone to listen after a rough day of lunch duty.

Those moments never make the weekly newsletter.

Yet they are what I remember when I go home at night.

Before He Taught…

When I think about Catholic identity, I don’t immediately think about our religion classes or prayer services, although those are important. I think about Jesus, and I notice something that has become impossible for me to ignore.

Before He taught, He walked.

He walked with fishermen.

He walked with sinners.

He walked with all those who had been forgotten, who were overlooked, and especially those who were excluded.

His ministries were all built on accompaniment long before he started in on instruction.

That small word, with, has become the lens through which I now understand almost everything we do as a school community. Our mission at St. Madeleine Sophie is not simply to educate children in the Catholic faith. Our mission is to accompany them toward Christ while teaching them how to accompany one another.

And, that distinction really matters.

It sort of changes the questions we ask and the expectation.

Instead of asking whether students know they belong, we ask whether we have actually removed the barriers that prevented belonging in the first place.

Then, instead of hoping relationships happen naturally, we intentionally create opportunities for them.

Instead of assuming students will learn compassion simply because they attend a Catholic school, we teach compassion as deliberately as we teach multiplication.

Because we have learned that belonging cannot be left to chance.

Neither can faith.

Neither can community.

Intentionality of Culture

I kind of think, one of the greatest misconceptions in education is that culture simply emerges over time to be discovered, and then you see who you are. In reality, culture is formed through relentless repetition. Every day, our students learn what matters, not simply because of what adults say, but because of what adults consistently choose to do. (Isn’t that how we build mastery?)

At St. Madeleine Sophie, we have become intentional about making those choices visible and expected.

Students belong to Faith Families that span every grade level, creating relationships that extend far beyond classrooms. An eighth grader does not simply know the names of younger students; they pray together, serve together, sit together at Mass, and know the needs of others outside their class’ peers; they celebrate and consider a whole community all throughout the year. Leadership is no longer something reserved for the student council. It becomes the daily practice of noticing someone else before you. 

Teachers speak a common language that reminds students who we are becoming. We talk constantly about repairing relationships, assuming positive intent, serving one another, and showing up when it would be easier not to. Those conversations happen during religion class, certainly, but they also happen during recess, math lessons, faculty meetings, basketball games, and parent conferences. We have discovered that children become what they repeatedly hear, and eventually, what they repeatedly practice. Shared language is a superpower!

Still, explicit teaching is only half of the work.

Children are extraordinary observers.

They notice whether adults greet the custodian with the same respect they show the pastor.

They notice whether administrators are present in good times and in bad times.

They notice whether teachers speak generously about one another behind closed doors- they see if we treat each other the way we ask them to treat one another.

They notice whether parents extend grace to one another when disagreements arise—they see if they treat one another the way they ask them to treat one another.

Before they remember our curriculum, they remember our witness and our model.

That realization has profoundly changed the way I think about leadership, how I show up in a day and how I ask them to show up for one another.

As educators, we often focus on what students need to learn. Don’t get me wrong, that is so important! Yet, increasingly, I find myself asking myself, what do they need to experience?

They need to experience forgiveness so they can understand mercy.

They need to experience being known if they are to understand dignity.

They need to experience accompaniment if we want them to understand the gospel.

And, maybe, most importantly, they need to experience that authentic belonging is rarely convenient. (Have you ever heard someone say they were not for belonging?) Yet, how many times have we witnessed someone excluded?

It is easy to welcome people who are like us.

It is so much harder to slow down for the child who constantly demands our attention, the parent who arrives carrying baggage, or the colleague who sees the world differently than we do.

Yet that is precisely where the gospel begins. Accompaniment- with.

The invitation to accompany another person has always required sacrifice and a level of inconvenience and it may ask us to choose relationship over efficiency, require some patience over frustration, and usually stillness over productivity. At. St. Madeleine Sophie School, we have come to believe that these inconvenient moments are not interruptions to our mission. They are the mission. They are what has created the culture and answers the question of what is required of us.

Ironically, it is within those moments that resilience is formed.

Accompaniment through Resilience

We often speak about helping students become resilient, but resilience is not developed through motivational speeches or carefully crafted lessons alone. It is also not grown from testing children’s toughness. It grows every time a child learns to consider someone else’s needs before their own. Every time they choose forgiveness over retaliation. Every time they persevere in a psychologically safe situation instead of walking away. Every time they discover that loving another person often requires some grit.

That is discipleship. 

Catholic identity is not something a school achieves once through an accreditation or an accolade. It must be renewed every single day through the ordinary choices of every member of the community. All stakeholders are responsible for upholding expectations.

None of us does this perfectly.

Our teachers fall short.

Our students fall short.

I certainly fall short. But there is a whole community of accountability that holds us together.

But perhaps the beauty of Catholic education has never been perfection.

It has always been accompaniment.

Walking together.

Making a mistake but then beginning again together.

Choosing one another again.

If our graduates remember anything years from now, I hope it is not simply that they attended a Catholic school. I hope they remember what it felt like to belong.

Because if they carry that into their homes, workplaces, parishes, and communities, then they will not simply remember our mission.

They will become it.