BY JETT L TORRES, SL FORMATOR
Jesuit schools are a way to live and learn for the glory of God and the common good. Jesuit education affirms the gradual goodness of existence, responsible for God's goodness, and considers every aspect of life worthy of quest and contemplation, and capable of endless exploration.
Xavier Ateneo encourages its faculty and students to take part in social problems and concerns that accelerate the development of new ideas, disturb our indifferent heart, and move towards the dissolution of culture.
Service-learning formators are at the forefront of constant imagination, enthusiasm, and transformative learning that bridge our faculty and students' rhetorical discipline. Thus, the principle of excellence applies to all aspects of school life.
Service-learning formators play a dynamic role in defining and achieving the excellence of the university with humility. These activities characterize our social formation ideology.
As a co-teacher. Team teaching is a creative teaching-learning partnership – informative and transformative learning. It evaluates learning needs, helps set relevant learning goals, generates teaching and learning methods, implements a work plan, and reviews learning outcomes. We empower students to expand their personal, social, and professional skills.
As a social formator. Driven by Ignatian discernment and rooted in a personal relationship with God, profoundly committed to faith and justice, and critically engaged in the society. Ignatian spirituality is the foundation of increased ability to think reflectively, objectively, and critically—a basis for social consciousness analysis. It is a path to meaningful prayer, wise, discernment-led choices, and active service to others. A formator connects the spirit to direct its students to become aware of the facets of our social challenges.
As a community development officer. The Universal Apostolic Preferences of the Society of Jesus also remind us that we must accompany the poor, the vulnerable, the oppressed, and those whom society deems useless to carry out a mission of reconciliation and justice.
The role of a community development officer is to foster social change and enhance the quality of community life. Facilitating constructive engagement of individuals in meeting community needs. It acts as a community liaison that helps people to easily exchange knowledge and resources, encourage good leadership, motivational skills, and organizational skills, and create confidence in people. Provide students with interactions, respond to their struggles, and seek solutions to their problems.
Our role becomes a gentle canopy to prepare students with a heart for others – a preferential option for the poor. Service-learning is weaving Xavier Ateneo to more proactive members of the community - it cannot be deceived by the blinding light of its self-perceived strength and influence.
Hence, careful thought is necessary to make oneself a lifelong learner who displays a critical interest in society. This is therefore the distinct charism of service-learning for Mindanao, the nation, and the world, a socially engaged institution.