Shimon Schocken, author and founding dean of Efi Arazi School of Computer Science in Israel, rides his bicycle every week in the mountains and deserts surrounding Tel Aviv. That’s kind of amazing in itself, but who he brings along to share his experience is even more amazing.
I taught at Montefiore Special School in Chicago, a school for young men with behavior and emotional problems, for twenty years from 1970 to 1980 and then again from 1996 to 1997. In the interim years I took students from this school camping in the Rockies and on regular trips to Great America in Gurnee Illinois. I knew then and know even better today, that I was the one doing the learning. I am so grateful for these opportunities. To this day I’m not sure whether I got more when I was volunteering or when I was a paid member of the teaching staff.
My experience tells me Shimon Schocken has the right idea on how to help young men in trouble with the law. I wonder if anyone is doing that at Montefiore or any of the “troubled” Chicago schools today? I hope so.
We are a community of laymen and laywomen who, with vowed Passionists, seek to share in the charism of St. Paul of the Cross through prayer, ongoing spiritual formation, and proclamation of the message of Christ Crucified.
