Laziness ~ The Catholic Teacher’s Companion

This is an excerpt taken from a treasure of a book published in 1924 called The Catholic Teacher’s Companion – A Book of Inspiration and Self-Help.

As we are all teachers, whether it is of our own children or a teacher in an actual school, this article is valuable.

It was originally written for teaching Sisters….

Laziness

Before accusing a pupil of laziness, the teacher should investigate very carefully the causes of the alleged symptoms. There may be physical causes, e.g., anemia, under-nourishment, overwork at home, alcoholism of the parents or even of the pupils, or lack of rest and sleep.

There may also be bad influences at work either at home or elsewhere that interfere with the pupils giving proper attention to his lessons. It would be folly to blame the pupil for conditions for which he cannot be held responsible.

At times the teacher must blame herself or her methods or the curriculum for the laziness of some of her pupils. Modern teaching methods tend toward uniformity of instruction, and consequently are liable to produce a dead level of sameness in dealing with a large number of pupils. This is true particularly in those many cases when the classes are too large to permit the teacher to adapt the work to individual pupils.

Again, pupils with special talents for language work, mathematics, art, writing, etc., will often show little interest in the other subjects for which they are not particularly gifted. But this lack of interest cannot be called laziness. On the contrary, if the teacher will stifle the interest in the branches for which the pupil is gifted, she will usually succeed only in killing all interest in study.

Finally, the variety and complexity of our overcrowded curricula frequently dulls the pupil’s interest.

The teacher may also blame her own mistakes in teaching method for some of the laziness she may observe among her pupils. For instance, if she is partial to some pupils, she must blame herself if the other pupils will be resentful and embittered against all her work.

Mechanical drills, particularly if overdone, will likewise kill the vital interest in the work of the schoolroom. Or if the teacher is one-sided and coldly intellectual in the presentation of the subject matter and fails therefore to appeal to the heart and the emotions of the pupil, she need not be surprised if her pupils will not give their whole attention to their work, since she is appealing to only a part of their nature and cannot expect them to respond with their whole soul.

There are, however, many cases in which the moral weakness of the pupil is responsible for his laziness, and here, too, the teacher should bend every effort to affect the cure. Her aim must be to train the pupils to work and to love their work, and hence she must strengthen their wills and give them an opportunity to find pleasure and hard work.

Some pupils are lazy by nature. Others are coddled at home and consequently lack the incentive to strong effort. Some pupils may despair of ever overcoming their lazy disposition, but the teacher must impress upon them the truth that with the help of the Lord and their own cooperation they may conquer their weakness. By letting them succeed in small efforts the teacher will give them self-confidence and thus fit them for attacking more difficult tasks.

Stimulating their sense of honor may also prove helpful. Exercises in physical culture will develop the lazy pupil physically, and may react in this way favorably upon his mental faculties.

The pupils should be trained to adopt system and order in all their work, and that both in school and out.

Prompt rising in the morning and other acts of self-denial must also be suggested. Examples from the lives of Christ and his Saints may be used to inculcate the duty of work period other examples may be employed for illustrating the ill effects of laziness.

A small number of pupils may rely upon prayer as a refuge for laziness, trusting in the Lord instead of acting on the principle that the Lord helps them who help themselves. Such children must be taught that to neglect the natural means is synonymous with tempting God and is tantamount to the expecting of such miracles as the Lord will not work., as He will not encourage laziness.

As the teacher cannot succeed with prayer alone, but must use her brain also, so the pupil who would pass an examination must study, and not merely pray for success. If a pupil will not study, his piety will avail him little towards scholastic success.

In studies, too, we may apply the rule of the imitation of Christ: “Your progress will be commensurate with the violence that you do to yourself.”

But if the teacher fails despite all her efforts to overcome the pupil’s laziness, she must advise him to take up a calling that does not require book study. Pupils with no inclination for book learning, not infrequently proved successful artisans and mechanics.

To be self-reliant a child needs training for his life ahead. Sons must have training for a vocation. Daughters need training to manage a household. To increase their self-reliance see that they have a sufficient number of skills to keep a household running. For daughters this would be such things as sewing, baking, interior decorating or being her own doctor in case of minor illness. For sons it would be such things as carpentry, plumbing repair or something about auto mechanics. In this way they are able to take care of their own needs and are not forced to turn to others for help. ~Helen Andelin

“It is worth while now for me, – now while the brief occasion lasts – to overcome one temptation, to do one small kindness, to improve my mind by one half hour of study, to wait in patience when there is nothing else to be done, to bear a headache, or sleeplessness, or some small pain….”

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Let’s keep our young girls engaged in the Faith! Let’s teach them how to be organized, how to prioritize, how to keep on top of, first, the Spiritual things in their life, and then the other daily duties that God requires of them!

Nothing is more valuable than this type of education…an education for life! That is where this journal comes in! It will give your girls a feel for keeping a To-Do List, with spiritual things at the forefront! What more could you want for them?

Let this journal help you along the way, Mothers! The girls will have 30 days of checklists, beautiful thoughts to inspire them for the day, some fun things…like drawing their day and other things to keep them focused.

This next 30 days will be invaluable to them…to learn life skills, to have the satisfaction of checking off the activities they finish, to learn to be thankful for the  good things God has given us, to offer up their day for someone in need, etc.

This journal is for girls 8 (with the help of Mom) to 16 years of age.

It is a beautiful journal, full of color and loveliness! Your girls will treasure it and be able to look back on it for inspiration and encouragement!

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In With God in Russia, Ciszek reflects on his daily life as a prisoner, the labor he endured while working in the mines and on construction gangs, his unwavering faith in God, and his firm devotion to his vows and vocation. Enduring brutal conditions, Ciszek risked his life to offer spiritual guidance to fellow prisoners who could easily have exposed him for their own gains. He chronicles these experiences with grace, humility, and candor, from his secret work leading mass and hearing confessions within the prison grounds, to his participation in a major gulag uprising, to his own “resurrection”—his eventual release in a prisoner exchange in October 1963 which astonished all who had feared he was dead.

Powerful and inspirational, With God in Russia captures the heroic patience, endurance, and religious conviction of a man whose life embodied the Christian ideals that sustained him…..

Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a “Vatican spy,” Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent 23 agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. Only through an utter reliance on God’s will did he manage to endure the extreme hardship. He tells of the courage he found in prayer–a courage that eased the loneliness, the pain, the frustration, the anguish, the fears, the despair. For, as Ciszek relates, the solace of spiritual contemplation gave him an inner serenity upon which he was able to draw amidst the “arrogance of evil” that surrounded him. Ciszek learns to accept the inhuman work in the infamous Siberian salt mines as a labor pleasing to God. And through that experience, he was able to turn the adverse forces of circumstance into a source of positive value and a means of drawing closer to the compassionate and never-forsaking Divine Spirit.

He Leadeth Me is a book to inspire all Christians to greater faith and trust in God–even in their darkest hour. As the author asks, “What can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will?”
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