Photo by Manuel Mata-Flores ’19| Mr. Quentin Orem and Mr. Will Rutt teach their Honors Ignatian Encounter class during fourth period
Graham Armknecht ’18
THE ROUNDUP
This year, the religion department created the new Honors Ignatian Encounter class to offer students a way to complete an honors religion credit their Junior year and to complete their service hours for Ignatian Encounter.
Mr. Quentin Orem, one of the co-teachers for the class, described the class as a drawing together of the important parts of a Junior’s religious life on campus.
“Honors Ignatian encounter is a class for Juniors that attempts to pull together three important moments in the life of a BCP Junior: Living the Paschal Mystery, Ethics and Morality, and their Ignatian Encounter Experience,” Mr. Orem said.
Mr. Will Rutt ’08, the other co-teacher for the class, described how the class naturally progresses.
“There is a natural progression that moves from the idea of who Jesus is and how he lived, and then approaching that type of work, and how Jesus calls us to live,” Mr. Rutt said.
While the intention of the class is the same as both of the Junior year religion classes, the way that the class operates is different from Ethics or Living the Paschal Mystery.
One day, the class opened up with Bell Work, a question to answer in the first five minutes of class. This bell question asked students to “write about a time when someone helped you to understand a situation better. When without their guidance, the true meaning of the situation or experience would have been lost on you.”
After a few minutes to write and collect their thoughts, the class shared their thoughts on the journaling topic, before jumping into discussion.
Everyone in the class shared their thoughts with each other. This brings up one other aspect of Honors Ignatian Encounter: the retreat.
“Ever since the retreat, we’ve had a much more specific view of what the class would be all about,” said Charles Gbekia ’19. “It’s one of the best retreats that I’ve been on up at Manresa.”
Gbekia expressed that the retreat and class promote openness.
“One thing we touched on during the retreat was being open and vulnerable and having someone understand you. We talked about not holding back and how that builds relationships with us.”
