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Making a "tangible difference on a regular basis."

4/16/2018

Molly Shea

When DSHA English faculty Andy Lelinski summarizes his "why" for teaching, this simple statement is it:
"Make a tangible difference on a regular basis."

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

After graduating from Marquette University, Lelinski began his teaching career at Reagan High School in Milwaukee. It was ten years in Milwaukee Public Schools in which he developed and honed a passion for students from all walks of life — their reality and the perspectives they brought to the classroom. “I learned to value everyone who came through my door,” he shares. “I knew that these students might not always feel this in every interaction they had in their lives. To value their worth was at the professional heart of what I did.”

This passion for helping students of varying experiences — through academic challenges and growth — has continued to be life-giving for Lelinski in his transition to an all-girls, faith-based environment – a change he made at the start of the 2016-2017 academic year. “Regardless of the institution, teaching is still about getting to know students," he says, "to challenge and help them grow as thinkers and individuals who will walk out of here and contribute to society in a very meaningful way.”

A COMMUNITY OF COMPASSION

A common scene in Lelinski’s classroom is a line of students — both before and after class — waiting to ask a question or discuss an assignment with the freedom to infuse their own perspective, faith, community or experience into the conversation.

“Andy is intentional about teaching with inclusion and community at the forefront. He is focused on helping girls from all walks of life be curious about corners of the world — and Milwaukee — they may know nothing about,” says Academic Dean and English Department Chair Heather Mansfield. “He treats his students like interested, engaged intellectuals who have a thirst to know more about people, communities and ways of life that are so very different from their own. Observing in his classroom, I have seen his students rise to this expectation and opportunity and truly blossom before my eyes — and theirs.”

THE ALL-GIRLS, CATHOLIC DIFFERENCE

Moving from a co-ed public school environment to DSHA has come with opportunity for Lelinski to teach through the lens of his own faith. He especially appreciates the avenue the Salvatorian mission lends to some of the more difficult subject matters in his curriculum, particularly in his Ethnicity in American Literature class. “We’re an institution that talks about the preferential option for the poor,” he shares. “When we deal with texts that present impoverished communities or individuals, we can’t just disregard them as less than human. Our mission helps me help the girls see the relevance of this in literature to our everyday lives.”

The environment that his all-girls classrooms provides is one that he welcomes and champions — particularly having grown up in a family with five sisters. “Certainly other schools present a rigorous curriculum, but no other school in the area directly offers this type of opportunity solely to girls, and privileges and encourages their development into the leaders of tomorrow like we do. It is engrained into the culture of DSHA.”

BEAUTY IN THE COMPLEX

When asked what he loves about his job, it is the complicated and the challenging. Lelinski’s joy in the classroom is derived from helping students move from a place of comfort to struggle, and then on to growth. “I love when students encounter something that is very different than what they are used to,“ he says. “We face a lot of complex issues in our world. The art of literature offers an opportunity to bring these issues into the classroom in a productive way. As students grapple with uncomfortable and challenging moments in text, they are challenged to attempt resolution with similar issues they face in both their own lives and our society as well.”

In Lelinski’s classroom, gain, growth, and success comes not only from, but in the struggle. He regularly sees DSHA girls who tend to want to get it right the first time, all the time. But it is in the struggle and the conflict that students — and teachers too (!) — encounter progress and resolution. And in the daily pursuit of what some might call difficult, Lelinski sees beauty as tangible, consistent and life-changing differences are made.

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