Never Neutral: A Teaching Life by Ted Schmidt, publisher Tony Curcio, Toronto, 2013, 343 pp. is available from  The Book Band  $21.95.

Never Neutral: A Teaching Life by Ted Schmidt, publisher Tony Curcio, Toronto, 2013, 343 pp. is available from  The Book Band  $21.95.

  Never Neutral is a must read for every teacher seeking to make a difference. Though written largely for Catholic educators, this passionate memoir challenges all teachers to be risk-taking advocates of the common good. The author’s lifetime of pursuing justice both in the classroom and on the street comes to life  in these pages.
    The book shows the resulting conflict when a Catholic teacher with a strong penchant for practicing the social gospel runs into strong opposition from his own school system and church. Ted Schmidt’s boyhood experience in a strongly Jewish neighbourhood compelled him to pioneer Holocaust Studies across Canada. Lessons learned there led him to actively teach peace in the classroom and on the street.
    He brought survivors of Auschwitz and Hiroshima to his classroom and invited senior students to march against nuclear testing and the US assault on Iraq. Quoting from his two rabbinic heroes Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel (whom he quotes 18 times), Schmidt organized Catholic teachers and students to resist the seduction of the consumer life.
    Schmidt makes no apology for criticizing the institutional Catholic Church for its failure to support El Salvador martyred Catholic bishop- Oscar Romero and liberation theology in general. Nor does he shy away from his prophetic teaching role as moral agitator to a Catholic Church  which he maintains had forgotten  the progressive thrust of the reformist Second Vatican Council.
    Broadly ecumenical in his outlook, his deep respect for progressive clergy like Anglican Bishop Ted Scott and United Church Moderator Lois Wilson shines through. The author rues the loss of dialogue in his own church and is not shy in criticizing it for its centralization of ecclesiastical power and its inability to hear the cry of women and of the earth.
    Schmidt’s personal dealings with individual students like the late famous comedian John Candy adds both humour and compelling reasons why teachers need to get to know their students beyond the curriculum. While the book is quite amply filled with Schmidt’s “outrageous sense of humour” (according to former student Anglican priest Joe Asselin) it is balanced by “his rapacious appetite for life and community.”
    Chapter after chapter incorporates Ted’s classroom stories with personal anecdotes about his lifetime heroes like Rabbi Abraham Heschel, Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton, Jesuit fathers Dick McSorley and Dan Berrigan, Dan’s brother Phil Berrigan, Elizabeth McCallister, Dorothy Day,  and legendary Toronto priest activist Tom McKillop – to name just a few.
    Schmidt’s many years in coaching and his rejection of SportsWorld is a chapter which provides today’s teacher/coaches with great wisdom. He is no fan of the wedding of Catholic education and athletics (“Cathletics”) where winning and reputation trump a school’s orientation towards justice and service. A graduate of St. Michael’s College, the author honours the legacy of Fr. Henry Carr and Fr David Bauer, both of whom put athletics in proper perspective.
    Born into a vibrant Catholic family in Toronto’s downtown core, Schmidt internalized his parents’ memories of war, and depression, felt deeply the currents of antisemitism and racism and turned all of these negatives into a vibrant life which deeply impacted students in both public and Catholic schools.
    As he says in his preface, “I never had a career, I had a life in teaching.” While not a lot is said about the plight of Canadian native education, there is abundant empathy for the inclusion of all students regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation.
    The book holds up a mirror to the failures of the past two pontificates and some of their appointees as bishops. Ironically, it is nevertheless a demonstrable manifestation of his deep love for the institutional church which inspired him. Unashamedly “a Vatican II Catholic” Schmidt has written a hope-filled tome which asks his Church to live up to Catholic social teaching. Here is a life-size modern biblical prophet who teaches his students with actions as well as words; never being neutral and standing up for what he taught.
    Maybe Toronto MP Andrew Cash sums up this book best. “The life and teaching of Ted Schmidt underscores the importance of what is increasingly becoming a forgotten notion: That above all else, teaching is a vocation. One good teacher can, in a young person’s life, be transformational. I was one of the many young students lucky enough to be on the receiving end of Schmidt’s teaching gift, his rigorous fidelity to social justice and his joyous, mischievous sense of humour.
   It’s all here in Never Neutral: A Teaching Life. Indeed, in a world defaced by war, greed and narcissism, Ted Schmidt does what all great teachers through history have done  he calls us to our better selves, reminds us of our collective duty to each other and challenges us to confront the human structures at the root of poverty, social inequality and economic injustice.”
    Chris Cato is a former teacher and former Chair of the Edmonton Catholic Archdiocesan Social Justice Committee.