The Jesuit Past of Gov. Brown

“Jerry Brown: Latin Scholar and One-Time Almost Priest.” This is the headline for an Atlantic article that summarizes the highlights from an interview that Brown, governor of California, gave to The Atlantic. Readers might not know about Brown’s Jesuit past. The article notes:

His religious schooling seemed to make Brown a big fan of “traditional” educational experiences. “Human contact is very important. I went to Jesuit schools: Santa Clara for a year, St. Ignatius for four years. And I went into the Jesuit order, not because of reading a book, but because of the experience, the relationship with all the different teachers I encountered. Something that I’d always heard about in Jesuit schools is the ratio studiorum, which is the methodology of Jesuit education,” he said.

At an event full of conversations about MOOCs [massive open online courses] and the technical skills gap in STEM fields, it was almost jarring to hear a reference to a humanities-heavy, Catholic educational philosophy forged in 1599–fitting, perhaps, only for a one-time Jesuit novice. But just as Brown eventually left the order and went to Berkeley to finish his degree, so has he shifted his views on what kinds of educational investments California will be making in the coming years.

See the full article here.