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Feb.
2004 |
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Catholic
schools raise
the bar for parents, too |
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It is hard to walk more than 10 feet in our sons’
school, St. Monica, without seeing a wall hanging, bulletin
board, statue or class project that has to do with some
aspect of God, faith or values. Some might see this as
a lack of subtlety, but I like it.
If St. Monica School chooses to barrage my children with
construction-paper Gospel quotes, glossy inspirational
posters, and crucifixes at every turn, I’m not going
to complain. When they’re not in school, McDonald’s
does the same thing with ads for super-sized fries.
I like that every time third-grade Jacob comes in for
recess, he sees this year’s theme — “God
has chosen you,” hanging in the hall near the drinking
fountain. I like that Liam needs to walk past a bulletin
board with a Psalm on it on his way to his kindergarten
classroom. Granted, he may only be able to read the high-frequency
words in that Psalm, but still, I like it. I’m glad
St. Monica herself and her three children stand guard
in a beautiful oil painting outside the office, and a
statue of the child Jesus watches over the children as
they go up and down the stairs.
St. Monica is not unique among Catholic schools in its
commitment to adorning hallways and classrooms with sacred
words and images. I’ve taught in two Catholic schools
and visited many, and while each school has its own style,
they hold in common an understanding that if faith is
to be part of children’s school day, expressions
of that faith must be all around them.
Ann Chrusciel, a sixth grade teacher at St. Monica, put
it this way: “The spiritual component of St. Monica
is like air inside of a balloon. It’s what’s
filling up the school.” While Ann was speaking specifically
of St. Monica, I believe the same can be said for any
Catholic elementary school, high school or university
that does its job well.
I see the “air in the balloon” analogy so
clearly when my sons have their friends over. As I drive
kids home after a play date, talk invariably turns to
school. Mixed in with conversations about who scored the
most touchdowns at recess are off-handed remarks that
I wouldn’t hear if they went to a public school.
Sentences that start, “Yesterday, after church,
we….” or “For Advent, our class is….”
Before Christmas, Jacob and his friend Joe used the ride
home to practice for their upcoming Christmas concert.
They were belting out “I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing
In” with an energy particular to 8-year-old boys.
As they bellowed “…the Virgin Mary and Christ
were there, on Christmas Day, on Christmas Day…”
I glanced in the rearview mirror and couldn’t help
but think that we already got our money’s worth
out of our tuition payment, and the year was only half
over.
I think Catholic schools do their job so well in terms
of faith formation that they raise the bar for us as parents.
If St. Monica School hands our sons Christianity neatly
wrapped up in religion assignments, prayer services and
paintings of saints, it’s up to us to unwrap that
Christianity at home. When Christianity is unwrapped,
though, it gets messy. And the closer you follow Jesus,
the messier it can get. (The areas Christ chooses to trod
— where people are hungry, naked, or in prison —
are rarely neat and tidy.)
My husband and I once heard a great homily that included
the refrain, “Come on in, the muck is fine.”
The priest was saying that being a follower of Jesus is
not like diving into crystal clear water, it’s more
like wading into muck. To be a follower of Jesus is to
get involved in messy situations you might rather avoid.
In muck, you can’t see the bottom, and you fear
you might get stuck. From the shore, muck can look scary,
but once you’re in — once you’re immersed
in it — you find it’s not so difficult after
all, and you invite others to join you. Come on in, the
muck is fine.
If St. Monica’s job is to teach my boys about their
faith, my charge is to help them live it. Our current
family muck happens to be foster care. The children’s
court system is murky and little is clear about our foster
daughter’s future. From the boys’ point of
view, Teenasia is equal parts fun little sister and a
whirling tornado who can destroy a Lego tower in one swoop.
And the messiest part is yet to come — the day when
Teenasia is returned to her birth family and we are left
in a quieter, neater house with all Lego towers standing.
And on that day, I will be so grateful to be sending our
boys to a school where the spiritual component is like
air in a balloon. I will be so grateful for the prayers
that will surround my sons.
This Catholic Schools Week, I give thanks for all Catholic
schools, and I pray for the parents who choose those schools
for their children. I pray that we may always view Catholic
education as just the beginning. That we will have the
courage to wade into the muck ourselves, so that we might
be able to call out to our children, “Come on in,
the muck is fine.”
(Scobey-Polacheck is a graduate of Holy Family Elementary
School and Dominican High School, both in Whitefish Bay,
and Marquette University, Milwaukee. Before becoming a
writer, she taught junior high at St. Margaret of Scotland
in Chicago and Blessed Trinity (formerly St. Nicholas)
in Milwaukee. E-mail her at <ascobey@hotmail.com>.) |
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