All saints great and small

Sunday marks the Church's Feast of All Saints, but when this holy day falls on a weekend, the St. Robert School community will always celebrate at school as well.  This is not to replace our obligation to attend Mass on the weekend, but because it is a long-held tradition for our second graders to teach us what they've studied and learned about the holy men and women who are the heroes and role models for our community of Saints-in-training.

But, wait a minute, aren't we all saints?  This morning, we learned the meaning behind our creedal belief in "the communion of saints,"  beginning with the reminder that, indeed, everyone who believes in God is a member of His kingdom, and all members of the Kingdom are called saints - with a lower case s.  We also learned the remarkable mystery of the communion itself, namely, that every time we celebrate the sacrifice of the Holy Mass, our prayer is united with every saint in heaven and on earth. Finally, we learned that the holy men and women known to the entire Church - those Saints with a capital S - are not the only saints in heaven.  Those known and loved only by their own families and friends are no lesser citizens of heaven. Rather, the Church has given us the canonization process to verify heavenly citizenship. The lives and works of these saints have been subjected to a rigorous investigative process, including the documentation of miracles attributed to them after their deaths.  So, we can look to the canonized saints not only as inspirational models, but can pray with confidence to to them as intercessors who we know to be close to God.

The most remarkable thing about the capital S Saints, though, is that they were ordinary sinners like us. They achieved their greatness by knowing, loving, and serving God above all else - in ways from the simple to the heroic.  It is precisely their ordinariness that inspires us to the right-ordering of our faith and to know for certain that we, too, can achieve sainthood, whether great or small; recognized or not.

This would be a great weekend to teach your children about the origins of our Halloween traditions and to help them identify a patron saint as a personal friend and intercessor.  The comfort and blessings that will follow will be nothing short of miraculous.

Happy Feast Day!

So Proud!

In the fast pace of our daily work, we don't often take time to reflect on what we've accomplished. This week was different, though.  In preparation for our new format for the State of the School meeting, the faculty and board paused to identify recent accomplishments, and then to capture brief, bite-sized snapshots of each of them in order to give our stakeholders a more comprehensive view of the structures, processes, and resources that come together to create your children's educational experience.

Those of us who created those snapshots gained a gratifying perspective on our work. It was a particularly proud moment for me to listen to a diverse group of teachers and board members collaborating on presentations in the areas of personalized learning, technology integration, curriculum innovations, measuring success, and leadership and service. And, judging by the energy and enthusiasm of the follow-up conversations, I think it was also exciting for our audience of parents to to hear about some of the contemporary best practices in play at our little school and to have the opportunity to participate in the conversation through an online back-channel chat.

We acknowledged the operational challenges ahead of us, but I am hopeful that a well-informed base of parent ambassadors armed with relevant details about the St. Robert School brand will enable us to work together to not only make a great school, but to promote it - because a strong enrollment base is our best assurance of a sustainable future.

To those who joined us last night, thanks for your time.  To those who couldn't be with us, watch for a link to presentation notes, handouts and FAQs sometime next week.   We look forward to continuing the conversation!

Reaping the harvest

Having raised my children in Catholic education, this particular October weekend has always been associated with teacher in-service.  As a family, we often planned a small get-away or special activities to take advantage of the extra days off.  Though the experience of these days is very different from the perspective of faculty, this point in the calendar still conjures up warm and happy memories of walks in the woods, visits to the pumpkin farm, and glorious immersion in the vibrant colors, scents, and sounds of the harvest season.

And so it is that I think of you and your families in a a bit of a wistful way on this uniquely beautiful fall weekend.  I hope you will find some time to slow down and savor these fleeting moments of seasonal bounty - and of childhood itself.  Enjoy the sunshine.  Enjoy the harvest.  Enjoy making memories with your children.

The Pause

In preparation for impending motherhood, my daughter, who is a sophisticated consumer of text, has been reading deeply on the subject across a diverse body of print information.  One not particularly intellectual book that has nonetheless provided fodder for stimulating conversations is the New York Times Bestseller Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting.  I'm only halfway through it, but I can say with assurance that whether you read it as a cultural anthropology or as a parenting guide, it will make for interesting conversation and reflection.

The author, Pamela Druckerman, is an American journalist who finds herself raising a family in France.  In very short order, she notices a dramatic difference between American children and the native French on almost every measure of behavior and temperament.  She calls on her journalism skills to undertake an expansive investigation.  Her observation and research reveals fundamental parenting differences so pervasively embedded into French culture that French parents are not even aware that their national manner of interaction with their children is what makes their children so characteristically different from Americans.

Some notable differences the author explores are that French children are apparently largely content and patient.  Babies sleep through the night by four months. Toddlers patiently eat four course meals at fancy restaurants while their parents sip coffee or wine.  The children are almost uniformly inquisitive, creative, resilient, and wise ("sage").  The author discovers through interviews with French professionals and peers and by studying the key authors who have influenced their parenting culture (think the French equivalent of Dr. Spock), that the French are quite consistent about what they value and so, quite intentional about what - and how - they teach their children.  They are also remarkably calm and consistent with their children.  They provide a frame of firm immovable boundaries, a cadre, within which children experience a great deal of freedom to explore and make decisions.  And they help children understand why they are doing these things.  This makes sense to me because as educators we know that children will be more successful in reaching the learning target if they know what it is - and what success looks like.

Aside from French eating habits, which I will have to save for another column, the most fascinating idea I've read so far is the use of a small response delay that Druckerman dubs "The Pause."   French parents watch their children intently to understand their needs, waiting a few seconds before responding to a baby's cry or a child's request. They remind their children to wait, rather than to be good or quiet. And they tell their children why they must wait because they believe that babies are rational beings who can learn things, and that their children will be much happier if they learn patience and frustration tolerance.

By modeling, slowing down our response times, and giving kids opportunities to practice delayed gratification, perhaps the French have discovered a formula for giving their children a life skill that will lead to success and contentment in many future endeavors. Pausing.  A simple idea with potentially life-changing results.  'Might be worth a try.