Intelligent, Backward Design

It's probably safe to say that in fashioning creation, God had a clear picture of His end products prior to starting. I firmly believe that humans (and all of creation for that matter) did not occur by accident. Rather, we were made in God's image and likeness. We were fearfully made. We were wonderfully made. We were made for a specific purpose or end, and this end was clearly known prior to our creation.

Even if you factor in the theories of Evolution and Natural Selection, God still has a place and His Intelligent Design is easy to experience. Look at any aspect of creation and it's easy to see that Something smarter than a human is responsible. The intricacies of cells and atoms, the complexities of life cycles and our bodily systems-- all point toward God's Intelligent Design. And since it's intelligent, it's also fairly likely that the end was known before He ever began.

Few culinary feasts are created without an idea of the sights, smells and tastes that those who will dine at the table will experience.

Few embark on journeys by plane, car, foot or even boat, without first identifying a destination.

You don't start training for a marathon without an understanding of just how far 26.2 miles really is. Likewise, you don't participate in the race unless you've undergone some sort of training.

While I could go on with other examples to demonstrate earthly examples of having the end in mind before beginning, I'd rather not completely reveal my lack of impulsiveness. In addition, I'd like to get to the purpose for which I started this blog entry: how this relates to Catholic education.

As Catholic educators we must begin with our ends/purposes clearly in sight: to educate life-long Catholics in such a way that they not only contribute to but also positively change society. With these goals in plain view, we can approach our lessons, plans, assessments, extra-curriculars and all that we do so that they further this mission. Anything not advancing this mission should be scrutinized as to whether or not it should be included in the school's agenda. Similarly, simply knowing our objectives as Catholic educators makes it more likely that we'll actually accomplish them.

A similar method must be used regarding instruction-- teachers must begin with the end in mind. Known as "Understanding by Design" or "Backward Planning", this method asks for teachers to start their planning by identifying those concepts they hope students will learn by the time the lesson(s) is(are) over. This approach also moves past checking off a list of standards to imparting enduring understandings, concepts and ideas that are much broader in scope and much more important. Units don't typically end with a chapter test (although they can). Instead, teachers end with an assessment that tests whether or not students are able to use their new knowledge meaningfully.

While much too complex of a technique to adequately cover here, Understanding by Design is successful for the same reason that a recipe produces culinary delights, Mapquest directions and GPS systems get us to our destinations and marathon training plans enable us to complete a distance that toppled Pheidippides.

It may be backward, but in this case doing things backward is smart...even intelligent.

Run, Run As Fast As We Can

My nephew Frederick will turn two years old later this month. His favorite things, which also happen to be his favorite words, include cars, trucks, cheese, boats, trees, sail boats, and dump trucks. He also runs everywhere he goes. Literally. At first I thought it was just to get his favorite toys, or to come to dinner (especially if cheese was on the menu!). But, this sense of urgency was apparent when cleaning up his toys, going down for a nap or giving hugs goodnight. He runs everywhere.

When I wasn't getting a good chuckle out of how fast his little legs could propel him, I was thinking about how different my life would be if I were to do this (and in saying this, I mean to live with such a sense of urgency-- if I ran everywhere I'd not only set a bad example for all of the students at ICS but also it would be entirely weird). Frederick made me think about how much I'd love to live with such passion, enthusiasm and zeal at every moment during every day of my life.

And why should any of us lack the fervor of a 2 year old? Despite the daily grind, which often wears on our hopes and dreams, we have few other valid excuses. For, since everyone has a purpose, everyone also has a limited amount of time to accomplish it. God has given us work to do that is worth doing. He's also issued a deadline by which He needs it done.

My intent is definitely not to offer a message of doom and gloom. Instead, it's intended to be a realistic reminder that we have little time to waste when it comes to doing God's work. Each day, we receive the gift of 24 hours. What we do with those hours is our gift back to God.

St. Francis de Sales put it this way, "Every moment comes to us pregnant with a command from God, only to pass on and plunge into eternity there to remain forever what we have made it."

Of course, we need to recharge from time to time. We also need time to rest. Burnout can and does happen. To avoid it we must be smart in our work. Not everything can be accomplished in a day, week, year or even a lifetime. But, each day there is good work to be done. We need to do all we can to accomplish it.

As Catholic educators we truly have good work to do. It is work that is noble and even heavenly in that it deals with things not of this world. Our mission as Catholic educators is both to educate and evangelize. Even if our purpose was solely educating our students it would still deal with material that is heavenly: children. It is work worth doing. It is work that needs to be done. It is work that needs to be done today and every day. God is counting on us.

The alarm is ringing. The bell is chiming. It's time to get up, to get to school and to start working. If we had the sense of a two year old, we'd be running to get it done.

"There is only one thing to do here below: to love Jesus, to win souls for Him so that He may be loved. Let us seize with jealous care every last opportunity of self-sacrifice. Let us refuse Him nothing-- He does so want our love!"

-St. Therese of Lisieux

An Attitude of Gratitude

In light of my most recent blog, I share this short video clip, forwarded to me through All Pro Dad's Email Play of the Day.

Enjoy, and be thankful:
http://www.allprodad.com/page.php?id=270.

Thanksgiving Days

Last weekend, my wife Emily and I stumbled upon the Emmy's on television, and though we didn't watch much more than a few minutes of this awards ceremony, it was long enough to hear a handful of acceptance/thank you speeches. Some were heartfelt and spontaneous. Others were written down and rehearsed. And whether the thanker listed out every thankee or just covered everyone with a blanket "and-anyone-else-I-forgot-to-mention" thank you, award winners made a point to express gratitude to all of those who made their moment of success possible.

This year's Emmy Awards Ceremony also fell on the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall on New Orleans. Sadly, the effects of this devastating event can still be seen and experienced today. Not to dismiss the gravity of just how tragic this event was (and still is), but Hurricane Katrina and its effects brought out the best in our country, united a city and ultimately inspired us all. While I'm sure this weekend dredged up the pain of that event, remembering some of the stories surrounding it also invited feelings of gratitude, thankfulness and being truly blessed.

Two very different occasions. One common theme- thankfulness. Isn't it unfortunate that we seldom take time to express gratitude unless we are truly showered with abundance or extremely humbled by tragedy or loss. Much like a pre-game speech that fades by kick-off or an in-service that does little more than change one small aspect of our practice for an even smaller amount of time, our spirits of gratitude wane shortly after our lives return to normal.

Even holidays' (including our "Holy Days", too) effects are short-lived. Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter may produce the most long-lasting thankfulness. But, once the Christmas shopping bills arrive or we've eaten enough chocolate to more than make up for our Lenten abstinence our spirits of gratitude dwindle.

In order to have a consistent attitude of gratitude, we must make every day Thanksgiving Day. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola suggests that Christians engage in a daily Examen, the first part of which is a review of one's day, from start to finish, noticing moments of God's presence.

Another tactic is to write down (on an actual sheet of paper) the people, things, and ideas (i.e. freedom) for which you are thankful. From there, review its contents daily (or even multiple times each day). Add to the list (hopefully without subtracting anything) as you see fit. Do it for a month and your awareness of the many blessings in your life will increase.

A final way to grow in appreciation for all that we have is to use good manners. It's amazing that simply "minding our p's and q's" can lead to more satisfaction with our current state in life. Say please and thank you, good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night. Wave at people in cars who let you into traffic. Offer true and specific compliments to others, even strangers. Pray before eating. Pray before going to bed. Pray when you first get up in the morning. Hold doors. Pick up trash (even those that aren't yours). You'll come to find that the more polite you are, the more thankful you become. In turn, the more thankful you are the more for which you'll become thankful.

So, before your next moment of glory comes or before the next storm of your life hits, make a habit of spending time each day recognizing the many gifts bestowed upon you.

You might just thank me that you did.

A New Hope

There's a saying in sports that everyone is undefeated until the season starts. Teams are filled with optimism and enthusiasm about their upcoming years and just about every team has championship dreams until Opening Day, Night or Week 1. But, before a game is played, teams have hopes of grandeur; at that point, everyone's still undefeated.

This same holds true for the first day of school. Everyone has perfect attendance. Everyone has perfect behavior. No one has forgotten any homework. No one has left their math book at home. The first day of school is filled with hope. It is filled with expectation. It is filled with optimism. Pencils are freshly sharpened. Folders and notebooks are still crisp. Crayon boxes still have all colors. Teachers and students share a mutual respect. High expectations are also held in common-- teachers believe that all students will give their best efforts, and students believe the same of teachers.

Unlike the world of sports where only one team will emerge as the "champions", however, all students have the ability to achieve greatness. More than one student can win a "championship" when it comes to academic, behavioral and spiritual success. In fact, if the hope and optimism present on the first day of school can be maintained, all students can.

And therein lies the challenge: how do we sustain this momentum? How do we inspire students to continue to give their best effort despite some inevitable setbacks? With the many different challenges and obstacles present throughout the course of a year, how do we forge ahead and ensure that students are developmentally ready and prepared for the upcoming grade level? How do we do more than just teach to the middle and have only a percentage of our students experience success? How do we excel as individuals, as classes, as grade levels and as a Catholic School?

In order to achieve greatness, the Administration, Faculty, Students and Parents of Incarnation Catholic School must focus on the school's Mission Statement. We must continue to live up to and live out the goals set forth in these words:

Incarnation Catholic School continues our tradition of:

Inspiring life-long learners,
Challenging each individual to develop spiritually and
Striving to serve each other and the community

as we prepare students for the future.

We must be able to keep this larger vision clearly in sight regardless of what occurs during the daily grind. Daily recitation of our Mission Statement is a way that we can come to internalize its messages. Periodic review of our progress toward these objectives allows us to identify areas of strength, weakness and opportunities for growth. Community awareness of its words can help us to hold each other accountable to its high ideals.

We can maintain the momentum of the first day of school by focusing on our mission, our purpose, our reason for existing as a place of education. When we are mission-driven the small bumps and hiccups are just that-- small. They become surmountable. They become conquerable. They become stepping stones in our overall journey to accomplish our mission. Like the Emperor Hadrian said, Rome was not built in a day but "brick by brick, my citizens, brick by brick."

So, at the start of a new school year, let us relish in its excitement, anticipation and hope. Let us learn the words of our Mission Statement so that we have a firm understanding of where we are headed as an institution and why. Let us turn our efforts over to God, so that God can turn them into something good.

Every student can become a champion. Let us all do everything we can to make sure that at the end of this year, all of them are winners.

Discipline to Disciple

God's omnipotent, omnipresent, and all-loving nature is readily apparent in Psalm 139. God knows us intimately. He cares for us unceasingly. He is always with us, regardless of where we go. And most importantly, He loves us, despite our imperfections, despite our shortcomings, despite our sinfulness. He knows us, everything about us, and yet He still loves us more than any human being (who know considerably less about our "real" selves).

We are "fearfully and wonderfully" made (Psalm 139:14) because God made us. Therefore, we are inherently good; we are not, however, inherently perfect.

We make mistakes. Actually, we make lots of them. We make bad decisions. We choose unhealthy foods, behaviors and lifestyles. We hurt others. We're mean. We're lazy. We're rude. We lie. We cheat. We sin in all kinds of ways.

Yet, despite all of these shortcomings we are still fundamentally good, and God still loves us with the deepest, purest, most intense love possible. We're not perfect, but we are good.

This goes for our students as well-- they may not be perfect, but they are good.

As Catholic educators, this is a very important concept in our approach to our students' moral formation. First, we must always maintain, recognize, and honor our students' divine heritage. We respect them. We value their opinions. We care for their concerns. We treat them as children of God. We believe that we're not turning bad children into good ones, but rather good children into even better ones.

Second, we use discipline as a way to help our students become disciples of Christ. Instead of a focus on punishment, we shift to a focus on developing the self-discipline of our students. This must be paramount in our efforts to form our students morally. We must encourage them to be self-disciplined, give them opportunities to develop and use this self-discipline, and offer them guidance as they mature in their abilities to self-regulate their behaviors. Ultimately, we must challenge them to take up their crosses and follow Jesus. We must call them to be disciples of Jesus.

As disciples of Christ ourselves, we can help our students develop greater self-discipline by modelling that self-discipline. We must keep our tempers in check. We must be consistent in our interactions with students, parents, visitors and other teachers. We must be present to our students, actively supervising them (especially during the many unstructured moments throughout the day-- lunch, recess, passing in the hallways, etc.). We must exercise patience, addressing students' misbehavior and not the emotions conjured in either ourselves or the students. We must use gentle reminders. We must have clear and consistent expectations in our classroom management plans. We must connect, in a personal way, with each student in our classrooms and our school each and every day. In a sense, what we must be as concerned with how we teach morality as with what we're teaching about it.

We must teach with love. We must love our students unconditionally and love them enough to discipline them. In Paul's letter to the Hebrews, he writes, "My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges" (Hebrews 12:5 - 6). There are times when students have not exercised self-discipline and our supervision has not deterred an inappropriate behavior (and/or our attempts at redirecting the behavior have failed). It is during these times that we correct misbehavior through age appropriate consequences and remediation. We do this to discipline our students, not to punish them. We do this to help them develop greater self-discipline. We do this to help them become disciples of Christ. We do this to help them become the people God created them to be:

Good people capable of amazingly wonderful things, but incapable of perfection.

Good yet imperfect people completely, totally, unabashedly, and perfectly loved by God.

Full, Conscious, and Active Participation

My wife and I were driving to Jacksonville this past weekend to visit my brother, sister-in-law and their two children. On our way to I-75, we hit a pretty rough patch of storms and driving became a bit treacherous. Emily was behind the wheel at that point, and she turned the radio off, asked me to be quiet, gripped the steering wheel with both hands and leaned forward in her seat. For the next twenty minutes or so, she demonstrated full, conscious, and active participation in her driving. If in a similar situation, I hope that I, and many of you, would do the same.

As Catholics, we are called to a similar level of engagement every time we take part in the Celebration of the Eucharist. The Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, a body of the Second Vatican Council, advocated "full, conscious, and active participation" by the faithful "both inwardly and outwardly." This manifests itself in many and varied ways: we stand, we sit, we kneel, we process, we recite, we respond, we listen, we meditate, we sing, we offer sacrifices, we exchange signs of peace, we receive, we eat, we drink, we are transformed and sent to bring Jesus to others. And while our minds may wander and our focus shift, we are called to be truly present during the many different aspects of the Mass. God can do miraculous things with those who merely "show up", but He wants us to be on fire with love for Him. A simple example issues forth from this past Sunday's Gospel reading. Many of us could say the Lord's Prayer with little thought or concentration; our Lord wishes, however, for us to be fully aware of the words that we recite and to say them "with all of our hearts, with all of our beings, with all of our strength and with all our minds"-- instead of just with our lips (Luke 10:27). He wants us to be as engrossed in Him as we are with watching a Rays' game, listening to music, or driving through a rainstorm.

This idea of "full, conscious, and active participation" can also help us with our approach to Catholic Education.

As teachers, we are called to be truly present to our students. Classroom instruction must be more than lecturing and standing behind a podium and/or sitting behind a desk. Teachers must design dynamic lessons that activate prior knowledge, introduce new concepts, show relevancy to broader themes and ideas, and demonstrate that new knowledge was assimilated into the brain. Teachers must move around the classroom, subtly quieting a disruptive student, nonchalantly calling the distracted student back to task, and checking on student progress and work. Teachers must take supervisory duties seriously, circulating among students as opposed to conversing with colleagues. Teachers must differentiate instruction, being certain to appropriately challenge and engage students of all ability levels. A teacher's presence-- in the classroom, in the hallways, at recess, at lunch, and at dismissal-- is a teacher's present to his/her students.

Students can demonstrate full, conscious, and active participation in the classroom by coming prepared for school each and every day. From eating a hearty and healthy breakfast, to wearing the appropriate school uniform, to ensuring possession of all of the necessary supplies, a student must walk through the school's doors in a successful position to learn. Students must listen with both their ears and their eyes, giving the speaker their full and undivided attention. Students need to participate in class activities by answering questions, asking questions, working diligently on class assignments and helping others in need. Students need to focus on W.I.N.-ing every situation throughout their days. By focusing on "What's Important Now", students can recognize that appropriate behavior during lunch can be inappropriate during Mass. They can come to recognize that "there is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens" and in doing so understand how to fully, consciously and actively participate in all of the many events throughout a school day and year.

Finally, as parents, you can fully, actively, and consciously participate in the lives of your students in a multitude of ways. First, put the cell phone down during drop-off and pick-up. These are great times to not only be safe but also offer your child(ren) a goodbye, hello and/or I love you. Parents can ensure that students are prepared for the day, offering support and reminders but not enabling by rushing back to school with every forgotten lunch, project, and set of PE clothes. Oftentimes, enduring the consequence of being forgetful is a great way for students to rid themselves of this habit. Check grades on Sycamore. Assume that your child's teacher is correct and that your child is in need of formation (if they didn't need guidance, there would be no need for the educational system). Even the best, smartest, and holiest of kids make mistakes.

Parents can also become engaged in the life of the school: volunteer and fulfill your required service hours. Our operating budget depends on the good work of parent volunteers to sustain our school. Pay your tuition and other fees. Our faculty and staff depend on this financial commitment to make a living and implement our academic and extra-curricular programs. Participate in fundraising and development efforts giving your time, talents, and treasure. Tuition alone does not cover the cost of educating our children. Participate in community revealing activities: bring your students to Sunday Mass, come to Back to School Nights, join us for Mass on Wednesday mornings, reach out to new families, attend an ICS sporting event, and immerse yourself in the ICS family.

St. Irenaeus claimed, "The glory of God is the human person fully alive." I'm sure that he would agree that the glory of God is also the Catholic School who's members are fully, consciously, and actively involved.

I look forward to glorifying God with you, our teachers, and our students at Incarnation this upcoming school year and beyond.