School Days,
Good Old
Golden Rule Days

With much excitement and fanfare, our Catholic schools were celebrating Catholic Schools week in early February!

I look back with fond memories on my own Catholic school education and wonder how my life would have turned out without that experience.

A Catholic school is the incubator for building character, ethics awareness and leadership skills. That’s in addition to the basic competencies needed to read, articulate, write, speak, calculate numbers, and think.

Gone are the 50+ students in a classroom with a stern but caring teacher in a nun’s habit. Gone are the days when the pastor hand-delivered the report card with a relevant comment, and you prayed it was good.

Sports were limited to the playground, art and music were after school options, everyone brought a brown bag for lunch, and each class had Mass once a week in the parish.

Today, Catholic schools have evolved and adapted to a changing world with smaller classroom sizes, individual attention, competitive sports programs, with art and music programs integrated into the daily classroom routine and a focus on STEM keeping students on the edge of technology - the language of generations today.

Most important of all, is the continuing commitment to teaching the golden rule – having respect, love, and compassion for all.