The ACE Blog

Cookies equal community.

The recipe may be simple, but as Fr. Joe Carey, C.S.C. sees it, fellowship in ACE doesn’t need to be complicated. Every Monday, Fr. Joe, ACE chaplain and priest-in-residence at Ryan Hall, opens his kitchen to the ACE community. Around dinner time, a small group of baking enthusiasts crafts dozens of cookies, and then the larger community gathers later that night after Mass to enjoy the treats.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned that we are expanding blended learning to two additional Notre Dame ACE Academies in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis this year: Central Catholic School and St. Philip Neri Catholic School. And this should be no big deal since we’ll just repeat what we did at Holy Angels this year, right?

Sometimes, as teachers, we spend too much time talking. Sometimes, we worry so much about transmitting our knowledge to our students, that we forget about the art of listening. We forget that it is not our voices that matter most in our classrooms, but those of our students. We seek so desperately to be heard, when in reality, it is our job to hear, to make our students feel known and acknowledged.

When Emma Fleming was discerning her next steps as a senior at the University of Notre Dame, she listened for God’s direction. She found her answer in song—a Notre Dame Folk Choir song, to be exact.

Four people stand in ready position on South Quad. Their knees are slightly bent, their eyes trained on the yellow ball as it bounces neatly off the circular net in the grass. It’s twilight on Notre Dame’s campus—fireflies have already started to congregate on the lawn—but for these four players, the rest of the world has melted away. For 20 minutes, they are not graduate students or instructors or administrators. All that matters is the net, the ball, and the next move. All that matters is Spikeball.

Remember those feelings of nervous excitement I mentioned in our Mid-Year Check-In for Holy Angels? They returned–and stronger than ever–in May.

I stepped out of Dillon Chapel, carefully cradling the paper lantern I held in my arms. I felt the the heavy, humid South Bend summer air descend, and my eyes adjusted to the darkness that had settled on South Quad during Mass. In the warm, electric glow of Praise and Worship, I had forgotten just how late it was–11:30 p.m., to be exact. It was the last night of the summer that the small group, spearheaded by songbirds David Chang and Rocielle Perez, had stayed after daily Mass to sing and pray. For our final meeting, we were writing our prayer requests on luminaries and, together, floating them into the sky at McGlinn Field.

Almost every day, I explain blended learning and how it can be implemented to different teachers, leaders, and administrators. For some, it is extremely difficult to understand this innovative way of teaching and learning, and it takes a high level of support from me and others to make sure they fully understand the concept and integrate it into their classrooms. For others, blended learning is a total “no-brainer” that immediately makes sense and quickly becomes second nature to them. Rachel Edelman is, without a doubt, part of the latter group.

One of the most exciting parts of joining ACE is the opportunity to live in community and to grow alongside fellow teachers and friends. I assumed, though, that I would have to wait until summer for these moments of community to emerge. However, the April retreat provided exactly the type of community I hoped I would encounter in ACE—several months sooner than expected.

One of my seventh-grade boys penned a unique Easter reflection after I asked my class to think about what they would ask or say to Jesus. We had just prayed the Stations of the Cross during Holy Week.

“With eyes of faith consider the greatness of your mission and the wonderful amount of good which you can accomplish.”
- Bl. Basil Moreau, Christian Education

If you had told me after my first year of ACE that I would return to my ACE placement city of Corpus Christi after I had completed my teaching, I wouldn’t have believed you.

If you spend any time in a classroom, you know that new education software seems to be emerging almost every day. The EdSurge Product Index – a comprehensive index of almost all education-related software programs – includes over 500 K–12 curriculum products and more than 1,500 other software programs designed to meet the needs of teachers, schools, and higher-ed institutions. I am thrilled by the number of programs that have been created in recent years. New products drive competition in the marketplace, and this competition ultimately leads the whole industry closer to achieving its common goal: to meet the needs of all students and teachers.

As the school years comes to a close, I’ve noticed the dramatic increase in frequency of videos and memes on the internet about the plight and fatigue of teachers: “Summer vacation is our reward for surviving May” – “It’s May, teach yourself” – “Stay strong, it’s almost over!” As a teacher, I regrettably remember reading these and feeling justified in the mutual understanding we all had across the building, including among students, that we are all just ready for this to be over.

I receive quite a few questions about scheduling, particularly how we make time for 90-minute “blended” blocks and what a typical school day looks like. I hope this snapshot of a day in the life of two of our second-graders at Holy Angels provides some insight!