Catholic Schools Week 2014 - For Our Community

Each day during Catholic Schools Week, we will post a reflection on the focus of the day centered around this year’s theme: "Catholic Schools: Communities of Faith, Knowledge and Service". You can find a complete list of the reflections here. The following reflection is from Greg O'Donnell:

We shall always place education side by side with instruction; the mind will not be cultivated at the expense of the heart. While we prepare useful citizens for society, we shall likewise do our utmost to prepare citizens for heaven. – Blessed Basil Moreau

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Why Catholic schools?

For anyone who has ever had any connection with ACE, you very quickly learn about the “three pillars,” which constitute the foundation of the program: teaching, community, and spirituality.   This foundation, as evidenced by the quote from Fr. Moreau, finds its roots in the teachings of the Congregation of Holy Cross, and still serves as the foundation for my own work to this day.

Being the product of public schools, it was not until I began teaching in the ACE program that I started to question my own educational background.  As I thought about the lessons I was trying to instill in my students - I wondered how I had been taught these same values myself, and why did I hold them to be so valuable? 

At first my reaction was to be upset with my parents for never giving me the opportunity to attend a Catholic school as I grew up.  So much of my education had been spent trying to earn A’s and excel at school, yet through very little of it did I understand the importance behind what I was learning. 

Yet when I looked at my own students, while I still wanted them to excel, I more so wanted them to gain an understanding of what we were learning. I wanted them to comprehend that why they did things mattered as equally as to how they did things. It was not right to cheat on a test simply because the teacher said so, or because your parents would get upset with you, but because it was morally wrong.  In essence, what I hoped to teach them it was that idea of educating not only their minds, but also their hearts.

Only after completing my service through ACE did I realize that I had received this same education that I was yearning to provide for my students.  Despite never attending Catholic schools until I entered university, it was there that I gained my own personal connection to my faith, and found meaning to all of the facts and figures I had learned through my years of grade school.  It was this same education that gave me the strength to have faith in my decisions, and ultimately led me to find my vocation.  It was those values uniquely found in Catholic schools – that taught me to value not only knowledge, but also faith and service as well.

Greg O'Donnell is the Associate Director of the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2008 with a BA in Psychology and History before enrolling in ACE's ACE Teaching Fellows program and teaching in Pensacola, FL. He was also a member of the ChACE program in Santiago, Chile before joining the ACE team in 2013.