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Dear Parents,

As we continue to celebrate the greatest Feast of our Faith, let us do so with JOY, HOPE and CHARITY!

This is a perfect week to celebrate the anticipated feast of the foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart, Madeleine Sophie Barat. Mother Barat had a deeply personal connection with Jesus Christ whom she loved and from whom she experienced being loved, thus filling her heart and life with great joy. Because she related to others from this heart-filled place, others experienced her as a woman of deep charity. And, it is certainly true that the foundational strength of this relationship was the source of Sophie’s “courage and confidence,” allowing her to live her life with great hope.

These characteristics are exactly what we want for our students! We hope to instill them by doing two things:

1. Inviting students to open their hearts to God’s Great Love for them and to be in relationship with the Risen Christ. Tomorrow’s meal of love (Eucharist) is one (of many) invitations to heart-openness so that each one can experience for themselves God’s deep and abiding love.
2. Inviting students to open their eyes and SEE Christ all around them in those they encounter. Tomorrow’s opportunity to be helpful and giving of their time and energy and effort for the sake of the recipients of the Mission Day monies, is an opportunity to see the Risen Christ in those in need in our world NOW and respond accordingly.

The connection between these three celebrations (Easter, St. Madeleine Sophie’s Feast and Mission Day) is a perfect partnership as we continue to celebrate, educate to and live lives of JOY, HOPE and CHARITY.

In Union in the Heart of Christ,

Sister Glavin

The study of mathematics is, and always has been, a vital part of education. Today’s increased focus on STEM (Science, Technoogy, Engineering and Math) learning emphasizes its importance.

As I write this Thursday Mail letter, all four of our Middle School Math teachers are attending the annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) — the world’s largest professional organization dedicated to improving mathematics education for all students. NCTM has been on the leading edge of math education for years, and are proponents of the kind of math education that we try to implement. We aspire to their promotion of:

• Conceptual understanding
• Mathematical reasoning
• Skill fluency

In line with NCTM’s philosophy, the math curriculum we use in Lower School emphasizes conceptual understanding and mathematical reasoning. Understanding the IDEAS of numbers and what they represent, understanding the relationship between numbers, seeing patterns in numbers, being able to manipulate numbers and understand the mathematical CONCEPTS to THINK through a problem (as opposed to memorization of routines or plowing through step-by-step procedures without the understanding of WHY) are some our math education goals.

To illustrate these philosophical goals, here are three examples of conceptual math learning:

1. For our youngest learners, we want them to understand that the 1 in 12 MEANS 10. We promote this understanding by providing many opportunities putting together groups of 10s and relating those groupings to numerals as they develop their conceptual understanding of what each numeral represents.

2. For our intermediate level learners, we want them to understand that ½ of ½ is ¼ by being able to visualize the relationship. We promote this understanding by providing opportunities to play with fractional tiles of various colors and sizes, thus allowing the students to SEE and KNOW what it means before they follow the multiplication of fraction “rules.”

3. For our oldest learners, we want them to understand that the solution set of y = 2x + 1, when graphed, IS a line. We want them to KNOW that VISUALLY and understand the relationship between the set of numbers which makes this math sentence true and the PICTURE of that solution set on the Cartesian Coordinate system!

If we provide our students with a solid conceptual understanding in mathematics, we will not only be developing good thinking skills, but we will be poising them well for their future!

United in that aspect of our mission which inspires us to launch our students into high school and into life as good thinkers,
Maureen Glavin, rscj

One of the hallmarks of a Sacred Heart education has always been that our students transition into high school with strong writing skills. What is the magic behind that?

To begin with, the Academy has a whole-school emphasis on a development of the love of words, story and reading. This is a goal because we know that voracious readers become excellent writers!

Building on that, the Academy has a vertical curricular emphasis on sentence structure and rich vocabulary development. We still diagram sentences and we love to insert new “Wordly Wise” words into classroom conversations.

Finally, the Academy believes that good writers develop when children write! From our youngest learners who are encouraged to write using “creative spelling” (i.e., let nothing get in the way of the flow of ideas) to our older learners who write drafts and drafts of drafts to hone words into thoughts and thoughts into compositions, we ask student to write. The key here is that writers become writers by writing! Just as importantly, development and growth in writing occurs with ongoing feedback and revision as part-and-parcel of the writing process.

One reason writing is so critical to our curriculum is that through the development of good writing, we are engaging in helping our students to develop good thinking. The beauty of writing is that it not only provides an outlet for depth, clarity and creativity but writing is a TOOL for deepening, clarifying and creating. In other words, writing is not JUST a product, but it is a tool—a tool for growth in the skill of thinking! And, as you know, more than anything else, one of our aspirational goals is to develop THINKERS!

With this as a backdrop, our Seventh Class students have not only been reading, thinking about and analyzing great poems—including works by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Edgar Alan Poe, William Earnest Henley, Gwendolyn Brooks, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Blake and Alfred Lord Tennyson—but they have engaged in some amazing creative poetry writing of their own. In fact, under the tutelage of Seventh Class Language Arts teacher Mary Claire Russell, two students are receiving recognition for their work:

Michael Drabelle was entered into the 7th Grade Poetry Competition through the 7th Grade Poetry Foundation. He is the first seventh grader to have his poem chosen to be published within the 7th Grade Poetry Curriculum. Michael wrote an American Sonnet titled “Beauty of the Night” that will be read by administrators, educators, and students nationwide next year. The Sonnet section of the curriculum opens with Michael’s poem on the first page and with a Shakespearean sonnet on the second page.

Harry Coons was entered into the Grannie Annie Story competition. His story was one of 35 chosen to be published in a book of short stories from a large pool of global applicants. His story is called “Slavery Escape” and the action centers around the true story of his grandmother who was, at one point, a slave. Currently, he is making the final corrections and clarifications to his story prior to its publication.

Congratulations to Michael and Harry, who represent our school very well! CLICK HERE to read their poems as well as others by our Seventh Class students.

United in our mission, an aspect of which is to educate to a respect for intellectual values,

Sister Glavin