In impoverished communities around the globe, Christmas morning isn’t nearly as festive as most Americans might expect. Most of us are blessed with a holiday filled with extravagant gifting and hours of feasting, but for families in developing countries, the daily hardships caused by extreme poverty are present, even on this day. Children wake up […]
Category: Mission & Catholic Identity
Five Ways Catholic Schools Are Uniquely Positioned to Support Youth Mental Health
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a crisis has deepened among U.S. teenagers, with negative mental health outcomes and thoughts of suicide increasing significantly over the past decade. The contributing factors of loneliness and isolation are counterintuitive to many of our first impressions of young people. If I were to ask you to picture […]
Box of Joy – How Your Classroom Can Transform a Child’s Life
The following blog was contributed by Cross Catholic Outreach. To add this service project to your school’s outreach program, please click here. How It Feels to Open a Box of Joy Sadly, Christmas morning often arrives very differently in developing nations. There, impoverished children in remote communities may rise early like their U.S. brothers and […]
10 Tips to Get Your Students Praying
The following blog was contributed by Emma Dodson from the Community Partnership Team at Hallow. You’ve spent time planning a great lesson, looked up resources, and you’re ready to start praying. Then…your students are distracted and have an energy that derails everything. We’ve all been there, and it’s frustrating, especially when the subject at hand […]
Fostering Care and Belonging
The following blog was contributed by Julie Emory-Johnson, national partnership director at Friendzy. Schools are places of great care. You don’t have to look hard to see examples of service, love, compassion, consideration and kindness–care. Children require it. That kindergartner’s shoe is not going to tie itself. As educators, we naturally pour into the students […]
Put Box of Joy on Your Calendar!
The following blog was contributed by Cross Catholic Outreach. In developing countries where so many suffer from malnutrition and thirst and live in unsafe shelters, the pleasures of a normal childhood must seem completely unobtainable to most boys and girls. Few have experienced the joys of receiving a Christmas gift either — and unless there […]
Faith Is Better When We Share It. NCEA Rise Can Help.
I have a daughter in 6th grade… I’m in trouble, I know. As a parent, I am concerned that my kid doesn’t drop off and over the cliff of religious disaffiliation like so many other youth in the U.S. Based on the seminal study “Going, Going, Gone: The Dynamics of Disaffiliation in Young Catholics,” the […]
Stepping Into the Public Square
The following blog was contributed by Bruce Hermie, National Director of School Partnerships at the American Federation for Children. How am I called to respond now? When we made the decision to introduce St. Ignatius Loyola’s Examen into our routine at the high school where I served as dean of students, it was designed to […]
Box of Joy® a Hands-On Lesson in Loving the Poor Like Christ
The following blog was contributed by Cross Catholic Outreach. One of the greatest gifts of a Catholic school education is that children get to learn from an early age the beauty of the Catholic Church’s social doctrine. In fact, instilling values and moral teachings has recently been identified as one of the keys to the […]
Committing to Cultural Responsiveness as a Catholic School Educator
The following blog was contributed by Betsy Okello, Ph.D, Assistant Professor, The Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program, University of Notre Dame. As Catholic school educators and leaders, committing to cultural responsiveness is not merely nice to do or an add on to our core curricula. It is essential to developing our students spiritually, academically, and […]
