We heard that some of you are having difficulty accessing your child's 3rd quarter report card. Thanks to Mr. Falk for creating this quick tutorial. Click here.
Do you wonder about the video games your children are playing, like Fortnite? Do you know what your child is watching on Netflix? Do you just want more information about the technology your child is using? Look at Common Sense Media. It has reviews of video games, movies, TV shows and the latest technology.
As I was beginning to write Virtual Backpack this week, I received an email from Dr. Kathleen Cepelka, the Superintendent of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. I decided I would have you read her words this week which are very fitting for where we are.
During the current COVID-19 pandemic, it seems like, as a world community, we've almost exhausted not only our intellectual, emotional, and physical capacity to deal with this crisis, but also our verbal ability to describe it. Words like extraordinary . . . unprecedented . . . critical . . . uncharted . . . seem inadequate in the face of the very real infection and death statistics we see on our screens every day.
We enter this Holy Week having experienced a Lent like we've never known before. And we know that we'll be continuing to walk the journey of suffering with the Christ we see in our brothers and sisters around the world, in our neighborhoods, and in our school communities long after this week is over.
One of the Defining Characteristics of Catholic Schools, integral to the Catholic School Standards Project, from which the National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Schools emanate, is Steeped in a Catholic Worldview. This characteristic refers to the essential responsibility of Catholic schools to provide students with the knowledge, dispositions, and skills they need to view global issues, precisely like this current pandemic, from the perspective of the Gospel and Catholic Social Teachings. "All curriculum and instruction in our schools should foster the desire to seek wisdom and truth, the preference for social justice, the discipline to become self-learners, the capacity to recognize ethical and moral grounding for behavior, and the responsibility to transform and enrich the world with Gospel values."
Put simply, we form our students as disciples by teaching them to ask always and in all ways: "What would Jesus do?" and, "Why would He do it?"
Viewed from the perspective of discipleship which is the foundational Catholic worldview for our schools, the current crisis has the potential to be, in addition to the descriptors identified above, transformative in both its challenges and its impact. The Holy Week mysteries of fear, dread, agony, and death are being lived out before us every day, but Easter will arrive-both liturgically and whenever this long and isolating Lent comes to its gradual end-and we pray that we, along with our world, will be resurrected in spirit and permanently, positively changed.
Have a Blessed Triduum and Happy Easter! We will see you back on Monday, April 20!
