"Inside the Sin Bin"....there is an app for that!

This Sunday's edition of the Toronto Star had a very interesting article on how Catholics rush to confession to cleanse their souls.

The feature writer, Mary Ormsby, goes into great detail regarding the origins, history, sequence and purpose of confession.

Catholics are expected to make a confession at least once a year.  The practice has dropped off dramatically as many priests would concede.  However, Easter represents a time for renewal and brings with it many Catholics who have the need to participate in the sacrament of reconciliation.

I do get a sense of relief and re-birth after going to confession.  I am not sure if that is a result of meeting the standards of the Catholic Church, my Italian mother, or coming to terms with my own conscience.

What caught my eye in this article is that there is an app for helping one prepare for confessions!  For some reason I was not surprised.  I downloaded it for $1.99 onto my iPad. 

The app allows me to customize the examination of my conscience by adding sins, traking time of my last confession and choosing from seven different Acts of Contrition.

Here is the article if you are interested.

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/975909--confession-the-inside-view

Thanks for reading.  Looking forward to your comments.  As an aside, mid-term reports will be distributed this Thursday, April 21, 2011.

School Field Trips

One of the things that I am most proud of is our staff’s compassion and caring for our students. The evidence …. our very successful student success and mental health strategies….our credit accumulation and pass rates….and more importantly…the student testimonials and many unadvertised cases of how we have truly made a difference in our students’ lives.

Many of our students come to CtK for a home…for attention….for care….for compassion…for direction…for mentorship…and most importantly and based on why we do what we do…for a holistic education as Christ in the nucleus.

We need to keep in mind that every staff member in our building is part of a complex system that implicitly and explicitly prepares the students under our care for their journey beyond CtK.

Experiential learning through school sanctioned field trips are part of this educational process.

The purpose of this blog is to address a concern from staff that some of our students seem to think that they are not responsible for the work that they miss and consequently should not be assessed on this material as a result.

As parents/guardians, please make every effort to remind your children that they are responsible for the work that they miss as a result of a school field trip in another class. 

Be assured that our staff will work with students to make alternate arrangements to complete the missed assessment or work as a result of going on a sanctioned field trip.  It is our hope that your children will understand their partnership in this process.

Thanks for reading.  Looking forward to your thoughts and comments.

Goldfish

School Generated Funds, school buses, board policy, teachers, suspension appeals, curriculum, assessment and evaluation practices, gay/straight alliances, school closures on a snow day, the parking position of the school buses overnight in our parking lot ..........and now goldfish!

I received an email from a student this weekend that questioned if our school will be more responsible with the care of goldfish at this year's Summer Blast Carnival in June.

We gave out goldfish to children at last year's Carnival as prizes. Apparently, this concerned student thought that it was a cruel and inhumane way to treat goldfish. Specifically, she cited that "fish are living, sentient creatures....and that it has been scientifically proven that they can feel pain in the same ways as humans. I see absolutely no reason that our students would need to be given a living creature in order to have fun. The thought that students take them home, put them in a lake or a river, flush them down the toilet, of put them in a bowl until they die makes me sick."

I shared her thoughts with some of my staff whose children received goldfish last year. Surprisingly, the fish are still alive on all counts!

I appreciate the young lady's concerns as our family has a horrible record of keeping our goldfish alive for any decent period of time.

That said....I will bring up this worry to our team as I do the majority of questions that I get from students, parents and/or community stakeholders.

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to your thoughts....How are your goldfish doing???

Catholics Come Home

It is approximately 8:30 am Sunday Morning and my wife and I are enjoying coffee and breakfast in front of our TV.  I usually watch NHL on the Fly in an attempt to catch up on what transpired in the National Hockey League the night previous.  Of course, at 9 am we focus our attention on the Sunday Morning Show on CBS. I would miss this week's version as I had to take one of my daughters to her basketball tournament.

Back to 8:30 am.  Just as I was about to go upstairs to wake up my daughter, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a commercial that came on the TV.  It was from an organization called Catholics Come Home. 

It was a commercial promoting our faith! It was riveting and, quite frankly, made me proud to be Catholic.  In a world filled with chaos, hardship and pain......the commercial invites us back to the Church. 

In the face of the controversial issues regarding our clergy and the diminishing participants in church every Sunday, this organization is making a concerted effort to herald the inherent beauty and significant positive impact that the Catholic Church has had on the the evolution of our civilization.

I invite you to visit the site below to view the commercial (click on "Epic Commercial" when you get to the home page) and its contents.  Thanks for reading.  Looking forward to your comments.

http://www.catholicscomehome.org/index.php

"New Moon Rising"

On March 19, 2011 the Moon passed by Earth at a distance of 356,577 kilometers (221,567 miles) – the closest pass in 18 years. 

Our family pulled over on Lakeshore Blvd in Burlington on our way back from South Carolina to take a quick look at this magnificent site.

This beautiful act of nature is in direct opposition to the  unmitigated disaster that has taken place in Japan due to a natural disaster.

The environment is to be respected, nurtured and loved.  To that end, please join us at Christ the King to celebrate Earth Hour March 26th for our "Star Gazing" Event hosted by Halton Hills Hydro and the Town of Halton Hills.  Please view the website below for details.

http://www.haltonhills.ca/coe/eventdetail.php?id=1592

Thank you for reading.  Looking forward to your comments.

I am thankful!

Lent is the 40 day period of fasting and prayer from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday before Easter. The 40 days represents the time Jesus spent in the desert overcoming temptation by Satan. The period of Lent is preparation for the annual commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus, celebrated during Holy Week. Lent is a Teutonic word , meaning spring season.

Lent is also a time for reflection.  A time to be thankful for the goodness that the Lord has bestowed upon us.  Life is temporal and I think that we tend to take it for granted as we concern ourselves with needs and wants in one of the most economically and politically stable countries in the world.

There has been great tragedy and turmoil in other parts of the world.  You have the recent earthquake/tsunami disaster in Japan; the uprisings for democratic governments in Tunisia and Egypt; and the current revolutions against autocratic governments in Yemen and Bahrain.

While we are sympathetic, torn and compassionate for the losses of life and assets in these countries, we are still sheltered from the true grief that has befallen these people.

This past Friday, I articulated how thankful I am as a husband, father, friend and Principal of Christ the King C.S.S. 

As Lent prepares us for a new beginning, we will pray for those people who have suffered unspeakable calamities and it is my hope that this period of time brings forward a spirit of hope and rejuvenation for them.

Critical Thinking in the Classroom

Critical Thinking has been cited by many pundits in education as one of the key 21st Century Learning Skills that must be instilled in our students in preparation for what will unfold in the years to come.

The quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought.  Poor thinking costs our society financially and in our quality of life.

Are we doing enough to foster Critical Thinking in our students?

The Foundation for Critical Thinking (http://www.criticalthinking.org/) defines critical thinking as "the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it."

This organization states that a well cultivated thinker:

• raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely;
• comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;
• thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and
• communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.

Our Catholic Learning Community is blessed with many excellent teachers that have embraced critical thinking as a piece in their instructional and assessment practices.  We are definitely "out of the harbour" in this process in most of our departments. 

Specifically, our Department Heads were in-serviced in Critical Literacy and subsequently their staff members have discussed or will discuss plans for the consistent application of critical literacy in all of their subject areas as we move forward.  This is a SMART goal in our 2010-2011 School Improvement Plan. 

We have focused on "Critical Reading" questions which are cited not only on the Foundation's website but the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat's website (Capacity Building Series) as well.

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/capacityBuilding.html

1. What is the author's purpose.
2. What key questions or problems does the author raise?
3. What information, data, and evidence does the author present?
4. What key concepts does the author use to organize this information, this evidence?
5. What key conclusions is the author coming to?  Are those conclusions justified?
6. What are the author's primary assumptions?
7. What viewpoints is the author writing from?
8. What are the implications of the author's reasoning?

Thanks for reading.  Looking forward to your comments and thoughts.