Cross-Curricular Initiatives PPT Presentation

I put together a PPT today on cross-curricular initiatives for a STH faculty in-service. I'm not sure if I will even be presenting it yet, but it is definitely a subject that interests me greatly. I wrote my Master's Thesis on interdisciplinarity and its application in Catholic schools, so, yeah, I dig it. Let me know what you think! I realize that one or two of the slides got a bit blurred when I uploaded it to Google Docs. I apologize for that. You can access the PPT here or below.

Proud of STH!

Well, this is shaping up to be a banner year for St. Thomas across the board. Let me just give you a rundown so far. We won state titles in wrestling and basketball and came in runner-up in cross country. We had a football team with a winning record by the end of the season. Baseball is still undefeated besting Strake at their place. The rugby team knocked off Dallas Jesuit, the defending state champions. We won the TAPPS Academic District competition for the second year running. We set a new record for Round-Up with $379,603 raised for students on financial assistance. We qualified our first debate team for the TFA State Tournament in years AND our first team in school history for the NFL National Tournament in Dallas this June. Concert Band, Jazz Combo, and String Ensemble have all advanced to the state music competition. The Drama Department is preparing what will surely be a memorable performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth. We have nearly completed work on a new parking garage, and money is coming in to build a new athletic center and science classrooms and lab space. The crazy thing is there are probably a number of accolades that I have forgotten. There is a great vibe at STH these days. Magic seems to be in the air! Eagle Fight Never Dies!

Sewanee and Hogwarts

Donning a black robe for the annual graduation exercise at St. Thomas always makes me feel as if I have fallen down the rabbit hole, traveled through some cheesy sci-fi channel time space tunnel, and arrived at either Sewanee in the midst of a thick fog as I make my way to class or Hogwarts as adolescent wizards shuffle through gothic halls to their next class and next opportunity to test their magical mettle. There is something indescribably special about that midnight black raiment that conjures up a charming and unforgettable mystique.

Turnitin.com and Copyright Law

The faculty and administration at St. Thomas High School decided to purchase a subscription to Turnitin.com a couple of years ago to deter plagiarism. In most of their classes, students are now required to upload a copy of every major composition and essay to the site in order to ensure its originality by comparison with other works in the Turnitin.com database. Turnitin.com utilizes software that scans the Internet for matches between student essays and those found elsewhere on the web; furthermore, it also stores a copy of all student essays submitted to the site in its digital record for future cross reference with other student essays.

On the AP Program

Students across the country began taking their AP exams this morning. This got me thinking about the value of these exams. Earning a score of three or better on an AP test offers three general advantages. First, it is a highly sought after credential for college applications. The lower-tier schools are eager to gain students who have performed well on these tests to pad their marketing brochures and to increase the intellectual diversity and firepower of their student body.  Meanwhile, the elite schools admit only the finest students who have demonstrated excellence not only on standardized tests and extracurriculars but also in college-level courses such as the AP program. In short, it is a prerequisite for admission to the top-tier schools. No matter what the name recognition or status of a school may be, these institutions crave students who exhibit diligence and maturity in a class on par with many introductory level courses in a college. Success in the AP program, then, augurs well for students making them very attractive candidates for admission to the school of their choice.

VoiceThread: Substitute Teacher's Dream

 

I love the VoiceThread software. Basically, you can remotely deliver a lecture to students via a VoiceThread. It’s as easy as uploading some PowerPoint slides to the site and then recording oral notes through a microphone. Presto! You have an automated class, so that substitute teacher can sit back and rest on his or her laurels.

This is the best way to keep students on track if you have to miss a few days of work for sickness, family issues, or some other personal concern. I have included the VoiceThread for tomorrow's AP English class. I am lecturing on the last third of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

New Blog Schedule

I am going to experiment with a set routine for the blog. I’ll give it two weeks and then reevaluate. Here’s the proposed schedule: 

• Sunday- Meditation on Mass Readings 
• Monday- Family Updates 
• Tuesday- Teaching Reflection (Speech) 
• Wednesday- Teaching Reflection (English 1) 
• Thursday- Teaching Reflection (AP English 4) 
• Friday- Commentary on Catholic News Item of the Week  
• Saturday- Book, Film, or Television Review 
• Sunday- Meditation on Mass Readings

I know that I listed Sunday twice, but that is done deliberately to emphasize the alpha-omega nature of God’s role in my life. I really do understand Sunday as both the true beginning and the proper end to my week. I hope you do, too.

Men of St. Thomas: Be a Summa Catholic

St. Thomas Aquinas is best known for his Summa Theologica, a work in which he attempted to explain the totality of the Catholic faith in meticulous detail. Aquinas was not alone, however, in crafting a summa. It was a fascination and preoccupation of many of the best medieval minds. Dante Alighieri, for instance, imagined a pilgrimage through all three realms of the afterlife -- Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven -- in his literary summa, The Divine Comedy. And the architects of Chartres and Notre Dame erected a summa of stone with their encyclopedic telling of the Bible through relief sculpture and stained- glass windows. These men understood that their faith was a comprehensive world view that demanded a total commitment of their time and talent. They might be accurately called Summa Catholics. Every member of the Men of St. Thomas Fraternity at St. Thomas High School should strive to be a Summa Catholic.

Open Door Mission

It has become something of a tradition at St. Thomas for a speaker to deliver a rather sobering address to the upperclassmen on the eve of Spring Break, presumably to dispel any Bacchanalian plans from the boys’ minds. This year’s speaker, David, is a recovering drug addict and felon from the Open Door Mission. The organization’s web site describes the institution as “a faith-based recovery and rehabilitation shelter dedicated to transforming the lives of the addicted, destitute, homeless or disabled.” A teary-eyed David offered a cathartic recounting of his life’s many missed opportunities, terrible missteps, and frequent misfires.

Zombieland

Well, it’s crunch time. Grades are due this afternoon, so I’ll have to keep this post short. The mad dash to finish data entry will not allow for any lengthy rambling today. Bone weary from two days of grading, I punch the Num Lock key and start the humdrum process of plugging numbers onto a glowing screen. The monotonous click-clacking of the keys sends me into a mindless stupor. I honestly feel as if a zombie from one of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead films is taking over my body. My fingers aren’t covered in human blood—yet—but they are certainly stained a crimson hue from hours of grading essays. If I have to read one more horrid piece of prose, I may acquire a taste for human flesh after all. Bwahahaha! Ok, enough histrionics, I better get back to work and make my way through the haze that is slowly creeping into my consciousness clouding my thoughts like a dense Sewanee fog.

Wichita and Cristo Rey

Catholic educational institutions are here to stay for the middle and upper-class families who have considerable financial resources and fewer kids, thus enabling them to afford the sky-high tuition. Moreover, as long as public schools underperform and promote an ideological agenda, there will continue to be a market for parents looking for more educational options for their children. This leaves the question of what to do about the rest of the Catholic community that either does not earn enough money or opts to have a larger family and so cannot afford Catholic school. School vouchers would be a great boon to Catholic education, but don’t hold your breath waiting for them. The public school teachers' unions are too formidable a special interest group to let such a development occur; besides, the government always attaches strings to any handout, and these would inevitably come into conflict with Catholic teachings. Even without vouchers, however, there are still two business models that might offer a lifeline to Catholic schools in this country: Wichita’s Stewardship Model and the Cristo Rey Network.

Thank God for Round-Up!

Things are reaching a feverish pitch at St. Thomas as the school goes all out for Round-Up, the annual bid to raise money for student financial assistance. Last year, the school sold $325,000+ worth of raffle tickets. I will be thoroughly impressed if the students best this figure given the stagnant economy, but every time I count the boys out, they somehow manage to pull off the miracle. Round-Up is the beating heart, nay the very soul of this school community, for without this money, a St. Thomas education might not be possible for a full third of our student body. Catholic school doesn’t come cheap. Tuition continues to rise year after year. Personally, I am very conflicted about this phenomenon.

Grading: Bane and Balm

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity… Dickens’s immortal words reverberate within my mind each and every time I sit down before a towering stack of essays. For me, grading is like walking a tightrope over an abyss. I feel as if I am constantly teetering on the precipice of madness or the verge of genius. Sometimes, like Icarus, I experience a meteoric fall to a grisly death, while other times I cross the void and stand as a titan among men. Grading is a very cathartic experience precisely because my mood oscillates between the despair of antique tragedy and the ineffability of Shakespearean comedy. There are times when I want to blot out my eyes and weakly moan to the gods, “No more, no more, will I look upon this world of misery.” There are also times, however, when I honestly hear the celestial choirs of seraphim break forth in sweet hosannas and thank God for the grace of teaching.

Va Va Voom!

I love the va va voom of technology. Go grease lightning! Ok, yeah, so it’s Friday, can you tell? Anyway, it really does make one exuberant to see the goodies coming our way at a breathtaking, breakneck pace. How can any English teacher not marvel, let alone salivate, at the prospect of so many shiny e-reader gadgets? Between the Kindle, Reader, Nook, and the highly anticipated iPad, the educational establishment better get ready for a serious paradigm shift away from traditional hardcover textbooks to epubs, or electronic publications.