Spiritan Magazine Spiritan Magazine Volume 31 Number 4 Calendar Article 1 11-2007 Spiritan Magazine Vol. 31 No. 4 Calendar Spiritan Magazine Vol. 31 No. 4 Calendar Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/spiritan-tc Recommended Citation Recommended Citation (2007). Spiritan Magazine Vol. 31 No. 4 Calendar. Spiritan Magazine, 31 (4). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/spiritan-tc/vol31/iss4/1 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the Spiritan Collection at Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Spiritan Magazine by an authorized editor of Duquesne Scholarship Collection.
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This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the Spiritan Collection at Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Spiritan Magazine by an authorized editor of Duquesne Scholarship Collection.
Volume 31, No. 4November 2007Spiritan is produced by
The Congregation of the Holy GhostTransCanada Province
Editors: Fr. Gerald FitzGeraldFr. Patrick Fitzpatrick
Design & Production: Tim Faller Design Inc.
CONTENTS2 From the Editor:
Catholic Education
3 Neil McNeil High School 1958-2008A Spiritan Endeavour
January — Thunder Bay CDSB. Courtesy OCSTA.
February — Neil McNeil High School.Photo by Tom Switzer.
March — St. Ignatius of Loyola High School,Mississauga, Ontario. Photo by Bill Wittman.
April — University of Fondwa, Haiti. Photo by Brian McElroy.
May — Duquesne University, Pittsburgh.Photo by Keith Hodan.
June — Neil McNeil High School. Photo by Tom Switzer.
July — Non-formal education, Ethiopia.Photo by Wilma Peters.
August — Neil McNeil High School. Photo by Tom Switzer.
September — Holy Ghost Prep,Philadelphia. Photo by Kevin Montco.
October — Sacred Heart School, Scar-borough, Ontario. Photo by Gino Ruffo.
November — Non-formal education,Ethiopia. Photo by Wilma Peters.
December — Neil McNeil High School.Photo by Tom Switzer.
Front cover: Neil McNeil High School. Photo by Victoria Zeltins
Back cover: Pokot student, Kenya. Photo by David Conway.
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Bringing CatholicEducation to LifeA glance along just one bookshelf in my room reveals the many-sided diamond
that is Catholic Education: Educating for Life, Formation for Evangelization,Strengthening the Heartbeat, Teaching with Fire, Reimagining the Catholic School,
Teaching and Religious Imagination, Catholic Education and Politics in Ontario.More than forty years immersion in the sometimes turbulent waters of Catholic
Education has taught me a thing or two. My students, my colleagues, the parents, someinsightful speakers and writers have educated me. I was far from fully prepared when Istood in front of my first French class at Neil McNeil in 1964. I needed the challenge of thereligion classes in the 1970s, the four summers at Boston College’s Institute for ReligiousEducation, the Catholic Teachers Centre and the Adult Faith Formation years at Torontoand Dufferin Peel Catholic School Boards and now my work as chaplain to the OntarioCatholic School Trustees Association.
As teachers we talk a lot. We need to listen and learn. I remember the student whotaught me most about teaching. He was leaving Neil for a Public School. We talked after theFriday class. He asked if he could say something before he left: “Do you mind if I say this?You always seem to look over our heads instead of into our eyes.” I went home and all thatweekend I asked myself, “Was he right?” If so, I was overlooking all that was going on inand behind those eyes — the joys and sorrows, the dreams and fears, the hopes andquestions. “It’s so important to invite them to ask their questions and to pick up on these,”said a teaching colleague in a recent conversation. Any life-giving curriculum is to be foundin both the textbook and the world of the student.
First Nations woman, Krystal Kewayosh, introduced me to her people’s basiccurriculum at a convention. “Teach the fours,” she advised us. The four seasons, the fourwinds, the four dimensions, the four elements, the four human components (mental,physical, emotional, spiritual), the four cardinal directions (creator, self, neighbour, earth),the four types of students (sponge, sieve, strainer, funnel).
She got me thinking: as Catholics we could add a few more fours — the four gospels, thefour Eucharistic actions (Jesus took, gave thanks, broke/poured, gave away), the fourdimensional Sign of the Cross, our birth-life-death-resurrection story.
I remember talking with a mother of two — a girl starting high school, a boy still ingrade school: “Light a fire in the kids about learning. Don’t just pass on what’s in thetextbook. How you choose to see the children makes all the difference. Affirm them in theirstruggles, their disappointments, in whatever makes them feel less. Encourage them in theirdesires and dreams and commitments.” Poet W.B. Yeats’ words came to mind: “Educationis not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
No one can sum up in one sentence what it means to be a Catholic teacher. But PopeJohn Paul II came as close as anyone else: “To teach means not only to impart what weknow, but also to reveal who we are by living what we believe.”
What we believe is modeled on Jesus the Teacher. He began to do and to teach —actions first, then words — words made flesh. We see how he dealt with people, how hefound in their daily life examples of God’s presence and what God’s kingdom was like, howhe challenged the rules and regulations people, what his priorities were, who his kind ofpeople were.
In our 2008 Calendar Catholic educators in the so-called missions come face to face witha people who realize the importance of the spiritual in human life. Their counterparts in theso-called developed world come face to face with a majority overwhelmed by the concernsof the marketplace and poorly informed about religious matters. To both groups ofeducators Jesus would say, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Find ways to bring it to life.”
Pat Fitzpatrick, CSSp
Spiritan / November 2007 3
Neil McNeil launched into life as the onlyCatholic boys’ school east of Yonge Street inToronto. A determined, youthful, energetic,
focused educational endeavour, more than 99% male,mainly Irish in its outlook, it gradually evolved into themore cosmopolitan way of life in east end Toronto andScarborough. Soon gone were the “strap” and the week-ly report books borrowed from the Spiritan schools inIreland, and taken home for parental perusal and signa-ture each week. A weekly assembly assured the learningof Neil Boys Are We — any graduate of the school thenand since can sing this school anthem by heart and oftendoes so whenever two or three classmates gather together(especially if a glass of beer lubricates their larynxes).
Over time at Neil the Irish influence diminished butnever disappeared. At one time there were up to 12 Spir-itans on staff, the result of annual reinforcements fromIreland. Too many talents in one location as it turnedout. Dispersal followed to Edmonton, a communitycollege, two Greater Toronto Area school boards and asfounding principals of three new Catholic high schools.Lay principals have now takenover leadership, many womenteach on staff, student enrollmenthas dipped but resurfaced to avery encouraging level, innovativeprogrammes ensure that all stu-dents are given an opportunity tosucceed, a younger staff relatesvery well to the current multi-hued, multi-faceted student body.Neil remains an all-boys school— one of several single-genderhigh schools in the TorontoCatholic District School Board.
Spiritans who went elsewhereand those who remained con-tinued to embody the spirit ofNeil McNeil: a high regard for
quality education, an ability to teach students and notonly subjects, an ease in relationships, a desire to pro-mote a worldwide view, a missionary outreach that has a special care for those on the margin of church or cul-ture, a sense of tradition combined with a willingness toread the signs of the times, a belief that Catholic Edu-cation must touch the heart as well as the head and thespirit as well as the body, a sense of gratitude for themany people they have met as colleagues and SchoolBoard personnel, as parents and trustees, as coaches andconsultants. If Spiritans have given much to CatholicEducation they have received more than much in re-turn. Theirs has been a ministry uniquely blessed in itscoming and its going.
The 2008 Spiritan calendar captures elements of lifetoday at Neil McNeil. It also pictures Spiritan educationin several other settings across the world. Neil does notstand alone. It belongs in a larger cluster of educationalendeavours enabling young people to aspire to thefullness of life, east of Yonge Street and in exile east ofEden. ■
Former Spiritan principals of Neil McNeil High School: (left to right) Gerald FitzGerald,Peter Fleming, John Geary and Michael Troy.
Neil was our meeting place, our place of congregation. We had the chance to find who we really were. — Robert Fiorino, Class of 2003 Elected Valedictorian