Stories

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Plush Mary laying down with books in Schroeder's classroom.

Waiting Together: Advent in the Classroom

I have always loved Advent, but the season took on an even deeper meaning once I started sharing it with my 5th-grade students. Experiencing the hope and wonder of Christ’s...

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ACE Teachers singing joyfully during Lessons and Carols at December Retreat 2025

I Can't Wait

“We wait because there’s a promise. There’s a presupposition of something more worth waiting for.” “But I want it now!” is a sentence heard throughout the country this time of...

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A Safe Haven: Big Shoulders Fund

Big Shoulders' original goal was to raise $1 million so that underprivileged Chicago children could attend Catholic schools. Today, twenty-six years after the program was founded, Big Shoulders has raised...

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9 Lives

I was thinking about it last week, and I figured that I have lived four separate lives/realities in 2013. From January to April, I was an ambitious undergraduate psychological researcher...

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The St. Anthony's Miracle

At the end of the 90s, Milwaukee Catholic schools were struggling. Attendance was down, and schools were on the verge of closing. One of the schools, St. Anthony's on the...

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A Process in Learning to Let Go

Contrary to what I expected, becoming a teacher has been a process of learning how to lose control. Maybe it would be better to say that it has been a...

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The Mother of Catholic Education

The 20 Catholic School Stories You Should Know series will tell inspiring stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things for the cause of Catholic education. Kicking it off - St...

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A Day in My Shoes

One of the things I like the most about teaching is that no two days are alike. Different experiences will always present themselves and I will never know what they...