Alliance for Catholic Education
For most members of the newest cohort of ACE Teachers, this past Wednesday marked an end to a week's worth of waiting between receiving their acceptance letter and learning their school placement. Would they be going to Baton Rouge or Chicago? Should they brace themselves for a move to the South or a new life on the West Coast? Some are still discerning whether or not to accept their placement in ACE 22.
For a handful the newest ACE Teachers, however, Wednesday night marked an end of a much longer waiting period: fifty-two weeks to be exact. These Notre Dame students said "yes" to ACE with no prior knowledge of where that commitment might send them, in response to an invitation to participate in the ACE Internship program.
For the last several years, ACE has invited rising seniors from Notre Dame, Saint Mary's, and Holy Cross who were interested in serving the ACE mission during their final year of college and who were willing to commit to two years of teaching with ACE upon graduation. Current intern Katie Moran calls it "going all in;" as soon as she knew learned about the ACE Teaching Fellows, she wanted to throw herself into working with ACE as much as possible.
Moran said her certainty came from a few different sources: the testimony of ACE interns she met in her first few years at Notre Dame, her own gifts, and ACE's compelling Catholic character. She was also drawn, as were her fellow interns, to the intensive training and preparation ACE offers its teachers.
"I know I'll be a good teacher—eventually," she said. "And ACE is what's going to help me do that."
Her fellow intern, Anthony Barrett, echoed Moran's thoughts. He said he's awed by the fact that every year, ACE takes "ninety people with almost no teaching experience" and turns them into capable and joy-filled teachers across the country. He said it's one of the things that made him want to choose ACE in the first place.
The six interns selected last April have said "yes" to ACE again and again over the last eleven months as they have assisted ACE team members in mission-critical roles to recruit their future community members, reach out to potential applicants from other colleges, and network with other on-campus students looking to learn more about the ACE experience.
This semester, several have had opportunities to work on projects with ACE faculty. Moran speaks with enthusiasm about her work helping Dr. Matt Kloser with his research in STEM education, while fellow interns Barrett and Johnny Fuller said they are similarly excited by their projects to examine iPad use in the classroom and analyze data on the impact of the thriving Notre Dame ACE Academies.
As the year draws to a close, the interns said they look forward to embracing the next step in their involvement with the ACE movement as they are sent off to serve both the church and their students through the ministry of Catholic schools. More than where they are going, however, the interns are excited about meeting the people who will walk the journey alongside them and welcoming the rest of ACE 22 into an adventure they have been anticipating since last spring.
The deadline for applications for the 2015-2016 ACE Internship is on March 27th.