Faculty and Staff Retreat
January 4, 2010
On Monday, January 4, Marymount’s faculty and staff were treated to a day-long retreat at the School, focusing on this year’s RSHM goal, “To foster a personal relationship with God.” Guest speaker Edwina Gateley, an internationally acclaimed writer and lay missionary, gave a spirited account of her journey towards God—including three years in Africa, nine months alone in a trailer in the midwestern woods, and eighteen months on the streets of Chicago. Ms. Gateley has founded a lay mission in London and a center in Chicago that helps women to recover from the ravages of prostitution and drug addiction. She related her story with boundless energy and an inimitable speaking manner, and in doing so burst open the subject of how each person can develop a personal relationship with a divinity she called “God the Lover.”
The day allowed time for comments, questions, and the sharing of stories from Ms. Gateley’s audience, as well as a meditative exercise in which each member of the faculty and staff colored in a mandala—a concentric circular design with cross-cultural spiritual significance—and then described the feelings that went into their color choice and design. After a brief lunch, Ms. Gateley continued her presentation, encouraging the faculty and staff to think of God as an immense ocean of which each person possesses a few drops—miniature representations of the divine whole. At the end of the retreat, her audience came away with a new method of thinking about God’s relationship to humanity.
Opening Day All-Staff Workshop
September 2, 2009
To begin the implementation of the goal of the year, Reverend Chloe Breyer of the Interfaith Center of New York addressed the faculty and staff, encouraging everyone to develop a relationship with God. Rev. Breyer drew upon a number of theological and literary texts as she challenged the audience to reconsider traditional notions of sin, in particular the sin of neglecting one’s self. The role of faith, Rev. Breyer suggested, is to provide a space in which we can step back from the whirlwind of daily life and examine our own identities.
Rev. Breyer drew on her own work at the Interfaith Center to demonstrate that without a solid sense of one’s own identity, one cannot effectively work for social justice. Our power to change the lives of others depends on our power to shape ourselves, and the work for social justice must be accomplished by those who have found their own identities through contemplation and faith. This is an important message for Marymount’s faculty and staff and especially for our students, who possess the capacity for transformation, both of themselves and of their communities.
“Give Yourself To Challenge”
10th RSHM Network of Schools Conference
Colégio De Nossa Senhora Do Rosário, Porto, Portugal
June 27 – July 2, 2009
Representatives from 19 schools in the RSHM Network of Schools convened in Porto to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the network. One hundred and thirty delegates shared news from their schools, reported ways that each school implemented its yearly goal, and discussed how to keep the vision of Mother Butler alive. For the first time, the annual conference included a student summit attended by two students from each school. Students were able to connect with one another and share ideas about leadership; the highlight of their experience was an all-day service project at Projecto Raiz. Click here for a film highlighting the work of the students at the Conference.
RSHM General Council at Marymount New York
On Monday, Oct. 20, Marymount School of New York hosted a dinner for the Enlarged General Council, the international leadership of the 1000 RSHM. Twenty two sisters who lead the five provinces and two regions in fourteen countries in Europe, Africa, and the Americas will gather for the next ten days in Sag Harbor to plan for the future. Before they reported there, they assembled in Tarrytown and visited the United Nations where the sisters are active as an NGO. The group was delighted to visit Marymount New York, one of their network schools, and to share a meal with our Implementation Committee and other staff members who work closely with the community. The General Superior, Sr. Terezinha Cecchin, from Brazil, spoke briefly.
“Trancending Boundaries”
2008 International Network of Schools Conference
Marymount High School, Los Angeles, California, USA
June 28 – July 2, 2008
Curriculum Mapping
The most effective way to record and view a curriculum is by “mapping” it, with each teacher entering details about every course onto a chart. The entry includes the content covered, the skills taught, the assessment tools used to evaluate students, the projects planned and the resources used. A curriculum map shows the path a Marymount learner journeys from the beginning of Nursery to the day she joins her classmates in the line of march at commencement. But it has many other uses, as well. We use it to find areas of commonality where there are opportunities to integrate instruction. Art and Music teachers find out what students are studying in History or Social Studies and plan projects to make connections. Math and Language Arts teachers review maps vertically to make sure there are no gaps or needless repetitions.
We are fortunate at Marymount to have access to the maps of other RSHM network schools. This allows teachers from different schools to search the maps to find another class in another country that is studying the same topic. Science teachers have discovered ways to engage in common experiments involving, for example, water or the environment. The maps are a valuable tool that teachers at Marymount use to enrich our students’ learning experience.