Browse › 2009 › August

August 2009

August 25

River of Awareness is about love

August 25, 2009

River of Awareness , by Stephen Sims (Novalis, 312 pages, $21.95). When Stephen Sims was 22, he found he was thoroughly dissatisfied with his life. It wasn’t that he didn’t have any opportunities where he was living. He had a deep inner conflict which couldn’t be resolved by sitting at home. So, the Montreal-born teacher not only left his home and job, but his country as well, travelling to Australia. This move was the first step in a long journey that led him across Australia and Asia and to a new level of self discovery.

Toronto Catholic board supervision team resigns

August 25, 2009

TORONTO - After a challenging and controversial tenure, the provincially appointed supervision team for the Toronto Catholic District School Board has resigned. In an Aug. 21 letter to Ontario Education Minister Kathleen Wynne, the team led by Norbert Hartmann said it had accomplished part of its mandate in restoring the financial health and public confidence in the board. Last year, the board was in the middle of a trustee spending scandal and came under provincial supervision after it failed to balance its budget. Richard Alway, president of the University of Toronto's Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies and chairman of the C.D. Howe Memorial Foundation, will replace the supervision team.

St. Bonaventure's music program part of a well-rounded education

August 25, 2009

It’s been 10 years in the making. But for St. Bonaventure’s College music teacher Vincenza Etchegary, the sweet sounds of success for the school’s choir, wind ensemble and jazz band have paid off with a chance to play at a music festival at the famed Carnegie Hall. “The difference between our students and some other groups was the conviction with which the children play and sing,” the 20-year teaching veteran told The Catholic Register from St. John’s, Nfld.

Schools need to open up to community

August 25, 2009

TORONTO - When 11-year-old Madison Wood first started kindergarten at Toronto’s Our Lady of Wisdom Elementary School, her mother enrolled her at the school for a specific reason: an after-hours enrichment program featuring dance, drama and arts. Pam Wray, 40, said Madison gained confidence after meeting students from different ages and participating in Irish dance, judo and the homework club.

Perfection is satisfaction for Bishop Allen Academy scholar

August 25, 2009

TORONTO - It was a perfect year for Jana Cmorejova. The 17-year-old Bishop Allen Academy High School student scored the best marks in the Toronto Catholic District School Board, earning a perfect 100 per cent in all six of her Grade 12 subjects, Cmorejova credits hard work and a passion for education as the keys to her success. “I want to make a difference somehow in life, to make the best of what I can do and be the best I can be,” she said. “I believe that’s going to happen to me through education and university.”

High school lessons prepare baseball prospect for future

August 25, 2009

TORONTO - It was a school camping trip in Algonquin Park that helped baseball prospect Jerome Werniuk define his future goals and the leadership role he would like to take on in his life. The 17-year-old Texas Rangers draft pick says leadership camps like the one he took with students from Toronto’s Neil McNeil High School have helped shape his outlook on faith, baseball and education. Werniuk was the 604th player chosen in this year’s Major League Baseball draft.

Edmonton students open up to refugees

August 25, 2009

Eleven-year-old Mikylie Shapka joined classmates at Edmonton’s St. Martin Catholic School in presenting close to $3,000 worth of gift cards to three refugee families just before the school year ended in June. Shapka says it’s a way for students to help others in need. “We learned that it is hard to live in other places where girls are not allowed to go to school,” she told The Catholic Register.

Parent leader brings passion for education to new role

August 25, 2009

TORONTO - As Aimee Gerdevich’s daughter and her senior kindergarten classmates shivered in the winter months in their newly renovated classroom, the 39-year-old mother of three developed a passion for educational advocacy. Becoming more involved in school council meetings led her to “have a finger on the pulse of what’s happening in my child’s education,” she told The Catholic Register from Thunder Bay, Ont.

Schools need to take advantage of technology

August 25, 2009

TORONTO - When Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School student Erika Shervan has a basketball or volleyball game, she doesn’t have to worry about catching up on her math homework. Shervan can take her Grade 11 math class at home or anywhere with an Internet connection. This flexibility and the ability to learn at your own pace are the main selling points of taking the online course, said the 17-year-old. Schools need to wake up to the digital reality of students’ lives and learning habits, says a new report by the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association .

New OECTA president, James Ryan, gets his priorities straight

August 25, 2009

TORONTO - Limiting “data-driven education” and ensuring full-day kindergarten in Ontario are some of the key priorities for the new president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association. James Ryan told The Catholic Register that these issues are on his priority list for his two-year term. On the issue of testing, Ryan said North American schools, especially in the United States, have been swept by a “plague of accountability.” This is a trend, he said, which the association will oppose in Canada.

Ban of classic novel at Mississauga school is principal's perogative

August 25, 2009

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - The Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board says it’s much ado about nothing in the case of a Brampton principal who removed an American literary classic from his school’s Grade 10 reading list. St. Edmund Campion High School principal Kevin McGuire will add a Canadian novel instead of the Pulitzer-prize winning and controversial book To Kill A Mockingbird, says board spokesperson Bruce Campbell.

August 26

Make the Lord your choice

August 26, 2009

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) Aug. 23 (Joshua 24:1-2, 15-17, 18; Psalm 34; Ephesians 4:32-5:2, 21-32; John 6:53, 60-69) At some point everyone makes a fundamental decision that colours the quality and value of their entire life. They decide whom or what they will serve. We might protest that we are independent and serve no one, but in fact we are all caught in a web of social, personal and economic relationships that demand various degrees of commitment.

Walking in God's way makes us partners with Him

August 26, 2009

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) Aug. 30 (Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8; Psalm 15; James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27) Law and rule books are usually not our favourite reading and it is hard to think of them as something exciting or life-giving. And yet Deuteronomy is often quoted or alluded to in the New Testament and is even on the lips of Jesus as He resists the temptations of the devil in the wilderness. It is the core of the “great commandment” of love found in Mark 12. Fashioned in the seventh century B.C. during a time of reform and renewal, the book sought to bring the people into a sense of a partnership or relationship with God.

Richard Alway to supervise Toronto Catholic board

August 26, 2009

TORONTO - It's going to be a tough new assignment, but the Toronto Catholic District School Board's new supervisor says he's up to the challenge. Richard Alway assumes his new role Aug. 27, taking over from the provincially appointed supervision team of Norbert Hartmann and Norm Forma. The team resigned on Aug. 21. The Ontario government has been running the embattled board since last year when trustees became mired in a spending scandal and failed to balance the board's budget.

August 30

Woodbridge parish shows its colours in tornado aftermath

August 30, 2009

WOODBRODGE, Ont. - Tornados ripped through houses, tore chunks of roof off St. Peter's Catholic Elementary School, heaved the school's air conditioning unit into a ravine, tossed a Chevy up against an electrical transformer in front of the school, spread roofing nails and glass over streets like confetti — but the crazy storm of Aug. 20 hasn't harmed the spirit of St. Peter's parish in Woodbridge. It's not that St. Peter's isn't hard at work cleaning up the mess. Thirty-six of the most severely damaged homes plus the school are within parish boundaries. Twenty-six of those wrecked houses are the homes of registered St. Peter's parishioners.