“Someone is learning to be a person by watching you.” This is a quote that parents certainly are aware of on a daily basis. The faculty and staff at Everest are also aware of this. Everest students look up to their teachers and coaches. That is why, the faculty focused on modeling the four dimensions of Integral Formation for their students during the second semester.
During the last months of the school year, faculty created an apostolic formation challenge to discover and meet the needs of fellow faculty members, learning to be apostles to those around us in simple ways. The faculty split up into four teams, and each team picked one person from at least two of the other teams, whom they wanted to serve. They came up with the needs they were seeking to help meet, and then a plan to do that as a team.
Dave Sapienza, fifth-grade teacher, was one of the people chosen, and a fellow teacher from the team that had chosen Dave had students come up with shout-outs to write on guitar-shaped notes, which were then secretly place on his windows. As well, Dave received a special lunch delivered to him, and a fellow teacher took his class for a period to give him an extra break.
The best part of the story is this: Andrea Duhaime’s fourth-grade class saw her preparing the notes for Dave and asked her what she was doing. Andrea explained the shout-out notes to the girls, who then asked, “Who’s making notes for you?” When Andrea said that no one was, the girls decided to make her some themselves! Moral of the story: modeling integral formation works!
