The movie character Ferris Beuller famously said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” That line came to mind last week when we held our opening Assembly for the first day of the new school year. Looking around at the students eager (for the most part) for their classes to begin and at the teachers also eager (for the most part) to get underway, I wondered if God had played some trick and skipped summer altogether. It really seemed like final exams and graduation just happened yesterday.
Don’t get me wrong, summer at CRSM is action packed! The fresh-faced freshmen at assembly were already old hands navigating the corridors of CRSM, having undertaken 8 weeks of academic bridge classes and work-study training. 12 Juniors and Seniors joined us for 8 weeks, too, as they earned their Illinois Certified Nurse Assistant credentials through Dominican University. Even more students took a dual-credit Statistics class with a professor from Lake Forest College. A group of Sophomores were in the gym and fitness room earning their Phys Ed credits so that they could free up a class period this fall to take AP World History.
Besides that, CRSM hosted a BreatheEasy soccer camp for 2nd – 8th graders with Heart of the City and the Christopher D. Redding Youth Asthma Foundation, a STEM Girls camp with the Illinois Biotechnology Innovation Organization (iBIO), and the mission preparation sessions for area veterans joining a Lake County Honor Flight to Washington, DC. Oh, and we also conducted basketball, soccer, and volleyball camps for our own students.
Despite all the activity, summer really just seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye! Time flies. I often tell people outside of the education arena that working in a high school is a pretty humbling experience. You could spend decades of your career at a single school, pouring your heart and soul into the work, but when you leave, after one year only 75% of the students might remember you, only half after two years and, after four years, there’s not a single student in the school who knows who the heck you were.
The ephemeral nature of high school is also what makes it so incredibly exciting to be part of… especially at Cristo Rey St. Martin. Sure, you are forgotten quickly, but the present is so charged with fulfilling experiences, it’s worth it. As I looked around the packed cafeteria during assembly, I could feel the electricity throughout the room. Each new school year is brimming with new possibilities, totally awash in hope!
Second only to the first 18 months of life, the adolescent years produce the most significant physiological brain development in a human being’s entire life. Between the ages 14 and 20, the brain undergoes massive structural and functional remodeling – prioritizing efficiency, emotional processing, and complex decision-making. Ask any parent, all that change makes for quite a wild ride. But the rewards are worth it. Bearing witness to the growth in a young person as a student, a worker, a member of society, and a spiritual being over their four years at CRSM is a grace. It truly is a gift to be able to walk beside them during this period in their lives and see them discover more and more about themselves and their abilities. Over the years, many seniors have expressed in their exit survey that the adults at CRSM, “saw more in me than I saw in myself.”
Seeing is believing. Helping students see their own potential and start to realize the impact they can make on their world is what we are all about! That’s why we are here. It is a new year at CRSM and I can guarantee you this year will be both humbling and hopeful. Life moves pretty fast, so don’t miss it.
¡Viva Cristo Rey!