Faith—tested and deepened: First-year teachers in Notre Dame program leave their mark on students

First-year teacher Mary Wickert shows her joy when one of her students at St. Philip Neri School in Indianapolis gives the right answer in science class. (Photo by John Shaughnessy)

By John Shaughnessy

The touching note appeared unexpectedly, giving first-year teacher Mary Wickert far more than a moment of surprise and delight.

For Wickert, the student’s note came when she desperately needed a boost to believe that all her caring and all her efforts to make a difference in her students’ lives mattered.

Wickert’s memorable moment of reinforcement arrived after some of her eighth-grade students at St. Philip Neri School in Indianapolis completed an assignment.

“When they finish an assignment early, I let them use the time to draw or write something on the back of their paper,” Wickert says. “I had a student write, ‘Teachers are like mothers. They come to school every day, and they care for all of their children. You are now part of [our] family. You’ll be watching us grow, and even though we’ll soon leave, we’ll remember you.’ ”

Wickert’s voice cracks with emotion as she quotes those words. That note is etched in her mind from her first year of teaching—a time of challenge, growth, doubt and exhilaration for many educators. Yet Wickert is also part of an educational experience that is occurring for the first time in the archdiocese during this school year.

‘I really feel a lot of love for them’

Wickert, Francis Butler and Katie Moran are 2015 college graduates who are part of the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE), a graduate degree, teacher-formation program designed “to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to serve our nation’s children, especially those from low-income and immigrant communities.”

While ACE started in 1993 with the mission “to sustain, strengthen and transform Catholic schools,” this year is the first time the program has sent new teachers to the archdiocese—at the invitation of Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin. The program also serves 29 other archdioceses and dioceses this year.

While Wickert teaches at St. Philip Neri, Butler and Moran teach at St. Anthony School in Indianapolis. Both schools serve predominantly Hispanic-American students.

All three first-year teachers were drawn by the faith and service components of a program that provides a $12,000 yearly stipend, affordable housing and a master of education degree following the completion of the two-year commitment.

“It’s overwhelming in many different senses—both good and bad,” says Moran, a Notre Dame graduate who teaches math, science and religion to seventh- and eighth-grade students at St. Anthony.

“It’s overwhelming in having so much to learn. But it’s also overwhelming in a really beautiful way—being able to enter into the lives of my students. I really feel a lot of love for them. Accompanying them through a lot of tough journeys has been extremely hard but rewarding.”

All three teachers mention the “tough journeys” their students face. Many of their Hispanic-American students are immigrants or children of immigrants. They face poverty. Some work after school. Others care for younger siblings while their parents work two and even three jobs to support their families.

It’s a world often far removed from the childhoods of intact families, available parents and comfortable lifestyles that Wickert, Butler and Moran experienced.

“It’s probably the most challenging thing I’ve ever done,” says Butler, a graduate of Siena College in Albany, N.Y., who teaches social studies and religion to seventh- and eighth-grade students.

“In many ways, you have to be a father, a brother, a mentor, a disciplinarian and a teacher all at the same time. You really feel the call to be Christ the teacher to your students. I pray every day that I can be Christ the teacher for them because I can’t do all those roles adequately by myself.”

Those prayers are sometimes answered in unexpected ways.

‘You need to show them you care’

“I had an encounter with a student where she was disrespectful to me,” Butler recalls. “I was floored by it, and I gave her a consequence.

“At the end of the day, she gave me a note. I put it in my file of paperwork. When I found it later, I opened it up, and it was a letter of apology to me. I thanked her. It made me see the situation in a whole new light. I saw the courage it took for her to admit she didn’t do something right.”

Wickert often sees the courage of her students, too—and their need for another caring adult in their world.

“A lot of these kids have tough lives,” says Wickert, a Notre Dame graduate who teaches math and science to her sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students. “They have a lot of responsibilities at home that I never had growing up. They’ve shared personal, touching things with me.

“You need to show them you care because they are children of God. They can sometimes drive you nuts in the classroom, but if you show them that you care about them as a person more than what their grade is in math or science, they feel much better about themselves and being in school.”

She pauses before adding, “I love them. I really do.”

Faith—tested and deepened

While Wickert, Butler and Moran have poured their hearts into teaching their students, they have also learned valuable lessons about teaching—and themselves.

“One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that I need to redefine ‘success,’ to where it’s more a factor of growth,” Moran says. “A lot of students come in behind academically and behaviorally, too. Success is about improvement. It’s so important to see their successes and celebrate them.”

Wickert has learned an even greater appreciation for the Catholic school teachers who shaped and touched her life from kindergarten through college.

“You never see behind the scenes, all the preparation teachers do,” she says. “It makes me have a lot of respect for all my teachers, and especially the ones who stay in it as a career. It’s a lot of tough work, and it often goes unnoticed.”

What hasn’t gone unnoticed for the three young teachers is how their Catholic faith has been influenced and changed by the experience of teaching in a Catholic school that serves low-income, immigrant communities.

“Throughout my life, faith has always been an uphill battle,” Butler says. “It’s something I’ve tried to really work hard on, but it’s never come easily. From this experience, I can tell my relationship with God has deepened. There are a lot of times I look at the crucifix in my room and say, ‘I know you carried the cross, please help me with this one.’ ”

Moran has felt her faith tested and deepened, too.

“I’ve never experienced such a real need for God before,” she says.

“I’ve felt his presence with me through this experience, both through a sense of his presence and through people who have been answers to prayers. Once, I was thanking God for his sense of presence, but I was also praying for a more tangible example of his comfort. Two days later, an acquaintance [from Notre Dame] reached out to me and said, ‘I want to bring you coffee and breakfast.’ Since then, we have become really good friends.”

For Wickert, it’s all part of her spiritual growth, a journey that connects her past and her present.

“I’ve been given so much from Catholic schools. ACE is a great way to give back. To me, there is no better way to give back than to serve others in need. A lot of these kids have gone through a lot of difficult situations. You have to trust in your faith that God has put you in the right place.” †