Sunday, June 15, 2014

Reflection #64 (Only 1012 to go): Closing the Book on Another Year

           As the 2013-14 school year came to an end, I trundled on down to 1076  for the end of the year Mass.  I’ve been retired for 10 years now, but the warm and joyful feelings of that event still wash over me.  If you haven’t visited St. Ignatius lately, the music during Mass by both orchestra and chorus is worth the trip.   
            One difference, since my years in the early ‘60’s, is the special awards given to students of each class in recognition of their achievements.  Each of the awards is named after a person of significance to the school.  The Freshman-of-the-Year award is named after Fr. Florian Zimecki, S.J., a long-time Latin teacher. The Sophomore-of-the-Year is named for Ronald Jemiola, a student who was tragically killed while crossing Roosevelt Road on the last day of finals in 1962.  The Junior-of-the-Year award is named for Carmen Pintozzi, an alumnus and beloved history teacher and coach.
This year:     the Zimecki Award was earned by Mary Lynn Dekold.
                   the Jemiola Award went to Michael Levesque
                   and the Pintozzi Award went to Michael Adegoke.

         Congratulations to these students and all of those students who were nominated by the faculty.  There were many awards given to seniors at graduation…too many to list here…recognizing their outstanding achievements in the various academic disciplines, but two are unique because they are determined by the vote of the seniors.  They are the Ignatian-of-the-Year and the Educator-of-the-Year.  The 2014 Ignatian-of-the-Year was Jana Michaela Bruska.

         The Raymond T. Grant, SJ. Educator-of-the-Year Award went to Maureen Lonergan, a 2004 graduate of Ignatius and a science teacher.  I don’t think that I have ever met Maureen, but I emailed her to ask what was her secret to success.

I was going to finish this “Reminiscence” by quoting Maureen and describing what I have learned in my search to find what makes some teachers stand above the rest, but that will have to wait until next time.  I will tell you that Maureen credits several others for having given her the template to follow, but, since I tried copying the style of others early in my career, I know that’s there is more to it than that.