The directories
are in and will come home today with your youngest child! We
apologize for the delay in getting these out but we are still getting changes which, unfortunately, cannot be included
now! Look for your directory (one per
family) tonight.
Jeff Chadiha, an ESPN analyst and commentator, spoke to
the middle school last Wednesday. His comments addressed ethics in
sports journalism, his work in sports reporting and the importance of setting
goals. Thanks to Carrie Larson for
bringing him to share his wisdom and expertise.
Our first two
Parent Coffees will be held this week in the Garden Room of the church at 8:30.
Middle School on Tuesday, Oct. 2nd
Early Childhood (toddler –
kindergarten) on Thursday, Oct. 4th
We hope you’ll join
us to share your observations about your child’s experience so far this year,
ask questions, express concerns, give kudos, etc.
The Lower School Coffee will be on
Thursday, Oct. 11.
On
Tuesday, October 2nd at 7:00 pm in
the Multipurpose Room, St. Paul's Episcopal Church with Rainy Day Books is
presenting Ayad Akhtar, playwright, actor and author to discuss his
novel, American Dervish -- a compelling coming of age story set in the 1980s.
Akhtar's novel adds to a classic American storyline the complexities of
ethnic, cultural, and religious dimensions that are a growing part of the
American landscape. Father Stan will take part in this discussion of
diversity in America. This is a ticketed event. You can contact
Father Stan at srunnels@stpaulskcmo.org for tickets or Rainy
Day Books or get them at the door. A purchase of one book will get you two
tickets. Come meet the author on October
2nd and buy your book. 20% of the proceeds of the sale of books
from this event will go to the school library! "
Please mark your calendar for the St. Paul's Parent Book
Club! Parents’
Guild will be hosting the discussion of American Dervish. That meeting
will take place on Thursday,
November 15th at 8:30 am in the Garden Room of the Church.
The
Parents’ Guild is hosting a reception for Father Todd Bruce on Wednesday
morning after ECC chapel in the north wing multipurpose room. If you’d like to thank him for his ministry
to our children and faculty, please come join us.
Reminder: Next Monday, Oct. 8, there will be a noon
dismissal for ALL students
so teachers can work on professional development activities. If you need/want care for your child for that
afternoon, please contact Karen McDonald at kmcdonald@speds.org now to reserve a spot.
The
Buddy Run is less than two weeks away!
Please register your children! To
register click here: https://stpeds.ejoinme.org/?tabid=387225. All registered children are entered in a
raffle to be the Master of Ceremonies for the Day of the race. This Friday we will have a Pep Rally to get
the kids excited for the race. Students can begin getting sponsors for the
race. The child who has the most
sponsors will win a chance to be Head of School! The class with the most sponsors will win a
breakfast with Jimmy Neilsen of Sporting KC!! Sponsorship forms are available online here: http://www.speds.org/current-parents-and-students/parents_guild/buddy-run/. All
students will receive a Buddy Run t-shirt!
Last year our participation in the HyVee Smart Points
Program garnered us a whiteboard for the first grade classroom and an iPad
for Langston Browne! If you would like
to do so, you have a chance to participate again this year. For every $20 of Procter & Gamble products you purchase at Hy-Vee
from September 1, 2012 through November 30, 2012, you earn 100 SMART Points to
donate to the school of your choice. Find the promotional codes printed on your
receipt of purchase, and enter it by clicking on the "Donate" button.
From there, select the school for which you would like to make a donation. More than 200 schools with the most points
will win! Plus, this year the participants with the most points earned from
each winning school will win an iPad 2 for a child at the winning school. If
you would like to participate, the link to the program is:
http://hy-veesmartpoints.com/home/point_leaders.php.
The link to the P&G brand products
is:
http://www.pg.com/en_US/brands/all_brands.shtml. Thanks, once again, to Dominga Levin for
bringing this program to our attention.
The Rev. Daniel
R. Heischman, D.D., Executive Director of the National Association of Episcopal
Schools writes a message
each week for us to share. I have shared
these with the faculty and the message from last week was one we felt was
applicable to parents as well as educators so we offer it here for you.
Changing Our Minds and Hearts
There is a famous story told about
Mahatma Gandhi. Once he was accused by an angry opponent of having no
integrity, as what he said one week was contrary to what he had said the
previous week. Gandhi, unperturbed by this accusation, told his opponent that
he was correct about the discrepancy, but said it was due to the fact that, “I
have learned something since last week.”
A poignant example, to be sure, of
what we educators so believe: learning has the power to change people. We may
go from asking a question to finding an answer, or being one week certain of
the answer and finding ourselves the next week asking questions about that
answer. As the world opens up to us, through education, and we come face to
face with ideas we had never encountered or considered, we can experience the
deep blessing of transformation. I dare say that one of the reasons most of us
have committed ourselves to being in Episcopal schools is that we have
undergone such an experience of transformation through our own years of formal
education. We know what new worlds are to be found through that process, and we
yearn to provide the opportunity to help our students experience just that.
Increasingly I am concerned about
how that message of change, be it in our minds or hearts (or both!), is
verboten in our culture. Polls are telling us that the electorate in our
country has already made up its mind in a way never seen before; to be
“undecided” is to be in a tiny minority, and positions have hardened to such a
degree that change is seen as a weakness. Likewise, we seem more to use the
wonders of technology to reinforce our existing beliefs than expand or adjust
them, let alone respectfully hear what the other side may have to say.
Sociologist Tim Clydesdale tells us that college students are showing
increasing tendencies to put their convictions and values in a “lockbox” as
they head off to college, leaving them immune to change as opposed to allowing
time to reflect on who they are and what they believe.
Few things are more important in
our respective mission statements than our hope to produce young people who
have conviction, who are willing to take a stand, and who feel passionate about
how they view the world. But do we allow for the opportunity to change, to feel
differently about something as a result of an idea just encountered, a
perspective never before considered, as was the case with Gandhi? For a culture
increasingly polarized and fixed upon a rush to judgment about the opposing
view, a change of mind and heart may be increasingly unwelcome. To that culture
we have a message that needs to be loud and clear: Episcopal schools hold out
the potential that people can indeed change as a result of their education.
