Catholic Schools Week: Putting virtues into practice

By Phil Brown
Contributing Writer

LATROBE – Students at Christ the Divine Teacher Catholic School (CDT) are learning how to apply the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity in their everyday lives with the help of the church’s holy saints.

All CDT students participate in the Virtues in Practice curriculum designed to help them grow closer to Jesus by imitating his life and virtues.

Students study 27 virtues over three years. Studies focus on a year of faith, a year of hope and a year of charity. The program was developed by the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville, Tenn.

Students study a Virtue of the Month, learn a Bible verse related to that virtue in both English and Latin, and explore the life of a saint whose story is an example of the month’s virtue.

Third-grade teacher Sara Powell said the program has had a unifying effect on the school.

“Regardless of what we are studying in our individual religion curriculums, we are all focusing on the same virtue each month,” Powell said. “Our Virtue of the Month is read over morning announcements, posted in all of our classrooms as well as on our central bulletin board, and is often included in our Mass intentions.

“I try to incorporate the virtues into lessons across the curriculum, and I find that this schoolwide focus both reminds and enables me to do so seamlessly.”

The saint examples are tailored to meet the understanding of virtue in each age group.

“The students seem to enjoy learning about the lives of saints and often relate to their struggles,” Powell said. “By the time they come to me in the third grade, they already have a rather mature understanding of what a saint is. They know that sainthood is a goal for all of us and they understand how our canonized saints can aid us both as role models and as intercessors.”

Teresa Tallarico, CDT principal, said Virtues in Practice moves Christian values, pushed to the wayside by society, to the center of students’ lives and educations.

She said she loves to praise students when she witnesses them applying a virtue learned in the program.

“I love to hear the student explain the virtue,” she said.

Tallarico said students are in awe of the saints. Because they are exposed to the saints’ suffering, they gain an appreciation of the blessings they enjoy in their own lives.

“It opens their eyes to what people did for the faith,” Tallarico said.