When Dominican Sister of Hope Rosemarie Wdzieczkowski, OP began her first ministry of teaching first grade in New Jersey, she immediately knew that she loved teaching young students.
“Younger students are so eager to learn and to listen,” she says. “Hopefully it continues as they grow and appreciate the importance of what they’ve learned!”
Sister Rosemarie
“Younger students are so eager to learn and to listen,” she says. “Hopefully it continues as they grow and appreciate the importance of what they’ve learned!”
Sister Rosemarie has now been a teacher for fifty years, and she’s as passionate as ever about her ministry. She teaches kindergarten at Our Lady of Good Counsel School in Moorestown, New Jersey, where she has taught for the past twenty years. Our Lady of Good Counsel was one of many schools that celebrated National Catholic Schools Week last week. Highlights included a Knowledge Bowl, a school-wide liturgy, alumni awards, and a flash mob.
As Sister Rosemarie participated, she took the festivities as a reminder of mission.
“It’s important that we help develop children spiritually and academically in environment where this is done all day,” she says. “National Catholic Schools Week features activities so that the children can experience what we’re all about socially, academically, and spiritually. We celebrate all of this and all of our efforts.”
What is Sister’s classroom “all about,” exactly? The same thing it has been for the past fifty years: helping each student achieve and become the best student and person he/she can be.
“Knowing that I’m doing all that I can to form the minds and the hearts of my students brings me hope,” Sister Rosemarie says. “When you present an idea and it finally clicks for the child, you can see in their eyes and in their expression that they finally get it. That’s hope.”