| BACK
Taking time to Lend a Shoulder By Michelle Martin When Sondra Healy showed up to “lend a shoulder” at Our Lady of Mercy School on Chicago’s North Side, school Principal Debra Sullivan was in the middle of another busy day. Never mind that a school principal’s days are always busy. On this day, Feb. 3, Sullivan was teaching a second- and third-grade class in addition to being principal, because the teacher had quit to take a higher-paying job at a public school the week before. That meant Sullivan had to reshuffle her schedule, and the schedules of a couple of other staff members, to make time to escort Healy through the school. But to Sullivan, positive attention for her students makes logistical gyrations worthwhile. “This just shows them that what goes on here is important, and it’s important to people outside of the building, too,” said Sullivan as she watched Healy lead a pre-school class in the “I Love You” song from “Barney & Friends.” After singing along with Healy, the 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds offered their own lunchtime song: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. Make this food for us be blessed.” Healy was not just any visitor. As a member of the board of the Big Shoulders Fund, she has taken on the job of mentoring four Gallagher Scholars from Our Lady of Mercy. That means she will meet with the fifth-graders several times a year to offer support and advice every year from now until they graduate from high school. After being introduced to the scholars and the school last fall, Healy took all the fourth- and fifth-graders from Our Lady of Mercy to see a DePaul University production of “The Little Prince” in December. Healy was one of 128 visitors to 114 inner city schools who get help from the Big Shoulders Fund on Lend a Shoulder Day. The visitors came during the annual celebration of Catholic Schools Week to show their support for the schools. Healy said she admires the way Catholic schools blend religion and academic by using a joint effort of schools and families. “Their foundation is their faith,” Healy said. “And they are all about having respect for one another. The way the school works with the family to guide these kids, that’s really important.” Healy lives in Winnetka and serves as the chairman of Turtle Wax, a life far removed from opening milk cartons and hearing about science projects. But a year as an elementary school teacher and several years teaching religious education helped put her at ease with the young students. “I think you’re pretty,” one first-grader told her, as she visited their classroom at lunchtime. Another student walked up and gave her a hug, setting off a stampede of girls in plaid jumpers to get their arms around the stranger. Healy promised to come back later to read a story. She didn’t turn to read the list on the blackboard of people the students believe to be brave: police officers, mothers, firefighters, fathers, uncles and teachers. The older students weren’t quite as forward; none threw their arms around her. But when Healy visited them in the lunchroom, helping distribute pre-packaged tacos, fruit and salad, the students jumped up to show her their science fair projects. The projects were on display for parents, who were invited to see them that evening. Healy learned about how people adapt to change from eighth-grader Tina Karasinski, who asked people to do a series of different mazes. Karasinski also found out that people lie about their achievements when several claimed to have finished mazes that could not be done. Eighth-grader Melissa Chew displayed her project on optical illusions, showing how people can see different things in the same picture, and sometimes can see things that aren’t really there. “Oh, isn’t that amazing,” Healy said, moving a picture of a bird and a cage closer to her face to see the illusion of the bird flying into the cage. Sixth-grader James Cahill explained his project, which found that people remembered lists of words better when the words were presented to the accompaniment of hard rock or blues music. He had expected classical music to help more, he said, but he thought the fact that he presented hard rock and blues last might have skewed his results. Healy walked away from the science fair smiling. “You can’t be too busy for this,” she said. “These kids are our future.”
|