Catholic Schools Week | An Essay by Grace Kinsey

Good morning everyone, My name is Grace Kinsey and I will be graduating from Lake Zurich High School this weekend. As I’ve finished up my high school career, I’ve spent a lot of time looking back on not only my high school experience, but my journey at St. Francis as well. While unfortunately there are few teachers still here from my time at St. Francis, I’ve learned so much from each one of them. Of course they taught me the class material. Those shurley books still give me nightmares, and I will never get the South American countries song out of my head. Thank you by the way, Mrs. Chappell. On Monday, Matt and I attended senior Honors night, and it was a pleasure watching St. Francis alumni dominate the stage, winning award after award. Every class period here wasn’t always the most exciting 40 minutes, but it is jaw dropping how many high schoolers don’t know basic grammar and sentence structure. Two weeks ago, I took an AP Literature test, and hearing my fellow classmates frantically asking each other what a prepositional phrase was immediately afterwards made me realize how much of an advantage my education at St. Francis gave me. More than just classroom knowledge, my teachers taught me life skills. Mrs. Butler taught me to always be prepared, Mrs. Chappell taught me that yellow words on a white powerpoint are a definite “no,” and Mrs. Schmitt taught me that it’s easy to see the world through the main character’s viewpoint, but real knowledge comes from learning to see things through another’s perspective. Throughout my last four years at LZHS, I’ve come to realize just how lucky we all are to have a St. Francis de Sales education. You will not ϐind teachers more committed to crafting the best learners, the best leaders, and the best followers of Christ. For those of you lucky enough to be returning next year, I hope you take the time to appreciate how much each of the teachers and the staff here dedicate their time and effort to fostering not only the most educated students, but the most compassionate people. For those of you moving on to high school next year, congratulations, and I wish you the best of luck. You’ve been given such a strong base for your education, and I hope that you continue to strive to build on that foundation in the years to come. Next year, it’s not only the eighth graders who will gain new freedoms, but every student in this church. With these new freedoms come new choices. As a kindergartener, you watch the ϐirst graders, saying “ooooohhhh, that’s a first grader.” Then in fourth grade, you look up and say “ooooohhhh, that’s a fifth grader.” As a seventh grader, you look up and say “ooooohhhh, that’s an eighth grader.” And in eighth grade, you look up and say “ooooohhhh, that’s a high schooler.” Sometimes we can get so focused on looking forward to where we want to be that we forget others are looking up to us as well. As Catholics, we are all blessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And as students at St. Francis, we are all taught how to use these gifts to our fullest potential. My ϐinal plea to all of you is that you use your advantages to help others and continue to demonstrate why St. Francis de Sales is a blue ribbon school inside and outside of the classroom.