February 2007

Recently I hosted my annual pizza lunches for the sixth grade students. If ever there is a guaranteed way to fill a room with energy, inviting a dozen or so sixth graders is it. What a delightful group – so willing to chat about school and life beyond school.

Each year the conversation at some point turns to the fact that the single gender schooling paradigm looms near. It is refreshing to hear that while the young ladies are certainly looking forward to an all-girls situation, they just know how much they will miss their male classmates, who, most often, move over to Saint Thomas Academy for grade 7. I assure them that the distance is short between the two schools and visiting back and forth does certainly happen. Relief!

That such strong friendships develop among the students in Visitation’s sixth grade points to a great strength of our coeducational program, which allows our students to experience the naturalness of being in friendship relationships with boys and girls alike. We talk about being in relationship with one another as a core virtue of Salesian spirituality. The sixth grade students demonstrate this virtue enthusiastically. And they can certainly eat a great deal of pizza while doing so!