To Reach Just One

To Reach Just One
(Cover Story, Gulf Coast Senior)

Having never been to St. Michael Interparochial School, you wouldn't have known that the short woman—dustpan in hand—teaching two boys how to sweep sidewalks was Sister Robert Anne, the school's administrator.

Sitting in the plastic chairs of her paper-stacks office, you wouldn't have known that just two months before, it had hosted a press conference of state proportions, either.

And that's just the way she'd like it.

Flashbulbs and Microphones
You could've asked her about the August visit from Lieutenant Governor, Frank Brogan. But hopefully you wouldn't have expected a response touting her school's involvement in Florida's new A-Plus Plan for Education voucher program. Because instead, you would've heard, "Mr. Brogan is a born teacher—I could tell by the time he got to the fourth grade: he connected with each group."

With this thankful indictment and a smile about the twenty-one voucher students enrolled in St. Michael this fall, Sister Robert Anne unwittingly condemned herself, too. "Our belief is that all children should have the opportunity to get the best education they can," she said, "It's the Catholic way." She added, "It should be for all children—everywhere. And hopefully, this is just one first step."

Exclusively Catholic or not, school choice in action prompted the Brogan visit. The next-day quotables that appeared in the August 19 Pensacola News Journal came not from Sister Robert Anne or her teachers but from the raised-handed, smiling children of their classes. And that's just the way she liked it.

For the Children
"I'm always so delighted when the educational value is placed on the child," said Sister Robert Anne. In an educational culture that looks at trends and groups, she and her teachers focus on the needs of each one. "Our firm and strongest feature is that throughout the years there has always been a belief that every child is special, and they can do anything with their lives."

"Our focus is on the whole child . . . we want them to have a sense of themselves." Instilling that sense requires Sister Robert Anne's example and encouragement. Daily she must demonstrate the parts of her "whole child" which include: "responsibility, thoughtfulness, trustworthiness, and Christ-centeredness." Working alone, her affect is admittedly limited to her personal resources. A whole education proves strong dependence on the families of her children.

"With positive home enforcement all will do their very best," said Sister Robert Anne. In her October letter to St. Michael parents she asked, "Please enable every student to participate with your full encouragement and support." By this she asked of them no less than of their students.

She knows that some parents, even those with children in private school need to be reminded. "Everybody's too busy. They've got two jobs—they don't eat as a family . . . always out coming and going." In contrast to that fast-paced world she spends the beginning of each busy day outside, welcoming her students to school. "The way they get out of the car tells everything. It's often the first, 'Good morning,' that the child hears."

Sometimes asking parents isn't enough, and she asks of herself no less than of them. "I sponsor students just so they can do their part . . . One hundred percent participation is always our goal."

Building Foundations
Participation is only one pillar of Sister Robert Anne's goal. Other life principles such as timeliness, diligence, respect, and responsibility form the whole foundation that she seeks to build in each of her students.

"Too many children today believe, 'What's the use?'" she said. But the little details such as being on time to class create, over time, a character that will follow the student through life. "[The child] is not going to thank you today . . . you must realize that you're educating for tomorrow." She knows that someday, her grown students will be able to look back on a life-guiding trait and say, "That started in the first grade."

Reaching the Community
Sister Robert Anne knows that community responsibility proves at least as important as personal responsibility and that the dividends do not return only in the future. St. Michael eighth grade teacher, Mrs. J. Bordelon, says of her students, "They are becoming more aware that there are people who need our help and prayers in the community. We are working on doing our part for others in need."

Sister Robert Anne's students are currently crafting encouraging tray favors for a local hospital. Local clients of the Appetite for Life Program (a food delivery system for victims of AIDS) receive cards from students, as well. Involvement with Loaves and Fishes and the local Food Bank instills a burden in their hearts for less fortunate families.

Through these efforts, she multiplies her personal ministry to the Pensacola community—and her public awareness. Her middle school students participate in DARE, a national anti-drug education program; and in the Religion Service Block, they learn about community functions and needs. Each school day begins outside at the flagpole, where with the Pledge of Allegiance she leads her students in prayer for the safety of Pensacola policemen.

Each semester students volunteer twenty hours of personal service to members of their respective parishes, of which there are twenty-two in Pensacola. Mowing grass, cleaning houses, making meals, baby-sitting children—Sister Robert Anne's students have more than homework waiting after the afternoon bell.

Her First Love
To Sister Robert Anne, teaching is a calling not a career. And sometimes she feels more like a mother than "the Sister." Of course, having been teaching math and science since the fifties, there's a bit of grandma in her, too—though she was quick to say, "Age doesn't make a teacher."

"You do it for the kids," she said, "A teacher really wants to reach the child the best way they know how." Having given her best teaching effort for over forty years, she can easily ask the best of her students. "I love to get into the classroom and teach. And kids pick up on the passion."

"My first love is middle school," said Sister Robert Anne, "They need you the most. They need a caring adult model. There's so many forces militating—real heroes are hard to find today."

Before coming to St. Michael in 1992, she taught math and science in a Buffalo area Catholic school. She remembers teaching the "new" subject of DNA and thinking, "I'm teaching the scientists of tomorrow." Since then, she has sought to bring faith together with the creator. She told her students, "God creates. We don't. Learn your science well. God's always gotta be there—someone directing."

Making a Difference
Sister Robert Anne knows the impression she leaves upon students, for she is "still following the early lessons" of the nuns who taught her in grade school. In fact, her choice of the math and science fields sprung from the influence of two teachers,"two very different teachers—one formal, one relaxed."

She reminisced, "The sisters were excellent teachers—who cared and we all knew it." And though she tries to pass on her own passion to those in the desks, she can only teach. "You don't put an old head on young shoulders."

It is much this challenge—the torch-passing of knowledge, of fervor, of curiosity—in which Sister Robert Anne finds the energy to teach. "When you see a little kid, and an electric light goes off in his head . . . 'Oh, I know what you mean.'—there's no price tag for that."

Another permanent mark she hopes to leave is "the deep sense of the respect to life—the old the new, the elderly. Each life is of equal importance. Abortion, euthanasia, shooting sprees . . . they're an outgrowth of a lack of respect to life."

"That's the essence of Roman Catholic schools: please care about every child—all are unique. We want what's best for them."

That sounds like a family purpose statement, because it is. Sister Robert Anne often refers to St. Michael's as a school family. In the September St. Michael's Trumpet (the school newsletter), she wrote, "How proudly we all strive to make our school the second home for all."

St. Michael sixth grade teacher, Mr. J. McKeon noted this when he said, "St. Michael School is filled with precious memories."

Sister Robert Anne agrees, remembering through her smile wrinkles one of the best—and most accidental—compliments ever given the school. A toddler got separated from a visiting grandmother in the school cafeteria and had begun to cry when "a little kindergartener said to the crying tyke, 'Honey, don't cry—you're safe; your in St. Michael School.'"

Whether in safety or morals or education, Sister Robert Anne knows her family legacy lives long after her students pass from her eighth grade to Catholic high school. She knows all her work is worth it, "Just seeing a child smiling—when you've made a child's life better and wiser."

"If you've changed the life of one, you've done it."