Joy of Discovery

“A good beginning is of great importance ”

VENERABLE CATHERINE MCAULEY

WMA classrooms are filled with students who are exploring new ideas, reaching new heights, and achieving academic success.

Peek Inside the 2020 Classroom

Our faculty has stepped up to a unique experience this year - simultaneously teaching students who are in front of them and students who are learning from home.

Our families were able to select from three academic plans: full time in-person, distance learning, or a mixture of the two. This allows all students to have a routine and some sense of normalcy, no matter where they are.

“My fifth grade daughter likes participating in the breakout groups that include virtual and in-person students because it provides a way to connect with students she isn’t seeing every day, ” detailed Erin Schmidt, mom of eighth grader Maggie, fifth grader Grace, and first grader Max, all of whom are full time distance learners. Continued Erin, “Maggie feels she is getting the best of her teachers’ attention even though they are connecting through the computer screen!”

For our curious readers, here is the technology breakdown that makes this process feasible: faculty members teach to the open classroom and a large, black webcam. Students learning from home log on to a private Zoom so they can see their teacher, and the teacher can see them. SmartBoard screens are also connected to Zoom, allowing students at home to see exactly what their peers in the classroom are seeing on the board. It’s a full classroom experience, right from the computer.

This flexible classroom allows us to meet the needs of our students and their families, and helps keep everyone safe and healthy. It also enabled a seamless switch to full distance learning for all students if and when it was needed.

Top: Storytime for the whole class! Left: Sixth grade language arts teacher Mrs. Alex Kramer checks as her students show her completed workbook assignments over Zoom. Above: Students make use of our 1:1 technology in class.

A Field Trip Close to Home

Virtual field trips are all the rage this year. Fourth grade teachers took it a step further by dreaming up a wonderful, cross curricula experience that took their students out of the classroom and onto our beautiful campus.

The morning outside focused on enhancing their social studies unit on Indigenous Peoples by tying in elements from each of the other three core subjects. Students painted “story stones, ” representing original narratives they wrote in language arts, inspired by some Native American tribes. Connected to their religion unit on Creation, the students listened to a Kato Native American Creation story set in the American west.

“After the story, we got to sit, reflect, and observe. Mrs. Guarini wanted us to look at nature and see what was going on. I thought about how there wouldn’t be anything to look at if God

Votes for First Grade

First grade students were buzzing on Election Day...which candidate would win? Pete the Cat? The Cat in the Hat? Or the Pigeon?

All three classes learned election basics by casting their votes in a race to pick their favorite book character. First, each class read books featuring the candidates and discussed the characteristics exhibited. For example, students decided that, among other things, Pete the Cat is a good rule follower, the Cat in the Hat is a good multitasker, and the Pigeon is very persistent. Students used these different factors to make a decision before entering the voting booth, or casting a “mail in” ballot from home (a perfect set up for our distance learning students). “All of them were kind, so I chose the one who was kindest, ” reflected Carter Knapp, showing that our students are already learning to Vote with Mercy!

hadn’t created it, ” remarked Stella Scavuzzo. To further their connections with nature, the students also took a walk around campus wearing self-created sound devices made in science class.

There was even a beautiful moment when they stopped to pray with Sr. Madonna, RSM at Mary’s Grotto. A truly memorable “field trip”! Left: Phoenix Waller tests her hearing device. Right: Students create story stones.

ALUMNI SUCCESS STARTS HERE

David DiVincenzo ’72 is the Director of the Institute of Theoretical Nanoelectronics at the Peter Grünberg Institute in Jülich, Germany and is a professor at the Institute for Quantum Information of RWTH Aachen University. He is considered an eminent authority on quantum information processing and his name is associated with the development of criteria for the quantum computer, known as the DiVincenzo Criteria.

David was a long-distance commuter to Waldron. “Having seen many other children taught over the years (including my own) I would say that the Waldron staff of my day had extraordinary dedication!” David remembers.

Well-trained by WMA to go in any direction, David set off towards math and science at St. Joe ’ s Prep. Expecting that education had to take one towards " something practical, " he enrolled in the engineering school at the University of Pennsylvania. But he was inexorably drawn to the obscure - leading to his PhD thesis where he worked out a quantum mechanics theory that is still in use today. Subsequently, David served as a research scientist and manager at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, where he developed theories around the quantum computer. We are proud to have David among the ranks of our amazing Waldron Mercy graduates!