School puts Christ back in Easter

St. John Bosco Elementary takes a multi-media approach to understanding the cross, resurrection

- WCR photo by Ramon Gonzalez St. John Bosco Elementary school assistant principal Tracey Sauer and student Kayla Fontaine show student-designed crosses crafted to create an understanding of Easter.

By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

For many children, Easter is rabbits and chocolate. For Kayla Fontaine, a Grade 6 student at St. John Bosco Elementary, Easter is about Jesus.

"Easter is about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ," says Kayla. "Jesus died on the cross to forgive us all our sins and he did it out of his own choice."

This mature understanding of Easter is more or less generalized among the 500 students at St. John Bosco, a Catholic school where Easter is an important event.

Easter's true meaning

Assistant principal Tracey Sauer says that while the commercialized version of Easter is still present, "if you ask the students the true meaning of Easter, they would say Jesus died and rose from the dead.

"The younger kids may do things that have to do with eggs and new life, but you won't see the Easter bunny and chocolate and those kinds of things talked about in the classroom.

"The classrooms are all Lenten focused; if you walk around you can see displays filled with religious symbolism - you see crosses on the walls."

Easter comes at the end of the Lenten season, the 40-day period that begins on Ash Wednesday.

Grade 3 teacher Franca Matrangolo said she teaches students "to prepare their hearts for the journey through Easter.

"In addition to the usual aspects associated with Easter, we teach them to reflect upon themselves on how we can become servants of Jesus through our words and actions."

Social justice projects

Sauer said a priest came to St. John Bosco, located at 7411-161A Ave., on Ash Wednesday to give the students ashes. This year the school is doing social justice projects to give students the opportunity to think about the Lenten tradition of almsgiving.

"This is a big concept for children to get their heads around. But in order to do that each classroom teacher designed a project with the students as a way to give back to the community and to those who are less fortunate," Sauer explained.

While some classrooms are collecting water bottles and donations to build water wells in Third World countries, others are collecting donations for the Wildlife Foundation, or the Stollery Children's Hospital, or supplies for the Youth Emergency Shelter.

Kayla is helping her classmates collect clothes for the poor and decided, on her own, to sponsor a six-year-old girl from Uganda, sending her money to pay for fresh water, clothing and food.

"Jesus wanted us to help each other, so we are helping others to be more like Jesus," she explained.

At St. John Bosco they also talk about fasting during Lent. "We tell the children it's okay to fast for something, but you also have to feast on the good things," Sauer explained. "For example if you are fasting from impatience, you need to feast on kindness and friendship."

During Holy Week, students will have a chance to go through the Stations of the Cross around the school so they can pray and understand the steps that Jesus took to the cross.

On Holy Thursday, each class holds its own activities to commemorate the Last Supper. These events involve the breaking of the bread, the sharing of both bread and wine (grape juice), and the washing of feet. Also on Holy Thursday a group of students will broadcast a skit of the Last Supper which will be seen in each classroom.

As soon as students return to school following the Easter break, a skit on the resurrection will be broadcast to each classroom.

Students, especially the younger ones, have lots of questions about Jesus' dying on the cross, related Sauer.

"That's a big issue for them. As children, they want to know why, why did they do that to him? They have honest and concrete questions like that so my explanation has always been, 'You know, they didn't understand who he was: Their hearts weren't open to God's word, they didn't understand that he was the Son of God.'"

The will of God

And of course they would ask how Jesus rose from the dead and how he got out of the tomb. "Again you go to the explanation that it was the will of God to raise his Son from the dead as a sign to us that he will raise us from the dead when our time comes as well," said Sauer.

Teaching children about Easter helps them get a balance. "We can't take away the commercial side of it, but for students in a Catholic school it gives them that balance, that understanding that there is more to it," Sauer said.

Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 -- Western Catholic Reporter