St. Benedict alumni, now teachers, link classes despite geographic distance
July 29, 2019 at 12:37 p.m.
By David Karas | Correspondent
The Mertz sisters might be separated by more than 300 miles, but they have found a great way to keep in touch.
Ashley, a seventh-grade teacher in St. Benedict School, Holmdel, and her sister, Hannah, a fifth-grade teacher in DuPont Elementary School, Hopewell, Va., shared their bond as sisters with their respective classes this year, creating a pen-pal program for the students to keep in touch.
“At the beginning of the school year, my sister and I decided that we would have our classes become pen pals,” said Ashley – who, like her sister, is a St. Benedict alumna finishing out her first year of teaching. “They were excited to get their own individual person (to whom) they would write.”
From occasional notes to holiday cards, the two classes got to know each other throughout the year.
“The more we got to know them,” Ashley said of her class, “the more my students got to know that they were different in a socioeconomic sense.”
Ashley said that her 28 students tend to come from families that are able to afford necessities, like school supplies. Their 20 counterparts in Virginia, however, are not as fortunate.
“Not all children live the way they do, and not all children are as fortunate as they are,” she said.
Ashley described the awareness her class developed in terms of understanding the struggles their pen pals might experience. For example, she said, the students might have to go without certain school supplies in the fall if their parents and family members cannot afford a trip to the office supply store.
“The ability to have access to certain supplies and to have certain things,” she said, “was a big difference they saw.”
So, when the Holmdel youngsters learned that their pen pals would be graduating from the fifth grade and moving on to middle school, they decided to brainstorm a service project that would help. They took to task, creating “middle school survival kits” for their new friends, complete with everything from school supplies to some candy treats.
The project was such a success that the sisters plan to do the same with their new classes come September.
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By David Karas | Correspondent
The Mertz sisters might be separated by more than 300 miles, but they have found a great way to keep in touch.
Ashley, a seventh-grade teacher in St. Benedict School, Holmdel, and her sister, Hannah, a fifth-grade teacher in DuPont Elementary School, Hopewell, Va., shared their bond as sisters with their respective classes this year, creating a pen-pal program for the students to keep in touch.
“At the beginning of the school year, my sister and I decided that we would have our classes become pen pals,” said Ashley – who, like her sister, is a St. Benedict alumna finishing out her first year of teaching. “They were excited to get their own individual person (to whom) they would write.”
From occasional notes to holiday cards, the two classes got to know each other throughout the year.
“The more we got to know them,” Ashley said of her class, “the more my students got to know that they were different in a socioeconomic sense.”
Ashley said that her 28 students tend to come from families that are able to afford necessities, like school supplies. Their 20 counterparts in Virginia, however, are not as fortunate.
“Not all children live the way they do, and not all children are as fortunate as they are,” she said.
Ashley described the awareness her class developed in terms of understanding the struggles their pen pals might experience. For example, she said, the students might have to go without certain school supplies in the fall if their parents and family members cannot afford a trip to the office supply store.
“The ability to have access to certain supplies and to have certain things,” she said, “was a big difference they saw.”
So, when the Holmdel youngsters learned that their pen pals would be graduating from the fifth grade and moving on to middle school, they decided to brainstorm a service project that would help. They took to task, creating “middle school survival kits” for their new friends, complete with everything from school supplies to some candy treats.
The project was such a success that the sisters plan to do the same with their new classes come September.
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