“Worth Every Penny”: JPII Faculty Reflect on the 2024 ICLE National Conference

JPII Faculty stop for a picture with Diocese of Lincoln’s Bishop Conley - from left to right: Dr. Fletcher, Miss Simons, Miss Mellender, Mrs. Hula, Mrs. Gronewold, Bp. Conley, Mr. Mellender, Miss Fletcher, and Mr. Fletcher.

Omaha, NE - Some might ask if it's worth sending almost all of your full-time faculty to spend a week at an education conference. For St. John Paul II Academy, it was worth every penny.

Thanks to a generous benefactor, eight members of St. John Paul II Academy’s faculty were able to attend the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education’s (ICLE) National Conference at Benedictine College July 9th through the 12th. The conference brought together educators from across the nation to deepen their understanding of the nature and purpose of Catholic education and its roots in the liberal arts tradition.

Each year, the ICLE National Conference aims to inspire and equip a growing community of Catholic educators to reclaim the Church’s full vision of education and to bring it to life in their schools. 

Looking back on the conference, JPII headmaster Dr. Fletcher remarked,

“Attending the ICLE Conference was not just about checking boxes. Our teachers are life-long learners dedicated to the craft of teaching and the well-rounded formation of young minds. The conference afforded them time to put deep thought into their curriculum and develop key relationships with like-minded educators.”

The ICLE National Conference provided a great opportunity for JPII faculty to rekindle their dedication to the renewal of Catholic learning. Teachers were engaged and grateful to join workshops led by renowned scholars and practitioners in Catholic Liberal education. Middle school teacher Mrs. Gronewold shared,

“I feel incredibly fortunate to have participated in these breakout sessions. It was an inspiring opportunity to deepen my understanding and refine my teaching practice in alignment with our educational mission." 

Conference sessions that faculty attended included these topics, among others:

• Living & Teaching the Liturgical Year

• Renewing Catholic Education in the Art of Freedom

• Beauty of the Saints: Virtue Lived

• The Socratic Method & Socratic Conversation

• Beauty in Sacred Art: Praying with Visio Divina in Your Classroom

• An Encounter of the Euclidean Kind: Reconsidering how to Teach Math (& Everything Else)

• The Catholic Educational Tradition and the Boy Crisis

• Making Every Class Catholic

• The Dramatic Read-Aloud: The Art of Interactive Reading & Discussion

• The Sentence Diagram: Tool for the Art of Thinking

• Progressive Solemnity: Restoring Beautiful Music in the School

• The Life and Tradition of Poetry in the Catholic Faith

For several of the teachers, one of the major highlights was an evening of folk music and conversation with the Diocese of Lincoln’s Bishop Conley, who has been a friend to the JPII community from the beginning.

The 2024 ICLE National Conference was extremely fruitful and formative, leaving faculty eager to bring their newfound knowledge back to the JPII classrooms. Teachers were reminded of their mission as educators, of what it means to model love of learning to their students, and above all what it means to be on fire for Christ.

St. John Paul II Academy is an ICLE Premier Member School. To learn more about the ICLE and what it means to be a Premier Member School, please visit https://catholicliberaleducation.org/