A FEAST OF GROWTH AT HOLY CHILD JESUS SCHOOL
By: Angelina Q. Quiatchon
*PICTURES TO FOLLOW*
The tree, the ever-abundant ageless source of God’s generous blessings, never fails to inspire artists, scientists, writers, theologians, and thinkers. True to its generative trait, the tree became the focal point of this year’s Catholic Schools Week celebration at Holy Child Jesus, a Pre-K to 8th school in Richmond Hill. In grounding the annual event’s theme, “Catholic Schools Raise the Standard” to the school’s age-old motto, Watch Us Grow, which is always presented superimposed on the outline of a tree, the students utilized the tree as the symbol of their academic development.
The Pre-K classes showed their growing appreciation of the beauty of Nature, one of God’s many gifts, in the form of art works based on Dr. Seuss’ Lorax. Grades K-3 used the painting “Fantasy Forest” by Wassily Kandinsky to interpret the life cycle typified by the forest and all the living things in it. Meanwhile, Grades 4-6 read
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein to enrich their understanding of the stages of human growth and the resources that fulfill human needs. As for the Junior High School students, the painting “The Tree of Life” by Gustav Klimt launched the research project on philosophers and theologians which provided an understanding of the relationship of wisdom, logic, and reasoning to the ongoing growth of the human person through life.
All in all, the school demonstrated its philosophy of instilling growth with ways as wide and sturdy as the branches of a tree, yet with a solid connection to the roots of the past.
The national celebration’s theme “Catholic Schools Raise the Standard” aptly relates to the school’s chosen symbol—the tree, in its being prolific, rises from a seed, grows leaves that spread across the sky, and bears fruits for its own good and the good of many. So do the Catholic schools, and so does Holy Child Jesus.
