Afterward...
(Feature in Spring 2020 Prep Magazine)
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This past autumn Prep’s global programming exchanged Mr. Russell Fiorella of the Religion Department with Pablo Sitges of Jesuites Sarria-Sant Ignasi in Barcelona, Spain.
Mr. Fiorella lived abroad for three months teaching English classes to high school-aged students who tackled advanced grammatical concepts, composed creative writing pieces, and participated in group discussions about American and Spanish culture, fears, love, politics, dreams, and all the best things about living and going to school in Jersey City and Barcelona. Fiorella also taught a largely project-based course on the European Union to gaggles of inventive eighth grade level students who used a variety of tools, from popsicle sticks to Minecraft, to build 3-D models, colorful diagrams, informational posters, and witty video presentations.
When not teaching, Mr. Fiorella was usually getting lost in Barcelona’s medieval streets, attending high-profile football matches at Barcelona Football Club’s storied Camp Nou Stadium, or solo-traveling to cities within and beyond Spain’s borders like Madrid, Toledo, Gerona, Athens, Nuremberg and Cologne. Grand cathedrals and opulent shrines, tasty cuisines and elegant art galleries, ancient ruins and centuries on top of centuries of history, added color to his experience. Fortunately Mr. Fiorella was blessed with several opportunities to slow down as well! In December he accompanied students from Jesuit schools across Spain to Taize, France, home to a world-renowned monastery where worship and prayer is almost always sung rather than said. The gift of prayer, reflection and long, peaceful walks through France’s countryside proved the perfect change of pace!
Reflecting more on the experience now, Mr. Fiorella believes the most meaningful moments were those shared with others: enjoying dinners with colleagues and families connected to Sant Ignasi’s community, hiking from dawn to dusk with newfound friends in the dazzlingly beautiful valley of Puigcerda, building relationships with students each day in the classroom, walking in the footsteps of St. Ignatius in the serrated mountains of Montserrat or sitting beside him in the cave at Manresa.
Upon further reflection, Mr. Fiorella adds, “I’m grateful to have experienced the best of what Saint Peter’s Prep and the global network of Jesuit schools has to offer its educators, now and moving forward: an opportunity to experience real depth within oneself and in others. Teaching in a different context has deepened my craft as a classroom educator and I believe similarly taught students from both institutions a few powerful lessons. I look back with a smile at every time a young woman or man struggled to communicate a sentence in English or attempted to explain “how things are done here,” not only because it almost always made us giggle, but because we were meeting each other in a strange place. Which is exactly how immersing oneself in a different context is supposed to feel like! These beautifully awkward experiences have the power to reveal and to teach. I can say my students and I were pushed to be more comfortable with being vulnerable and that taking risks together is a lot less scary than taking risks alone; we came to see clearer the richness of learning from failure, to be more aware of what is out of our control, to recognize the value of listening and questioning rather than telling and making statements, and how differences between our experiences make for stimulating conversation.
This experience not only gives me great excitement for what more is possible between Prep and Sant Ignasi, but also great hope and confidence in the critical role exchanges between Jesuit, Catholic schools will have in shaping future global citizens and good humans who must enter into an increasingly connected world. I look forward to witnessing how Saint Peter’s community will continue reaching across the globe to our brothers and sisters in the Jesuit network and learning more about what God’s Greater Glory has in store for each of our teachers and students as well as all of us, together.”