John Paul II Equipped Her to Defend Family Life, One Soul at a Time

When Sarah Klosterman began teaching middle school, she did not expect to have to rely on the life and works of St. John Paul II so much.

Every day though, Klosterman, who teaches middle school religion and English at St. Joseph’s Catholic school in Wichita, draws on the lessons she learned as a John Paul II Fellow at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

“When I decided to teach this year, I knew it would be difficult. I did not study education, but I had a desire to share the rich formation in philosophy and theology I received in college,” Klosterman said. “However, one aspect of my time at Benedictine which I did not expect to draw upon so heavily was my time in the JPII Fellows.”

The JP II fellows are the student leadership portion of the Center for Family Life at Benedictine College, one of the college’s programs of distinction. The fellowship aims to form students in the thought of St. John Paul II by immersing students in his writing and hosting discussions and events about his life and work.

Klosterman says that the greatest impact the fellowship had was teaching her an authentic vision of human love and the importance of the domestic Church.

“For four years in the Fellows, we learned about the domestic church and the Holy Family and John Paul II’s thought on human love. But working with these students’ day after day has fully convicted me of the eminent and irreplaceable role of the family in the world,” Klosterman said.

This lesson has become particularly relevant as Klosterman encounters students from broken homes on a daily basis in her classroom.

“As I have come face to face with students from broken homes, as I have met families without the time or resources to fully support their children as they want to, as I have witnessed the way these students live in and see the world, something has finally clicked for me.”

She realized the importance of the domestic Church and the family unit.

“When there is not a proper formation at home, my kids are coming to school with low motivation, missing assignments, or unregulated behavior. The differences in my students’ attitude and achievement is so clearly bound up with the lives they live after the final bell rings,” Klosterman said.

In her classroom, Klosterman finds herself relying on the material she learned at Benedictine as a philosophy and theology major in the classroom to shape her classroom and curriculum.

“This experience of teaching has required me to lean on so much of what I learned the past four years, from what I teach, to how I pray with my kids, to how I decorate my classroom.

But more so, she turns to the lessons she learned as a JP II fellow to shape how she ministers to her students.

“In retrospect, it is the John Paul II fellowship which has given me the proper vision to make sense of what I am faced with every day,” Klosterman said. “I believe that I have been able to better understand the lives of my students from having studied the thought of John Paul II on man and on the family.”

As part of the John Paul II fellowship, fellows participate in teaching Human Dignity curriculum in the Atchison Public school system. This curriculum teaches students the concepts of human dignity and love for one’s neighbor in a secular context.

Fellows also make a pilgrimage to Poland their senior year, immersing themselves in the culture and country that formed John Paul II. These two experiences taught Klosterman valuable lessons on how to convey the concept of human dignity and John Paul II’s vision of the person to a broader audience.

“My time in Atchison High School helping teach the Human Dignity Curriculum has shaped some of my own lessons on human dignity,” Klosterman said. “And, not to mention, there was the pilgrimage to Poland that really brought to life many of these abstract ideas about faith and the human person.”

Klosterman tries to love and serve her students as best as she can by providing a supportive and encouraging environment. While not a perfect teacher, Klosterman knows that Benedictine College and the John Paul II fellowship provided the lessons and formation necessary to create a classroom environment focused on the individual.

“I truly love my students, and, while I still see myself fall short everyday as their teacher, I would be undoubtedly lost without my Benedictine formation,” Klosterman said.

By Jack Figge