Exciting News:
Officially St. John Paul II High School!
We are excited to announce that we will officially be rebranding to St. John Paul II High School! We realized our name and emails were a bit confusing, so hopefully this change will help simplify things and make us more accessible.
That being said, look out for our new official crest and school colors! In addition, explore our new website jpiihs.com and feel free to reach out to our new info account, info@jpiihs.com, with any questions about the school!
(New email structure: first initial + last name +@jpiihs.com. For example, to reach our Executive Director Liz Yeh, email LYeh@jpiihs.com)
Thank you!
Thank you to everyone who donated towards our annual End-of-Year Appeal, Building a Beacon of Light. Although we are still totaling up the final amount that we raised for next year’s operating costs, we know that we already raised more than we did during last year’s appeal–praise God! It is only because individuals in our community have generously decided to join our mission that Catholic high school in Northern Colorado continues to grow and be a reality. We deeply appreciate all the support and prayers that make this school possible!
If you are interested in learning more about ways to give to St. John Paul II High School, please visit our donate page or email our Executive Director, Liz Yeh, at lyeh@jpiihs.com
SY22-23 Application Open!
We are excited to announce that next year we will be offering all high school grades 9-12! Applications are now open. Click the link below to read about upcoming important dates & deadlines, as well as dates for our upcoming info night and open house.
You can also visit our Admissions and Tuition & Scholarships pages to read more about our application process, tuition, and scholarships.
Mark Your Calendar!
January 28th @7pm: Come & See Info Night
February 12th @10am-12pm: Open House
February 26th @7pm: Beer/Wine Tasting (stay tuned for more information about the event)
May 7th @9:30am: Outdoor Mass & Pancakes!
September 17th @5:30pm: First-ever Adventure Gala (stay tuned for ticket sales coming soon!)
If you are interested in sponsoring our first annual school gala or in donating items for our auction, please contact Liz Yeh at lyeh@jpiihs.com. Thank you for thinking of our school!
Student Article
My Time Here So Far
Angela Friedman, Sophomore
While I have only attended St. John Paul II High School for one semester and am just beginning my second, it has already been a great experience. My favorite part about this school is what we are taught, and how we are taught it. We are taught what it means to be Human and what it means to be Catholic, as well as how to exemplify this in our daily lives. In class we are encouraged to express our opinions, ask any questions we may have, and figure out how our subjects are all connected as parts of God’s creation. I believe that this kind of education is really important for anyone who desires to grow closer to God.
In school, we learn about the history and development of the human race and how God and Christianity has radically shaped this. Through learning about the words and actions of past men, we come to understand more about ourselves and essentially what it means to be human. Philosophy is built off of reason, but it never disagrees or contradicts theology, which is built off of faith and truths that have been revealed to us by God. By learning about these things, we can better understand who God is, why we were created as we are, and most importantly, what our purpose is. Logic is taught to us so that we can make our own arguments and reason through things correctly on our own; it is essentially teaching us how to properly think so that we can come to true and logical conclusions. These, as well as the other things we learn about, have really influenced the way I think and have given me so much more faith in God.
One of the most helpful things that we are taught to do in class is to seminar, that is, to have conversations with the rest of our class on a certain subject or text that has been read and attempt to come to a conclusion or answer questions about it by reasoning with the others in our class. When we do this, we must learn how to interact with our peers and teachers while at the same time expressing and even sometimes arguing (in a respectful way) our ideas until a conclusion is reached. In doing this, we not only learn important social skills, but we generally all understand the aspects of each concept better because we are helped and guided by the teacher to figure it out on our own. Because of this, we understand the subject better and are taught to think in a way that will aid us in the future when trying to learn or reason about anything.
I am so grateful to JPIIHS for providing my friends and me with this kind of education, and have had a great time here so far.
From the Headmaster’s Desk
How an Italian Plumber Informs Educational Theory
Blaise A. Hockel
And so here we are in the New Year, and this I commence with a wish that you be blessed, always finding new ways to rededicate yourself to Christ through this new year. As I went through my Christmas break, I was able to see all of my many siblings, and we spoke of many things. As is the way with familial celebration, we fell to discussion of nostalgic things. Among those most fond of childhood memories was a wonderfully rotund compatriot, Mario Mario (yes, this is his last name). It was amazing because we grew up with the Super Nintendo—now decades out of date—but we still remembered with perfect recollection various levels and the secrets that could be obtained therewithin.
This is a common experience, though it might not for all of us be tethered to the collateral of the Koopa King. For some of us it might be the statistics of baseball teams, every word a celebrity has ever said, a perfect mental map of a favorite television show (Lost or some of the Marvel franchise, perhaps). The question for all of these particularly odd areas of knowledge, however, is why in the world do we recall them? I have a difficult time remembering what year it is, and yet I still have a near encyclopedic memory for the names of dinosaurs from the dinosaur book I read as a child.
I think even more specifically of my children (ages three and two) who can recite from memory “Go Dog! Go!” or “The Jabberwocky”. Why is it the case that they can, with perfect recollection, recite these pieces to themselves for hours when I can’t recall any of the high school and college German that I took six years devoting to memory? I don’t think that it could be argued that it’s just natural parroting—that our memories are better when we are younger. That, while perhaps a common answer, seems deeply unlikely to me because there are plenty of things that we remember with perfect recall in adulthood—it just seems that kind of thing varies. We remember pointless dates (and sometimes the meaningful ones). We remember places of peace, or poems that struck us. We remember history, and the order of presidents (that is to say, the things we found arduous to remember when we were children). So, what is the major difference?
An answer that has been more and more studied in the last few years is that of game theory: we learn and remember when the circumstances surrounding the learning are perceived to be low-stakes, have a positive return, and, in short, when we derive pleasure from learning. That is to say, it appears we learn best when we can puzzle out a question, argue out the answer with our peers and exert ourselves a little bit, and when we do not fear reprisal.
So, imagine creating an educational environment of that kind—one in which risk and reward still exist, but penalty is nothing more than the kind of mild frustration of seeing that the puzzle pieces are out of order. Imagine creating a setting where you can internalize lengthy and complex concepts, but the act of doing so is a communal one (with a light air of friendly competition, but one that only rewards persons for helping each other elevate their understanding) as well.
Lest anyone look at me as though I were a madman, let me make one final argument: this is very much what I observe here in my own classes. My students have concluded their section on Elizabethan government and will shortly be reading Shakespeare, and I will use this method of making a game of the play. They will have fun reading the texts. This is not because it will be to entertain them (entertaining as Twelfth Night is). You see, an education that is designed to entertain has all the substance of a Michael Bay film—flash, dazzle, and explosion which is totally passive and so has no genuine substance. But something that intrigues, that challenges, that calls us to dedicate a little bit more of ourselves to the task that we are willing to give because we have a genuine investment in the outcome… that is what educators typically mean when they say they want to ‘insight wonder’ in the students. It’s not an engendering of curiosity within the student, it’s tantalizing them—teasing them that if they just try once more, remember where that one stumbling block was, they’ll save the princess this time around.