Flipping through magazines and reading articles, usually the authors are unknown to students, but now people in the BSM community can recognize English teacher Mrs. Maura Brew as a published author. Appearing in the January/February issue of Today’s Catholic Teacher, the article “is about using the principles of Catholic Social Teachings as a tool of critical analysis in the teaching of English,” said Mrs. Brew.

After giving a presentation on a similar topic to the National Catholic Educational Association in April of 2007, the magazine contacted Mrs. Brew and asked if she would write an article based on the presentation. “It was a lot more work than I thought,” said Mrs. Brew, “their requirement was for a lot longer that I thought and it took quite a few hours to compile, draft, review.”

After attending a workshop in 2001 on similar subjects, Mrs. Brew started incorporating the Catholic Social teachings in the classroom and then began to give presentations for the NCEA. “I didn’t really plan to be published,” said Mrs. Brew, “it just kind of happened.”

Mrs. Brew has hopes to continue her writing in the near future. “I’ve been trying to put something together for the NCEA publication, and I just want to get the material together for my own sake,” said Mrs. Brew. “It’s a lot of what we do in the classroom and we have a tendency to take it for granted here at BSM, but in lots of instances it’s bringing something more to the table and other people and teachers are interested in what we’re doing,” said Mrs. Brew.

And she can’t deny the response from both inside the community and outside. “It was kind of cool—I had e-mails from teachers in California that I hadn’t talked to in 10 or 12 years, but now there’s a connection again,” said Mrs. Brew.

Kaia Preus, staff writer