By Hailey McPheron
Disclaimer: Teachers are chosen at random for teacher features using the Wheel of Names Random Name Picker.
Deacon Pete Caccavari, one of McNicholas High School’s theology teachers who is also on the Mission and Ministry team, has been teaching here for two years.
He enjoys teaching at a high school level because of being able to spend more time with the students whereas when he taught at the college-level, there was less time to spend with the students.
Caccavari said he “sort of fell into teaching; I liked to read so I got a degree in English.” When he decided to move from teaching higher education to high school, it was his wife that suggested McNick. “I was looking for a new job, and my wife said, ‘Have you ever thought of teaching high school?’ and I was like ‘No, never, never crossed my mind at all,’ and she mentioned an opening at McNick for theology and the more I thought about it, I really liked the idea.”
Before coming to McNick, he worked at the University of Phoenix and Union Institute and University. He has taught at McNick for two years teaching Catholic Christianity and Old Testament for freshmen and Vocations for juniors.
He and his wife had known about McNick because his son is a graduate, and with the open teaching spot for theology, his family encouraged him to apply.
In Vocations, students are currently working on focusing on prayers and doing the Lectio Divina, and in Catholic Christianity students are working on the arguments on the existence of God.
Caccavari said he became a Deacon because, “I felt called. I was at Mass one day and one of our Deacons was at mass assisting there, and I looked up and all a sudden thought, you know, I could do that. It sort of just developed from there, I got encouragement from other people and considered it more and decided to learn more about it, then eventually went into the seminary for the lay pastor ministry program then ultimately deacon formation.”
Caccavari said his favorite thing about being a Deacon is performing baptisms and weddings, preaching, and completing service projects. His favorite service project at McNick so far is the recent St. Vincent de Paul retreat with seniors. Caccavari said he spends his free time reading books, writing poetry, and gardening, and his favorite book is The Waves by Virginia Woolf. “It’s one of the few novels I’ve ever read twice,” Caccavari said about The Waves.
“Every day when I leave here, I look around the room, and I think I’m so glad to be here,” Caccavari added.
The McNicholas Milestone 