January 29, 2025 at 11:04 a.m.
A FRIEND AND MENTOR
When you enter Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons School, if you walk all the way down the end of the hall, past classrooms filled with students, you come to a staircase that leads to an explosion of color and expression.
Down a set of winding stairs, and through a door is the art room at the Schenectady Catholic school. The massive space is filled with paints, brushes, paint cans, canvasses, and boxes of supplies. It is a place where students can let their artistic imaginations run wild under the direction of Sue Silverstein. But Silverstein, who has taught in Catholic schools in the Diocese of Albany for 27 years, most notably at Bishop Maginn High School, is so much more than an art teacher.
She is a friend, mentor and role model for the students and is this year’s recipient of the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Distinguished Secondary School Teacher Award, which “honors a Catholic school teacher who has promoted a school’s Catholic educational vision and who has a strong awareness of a school’s Catholic identity and mission. The teacher is one who has demonstrated excellence in teaching skills and has a positive effect on the moral growth of students.”
“I love to watch kids create. I love to watch the light come on and see them take off,” Silverstein said. “I have a girl in 10th grade, Emma, and the light has come on for her right now in sculpture and she is building these amazing wire creations. She comes before school, she comes after school. We do art club four days a week, she comes to art club to work on it.
“They get obsessed with it; they’re just thinking about it and what are they going to do next. They are so excited and proud of (their work), that makes me thrilled. I love to watch kids do that.”
And the kids love to work with Silverstein, who teaches seventh- and eighth-grade art, 10th-grade studio art and elective courses such as photography, printmaking, 3D design and sculpture. This is what one of her students said in her nomination letter: “Mrs. Silverstein has the remarkable ability to connect with her students and help them discover their potential, and I am fortunate to be one of the many lives she has profoundly impacted.”
This connection goes back to her students at Maginn, particularly those from the Karen ethnic group that immigrated to the United States because of a long-running conflict in Myanmar. When Maginn closed in 2022, it weighed heavily on Silverstein’s mind.
“I was really, really sad when Maginn closed. It is like a part of you, a part of who you are,” she said. “We fought hard and we moved to the new location and we were doing really well and then the pandemic hit and that was the end. And all those refugee kids, I knew that I would not be able to bring everybody, but I was able to bring 27 kids here with me.”
And it turned out NDBG was the perfect spot.
“I saw the potential of what I could do here and I also knew the kids would do OK here,” Silverstein said. “And it was beautiful and they just melted into each other. After a week, you wouldn’t even know they were from another school. They fit in so beautifully.”
Another set of friends that Silverstein has brought to NDBG are Jon and Maria Katz and their “Army of Good,” a collective of people from across the United States that has helped Silverstein with supplies for the school and coats and hats if the kids need them. (Katz and his Army of Good have been profiled before in the pages of The Evangelist and he writes about all the good work the army does on his Bedlam Farm Journal blog.)
“When I came here, I brought Jon and Maria with me. Our relationship is a little bit different than it used to because it is farther for them than it was,” Silverstein said. “We now have a system where once a week I write a column on his blog and show pictures of what the kids are doing and what materials we have gotten.
“I talk about the donors and then I say, ‘Next we are going to do this’ and things come from all over the country, and it is amazing. It is just like they did at Maginn but even more so. We are really committed to doing at least 80 percent recycled materials (for the art projects) so the cool thing about that is local people have caught on to that too, so we have a bunch of local donors.”
Whether it is recycled paint from the dump, a new coat or pair of boots, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a granola bar for a hungry student, Silverstein has gotten it from the “Army.”
“People are so invested in the kids and they write to them,” Silverstein said, “and they go to yard sales and looked for glassware (after) I put out a call for baking things because we are going to start that course.”
For someone who has affected so many lives, winning this award was not on her radar.
“I had no idea. I was stunned. It was vacation and the phone rang and I didn’t get to it in time and it was (interim superintendent) Chris Bott (and I said,) ‘Oh, God, what is wrong now?’ And the voicemail he left, he said, ‘It is nothing bad.’ I was just so shocked because there are so many people and I am just an art teacher. I wasn’t expecting it. It didn’t even occur to me.”
But in the end it comes down to the students, past and present, who still keep in touch with Silverstein if they need help planning a wedding or a simple hug.
“I always love kids. They are just a part of who I am. My own family is like, ‘I hate going shopping with you because 50 million people have to stop you. They run out of stores and give you a hug.’ On Black Friday, I was at the mall and my son’s girlfriend was with him and he said, ‘Get used to it.’
“Now that (the students) are grown, I see their babies and I stay in touch with them and it is just awesome. It is a big family of thousands of people and I know we did a lot of good. In particular, those refugee kids, I know we did a lot of good.”
MORE CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK
Leading By Faith: https://evangelist.org/news/2025/jan/29/leading-by-faith/
A Loved Place: https://evangelist.org/news/2025/jan/29/a-loved-place/
The Grand Endeavor of Catholic Education: https://evangelist.org/news/2025/jan/29/the-grand-endeavor-that-is-catholic-education/
CSW Awards, Years of Service: http://evangelist.www.clients.ellingtoncms.com/news/2025/jan/29/catholic-schools-week-awards/
A Creative Classroom: https://evangelist.org/news/2025/jan/29/a-creative-classroom/
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