(The Lion) — A survey this year found an alarming 62% of American youth have a favorable view of socialism – and 34% even say they like the idea of communism.

Thank goodness we have Stephany Vesely on our side.

Fact is, the third-grade teacher at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School (SEAS) in Springfield, Missouri, is churning out civic-minded, Christ-centered little capitalists with her “Third Grade Mini Mall” – which has her students conceiving, making, advertising and selling products to the entire school.

“They complete a business proposal,” she explains, “sign a business contract outlining roles, and develop a business plan. To simulate real-world entrepreneurship, they discuss loan agreements with their parents, who provide capital funds as a loan.

“Students then apply for a ‘business license’ and begin gathering supplies and creating products at home, with a goal of making at least 50 items to sell. In class, students design logos, create advertising materials, and film commercials using video editing software.

“They also earn Vesely Bucks – our classroom currency – to pay for business expenses like booth rental, advertising, and supplies.”

This is third grade, mind you – and it’s one big reason Stephany Vesely is one of 12 instructors across the country named 2025 Christian Teacher of the Year by the Herzog Foundation, publisher of The Lion.

Sowing seeds of capitalism 

Vesely’s mini-mall, which started in just her classroom, has become a big event in the parish hall with parents and parishioners shopping her students’ wares.

And while her kids learn all about the practicality and positivity of profit, all proceeds from the mini-mall are donated to charity – which teaches them about the beauty and necessity of giving.

Moreover, not having known much about it even as she entered marriage, Vesely says it’s vital to teach kids how to handle money. “I just feel like this teaches them that money is necessary, buying and spending is necessary. But there’s a way to do it to be smart.”

Just as important, though, is her kids’ firsthand knowledge of, and appreciation for, free-market capitalism, especially when so many youths look askance at it – while looking down at the smart phones capitalism produced.

“I want them to know that nobody’s just going to give you everything when you’re a grownup. I mean, maybe parents do now, but if you want something great, you really have to work for it.”

An even bigger mission

But even all that instruction in the free market – which is desperately needed to turn the tide against socialist/communist sympathies among the young – isn’t her most urgent message she has for her students.

“The most important lesson I want my students to learn is this: the way of the cross is not the easy path and will not make you comfortable. Following Jesus will not make you popular and will not be easy. But it will be worth it. I know in my heart that that is why I’m here, and that is why I teach in a Catholic school.

“My mission is not test scores. My mission is heaven.

“The world constantly attempts to redefine right and wrong, but as followers of Christ, we are called to live by His truth. By equipping them with a biblical worldview, I prepare them to face the world with courage and conviction, knowing that their true reward is not found in earthly success but in the promise of eternity with God.”

How do our young ever navigate such a hazardous strait of a world without that biblical worldview?

“I honestly don’t know, because I feel like there is so much brokenness in this world and so much suffering and so much pain and hurt,” Vesely tells The Lion. “I don’t know how you could navigate things without it, because we all have something in our heart that we’re searching for, and we think that all of these things of this world are going to fill those holes.

What will complete you

“But the only thing that’s going to fill it is Jesus. And that is the peace in our heart that we’re really looking for. And I want my students to just realize that. I want them to know that nothing in this world is going to complete you.

“When you get that thing that you want so badly and you just think that everything will be so much better when you have it, that wears off. Everything that we want, everything that we want to do, every place we want to go, eventually that excitement, we get tired of it. We get tired of the new toy we got for Christmas, and we go on to the next thing.

“I always bring that up with my students and we talk about just that – that longing in our heart for something, it’s not of this world. Even the third graders, I want them to recognize that. I want them to recognize that a lot of adults don’t even know this. There are so many adults in our world that are going around filling it with other things.”

The search for meaning

Vesely calls to mind C.S. Lewis’ oft-quoted passage in Mere Christianity: “All that we call human history – money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery – is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

The quote resonates with Vesely because, as a mere holiday churchgoer growing up, then weekly churchgoer who still felt a void – and even anger at God for her family’s intense struggles with fate – she found revelation during a 2014 visit to the Vatican.

“It is unbelievable,” she glows. “I mean, I can’t even put into words how amazing it is and how beautiful, and just the rich history. Something changed after that. It kind of lit a fire in me. As a family, I felt like we became more faithful. We became more intentional about our faith and trying to live out our faith more fully and participate in the sacraments.”

And then there was undoubtedly divine intervention – when, as a public-school teacher at the time, she half-joked to the SEAS principal that she could fill the third-grade teaching slot if it ever came open. And it did, the very next year.

Living your faith daily

“So, I started teaching Catholic school at that time, and it just changed everything.

“Everything changes when you live your faith every day, and it’s not just something you do on the weekends. And that completely changed my life. It changed me as a wife. It changed me as a mother. It changed everything.

“In the nine years that I have been teaching Catholic school, I have people ask me all the time if I would ever go back to public, and I always say I cannot take God out of the classroom once I got Him there. I can’t take Him out of the classroom.

“I don’t know how I did this for 14 years without Him.

“How do you teach kids to behave and make good choices and do the right thing when you don’t have our greatest teacher as your model? When we have Jesus as our model, that’s who we should be following.”

The Christian Teacher of the Year honor is part of the Herzog Foundation’s Excellence in Christian Education award series. Each of the 12 winners will attend a special professional development and recognition event in Washington, D.C.