A Unifying Philosophy of Catholic Education


Often we teachers spend all our professional development time working on the nuts and bolts of education. You know, things like backwards design, classroom management, testing, methodology, technology, and any number of other necessary, practical concepts that make education work. As far as education is a science, if all of these components are mastered and balanced across the faculty, the result is a successful school. That is, the result is the production of a student who is prepared to succeed on the next level of education or in the professional world. But as I get older and as I observe the lives of students after they leave my classroom or my school, I am realizing that we are missing something in our professional development. We are missing a unifying philosophy of education that goes beyond the material practices of lesson planning, classroom management, etc…. We need to start thinking of education not only as a science that can be studied, perfected, and replicated, but also as a relationship, in particular, between students and their future self, students and other students, students and teachers, students and the world, and, ultimately, students and God. This concept requires more study…more research.
 
Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Catholic Church in Dublin, Ireland.Blessed John Henry Newman's philosophies of education are part of what made Catholic education, worldwide, as influential as that have been for the last 150 years.
Recently I have started talking with some theologians and educational theorists about the possibility of researching the intersection of Theological Anthropology and Catholic Education along with deeper investigation into the theology of Catholic pedagogical theory and practice. My ultimate goal is to help Catholic schools to define and develop their Catholic identity in dialogue with the modern American educational and cultural landscape. Maybe I will get a chance to work on this in the future.

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