Theology of Catholic Pedagogical Theory: What it Means to Teach at a Catholic School

“The trick is teaching our students how to see those moments as gifts from God...as invitations from God to be in a relationship with Him. I am firmly convinced that our role as Catholic school teachers is to walk with these kids as they begin to hear and respond to God's call to know Him and to learn what True Love is.” I had a conversation with a coworker the other day about needing time to step away from lesson plans and daily objective and the like. Even if our lessons and objectives address directly the need to cultivate Love in the classroom and to allow for increased dialogue, unless we actually create the space to make that happen, there is no real point to our lessons or objectives. It is one think to learn about cultivating Love; it is another thing to actually do it. I suppose it is similar to the difference between “book learning” and “experiential learning”. We need both. St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare, Ireland. St. John, himself...

“…reflecting on the person and the God Jesus and who He is and what His mission is can benefit us and our students greatly. As teachers, if we understand God to be Lover and Beloved (St. Augustine) then we start realize that our goal is to form our students in that same image...and to form ourselves. I am convinced that our students (and really everyone) needs to know they are eternally Beloved of God. Our students live in a world that is so demanding and so stressful that they never get a chance to reflect on the Love they already experience in life. In many cases, their teachers may be the only ones who can help them to know this. Of course, as they grow in knowledge of their Belovedness, they also grow in their capacity to Love. It is up to us to "be Christ" for them in the classroom, the halls, the gym, the theater, etc...” Day one for my students: Cultivate Love. What does it look like to be in a classroom where everyone knows they are Loved? What effect does that cl...

“Many students (and people, for that matter) feel unloved. I see it every day in the way a teenager is ignored by her peers or made fun of. But if we are made in the image and likeness of God and if God is, as St. Augustine describes, Lover Beloved, and the Love Between the Father and the Son, then every single one of us, as a matter of Justice, must experience the feeling of being Loved. As teachers, we may be the only ones who can offer that sense of Love to ant given student, no matter how small that Love. To be "Christ-like", as you say, is to be that extension of Love for that student. It is a big calling and difficult some days, but this is what we are here to do.” The primary job of Catholic school faculty, staff, volunteers, etc… is to make sure every student knows they are Loved. The root of all injustice in the world is objectification to the point where the human person believes they are unlovable or unloved…even by God. The teacher I was writing to in this r...

Like most schools, my school has a theme for the year. It is a method to create momentum and a continuum of dialogue throughout the year, connecting the beginning, middle, and end. Pretty standard. This year’s theme is: “Opening Doors”. I think it is a fine theme. Not too strange or esoteric. Easy to access and easy to apply to most aspects of my school. For example, I teach at a co-divisional school with about 1700 students. It is one school with a boys division and a girls division; about 70% of the classes are single-gender. So, the idea of “opening doors”, in the metaphorical sense, works well as we try to centralize curriculum and create more dialogue between the two divisions. I particularly like the language that our new principal uses; he describes the process of “opening doors” as “liminal”. In an anthropological sense, “liminal space” describes a sense of disorientation or confusion one experiences as they move from a space characterized as comfortable or predictable to anot...

“If we are made in the image and likeness of God and if God is "community" (Trinity) then there can be no underestimating the importance of developing relationship among and between students, faculty, and staff at a school (and the world). If we want to "look like God", as is our universal Vocation, then this needs to be a daily goal for all who work in the Church, especially in the schools.”  There must be a connection between the anthropological Truth of the human being and how we learn. Education is a “drawing out” of knowledge or Truth from within the student. It is the forming a relationship between new ideas/concepts and already exiting ontological Truths of the students that she or he may not even know. Education is the discovery of the anthropological and substantial Truth of the human being. Any kind of learning that is not working toward this idea is incomplete. Trinitarian Abbey in Adare, Ireland. To think that Jesus had a mother like any other hum...