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

                Long story short; last June, just a few months after I started writing this blog, I was asked to apply for a PhD program in theology, specifically to research and write about an anthropological and dialogical perspective on Catholic pedagogy. I call it a “Theology of Catholic Pedagogical Theory”. I was quickly accepted to the program, but the timing and the funding wasn’t right, so that is on the backburner right now. In the meantime, I am continuing to write this blog (and three others). My Hope is to use this blog as a sort of sounding board or test-kitchen for ideas that, if I do go back to school, I can properly research and fashion into legitimate theology and/or pedagogy. We’ll see. But I am glad I am writing this; just this last weekend I was having dinner with my wife and her parents, and the conversation turned to Artificial Intelligence. My mother-in-law was talking about how within th...

                “It is not my job to make my students hate Henry James the way I hate Henry James.” Dr. Coia, one of my education professors, gave me this advice. I refuse to use my classroom to promote political or personal ideology. I had a student come to me after school, nearly in tears. As she tells the story, she had come from a class where the teacher consistently seemed to vilify students who disagreed with said teacher’s beliefs. If the purpose of Catholic Education is to help students encounter God and to know their Authentic Self, then I cannot think of a more counter-productive way to do this than to denigrate or cut down our students. Instead of beginning with the presupposition that either one or the other of us present in the classroom is right or wrong, why are we not simply teaching our students to be in dialogue with each other? In this particular case, it was a matter of the teacher having to...

If the very nature of God is relationship (Trinity) then the best way to encounter God is within the context of relationship here on Earth. This is most important in Catholic education in the relationships we have with our students. For many of them, they may never have a chance to experience the Love of God outside of the classroom or outside of our regular encounter with them. How important, then, is it for us to be in good relationship with God.                 But this is not simply relationship with other people. Everything that God creates and everything that is a result of His Creation possesses a sacramental nature. The Creator leaves His fingerprint, so to speak, on His Creation. Though we cannot know God directly by observation, we can certainly know of God through His creation. Just as I may have taught my students in an English class, we may never meet the poet, but we can certain come to know o...

                My professional goal this year is to be more reflective. Reflective teaching, as most educators know, is really just the practice of taking a few moments at the end of the day to produce some sort of artifact demonstrating that you have thought about your lessons that day. Many teachers naturally think about what they have taught. For me, that is usually in the car on the way home while I metaphorically kick myself for not having the best comeback to a snarky comment I got from that one student. It isn’t a productive kind of reflection; you might just categorize it as a sort of “decompression” or “venting” exercise. But this year I have made a promise to myself that I would be more productive in my reflection. The result of my goal-setting, as it turns out, has become another tool for my students.                 At the...

“I know a lot of teachers who basically quoted what the Bible or the Catechism said and they thought that would answer all the questions. They may not have been theologically wrong, but usually they were either trying to give a short answer to a sophisticated question or they were just playing the role of authority and just expecting the kids to take what they respond and then never question again. I probably spend about half my time doing damage control for teachers who gave flippant or incomplete answers to difficult questions in the classroom. ...if you are not sure how to answer the question, it is smart to ask someone who may know the material a bit better. In fact, in my experience, students respond well when you take time to answer their questions. If you answer too quickly or flippantly, they may think you aren't taking them seriously. If you get someone to help you answer, it communicates to them that you want to find the best possible answer. That is a sign of Love for ...

“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...