What Makes Education Catholic?

“I’ve been thinking about this book for about forty years,格鲁姆说。, a professor of theology and religious 教育 in the 太阳城网赌平台 School of Theology and Ministry and founding director of the Ph.D. program in theology and 教育. In a recent interview, he recalled an experience he had decades ago in Pakistan. Unlike the Catholic schools he was familiar with in his native Ireland or in the United States, the Pakistani school was staffed predominately by Muslim teachers and the students were also Muslim. Groome has seen a similar phenomenon during visits to Korea and Hong Kong—Catholic schools delivering a Catholic 教育 even though the educators and student body were primarily not Catholic.

“Catholic schools educate from a faith perspective and for a faith perspective,新郎说。. The curriculum of a Catholic school should give students an academically rigorous, 主管, and capable 教育 that prepares them to make a living, 他说, but that also prepares them to have a life grounded in some kind of faith perspective as they engage in the world. He added that it doesn’t mean imposing Catholicism on students, but rather inviting students “to consider a spiritual grounding for their lives in the world that might make their lives a little more meaningful, 有价值的, 有目的的, 道德, and might sustain them in the tough times."

In the face of the declining presence of the ordained and vowed religious in Catholic schools, the key to maintaining the Catholicity, 说基金, is forming and nurturing teachers and staff in the deep values that undergird Catholic 教育 and Catholicism, 比如仁慈, 同情, 正义, 完整性, 真情流露的, 尊重, 关心穷人, and care for the neighbor and the common good. Groome said that a Catholic school also needs its top person to be a spiritual leader who can articulate the school’s faith-based vision, with support from a cadre of faculty and staff who know the charism and can serve as custodians of the institution’s Catholic identity.

In What Makes Education Catholic, Groome offers brief overviews of some of the important voices in the Catholic intellectual tradition and Catholicism, 比如奥古斯丁, 托马斯·阿奎那, 诺里奇的朱利安, 罗耀拉的依纳爵, 安吉拉Merici, 玛丽·沃德. He shows how these foremothers and forefathers of Catholic 教育 can ground and shape the spirituality of Catholic educators in today’s postmodern world. These foundations ensure that Catholic schools deliver the 教育 they promise to students—not only to Catholics but to those of many religious traditions. There are prompts throughout the text that encourage readers to engage in reflection and dialogue. Catholic 教育 is best realized in practice, Groome said. It is seen in “how teachers go about teaching and principals go about administering schools: the environment, 大气中, and values the school reflects in its own way of being.”

Groome would like to see his book become a catalyst for a fresh conversation among Catholic educators around the world, and since its publication in November, he’s been contacted about it by teachers and principals from Canada to Australia. “There is great purpose in Catholic schools; they are the Catholic Church’s contribution to the common good,新郎说。, “and they have never been more needed.”