The partnership between school and family has always been at the forefront of the minds of educators for as long as I can remember. So many meetings over the years have I quotes - " you are your child's first educator' and we are 'working together'. Both important points and still have an impact on the schooling of students today, yet after reading this chapter the difficulties of moving the students into the third form really hits home.
The quote 'You can't be Catholic on your own' struck a chord with me when I was reading the chapter - the sense of being in communion / in community with others is so important to our faith and was very much reinforced within this chapter.
The diagram on page 38 that described the three models is very easy to understand - model 2 being the one I feel many students (my own children included) may have of the church. It is within school that the church comes alive for them in the form of outreach programs, or programs that allow them to live out their faith. Maybe the missing element is seen in the second chapter 'Charity and Justice'. I wonder if time for reflection directed and connected them to the 'Catholic traditions and theology ' of why we are asked to complete acts of outreach. I wonder how many opportunities are lost where we can guide the students to a deeper understanding of the 'why', especially in the busyness of our lives when we feel pressured to move on to the next event. How important is it to stop and allow the students the space to make those connections and question the why.
Both chapters also highlighted the need for all teachers to be living witnesses of our faith and have a deep understanding of the traditions and beliefs within our faith.
The third model - Growing Church out of school is so important to achieve. The journey towards this model presents many challenges especially with the way schools (primary) are organised presently. I wonder how this will evolve as we move forward.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
Chapter 3 delves deeper in the difference between the 'Bypass' and 'Engage' approaches and also reinforces the need to reduc... -
The first chapter focuses heavily on reducing change to increase improvement. The most interesting point I took out of th...
Some great questions Leanda. I wonder if the involvement of the clery in the life of the school is a key factor here? Does it make a difference if they regularly see father? I am trying to reflect on what made a difference for us and how we arrived at our present faith journey.
ReplyDeleteWhile I love Fr Bob visiting I am not sure that the students make the connection with Parish. Not having our church on site makes this even more of a challenge (this was however the case with my own primary school as well). Having our school community belonging to so many different parishes only adds to the complication. In our day all the students belonged to predominately the same parish. My own siblings were all bought up in the same household, attended the same schools yet out of the 5 of us only 3 regularly attend Mass and are involved with our parishes. The other 2 have moved in and out of the church usually around the time their children attended Catholic schools. Does this make any of us better Catholics??
DeleteI agree with you Leanda my children fit into the model 2 as well. However I see that with their own life experiences and what the family and schools provided them as part of their journey. My son,at age 36, has recently taken on spending time with disabled people, helping them achieve some life skills around acceptable social norms. He takes them on public transport and takes them to activites giving their families some respite care. He also does the soup kitchen once a month in Parramatta. While my children may not be as churched as I would have liked I believe that being a good human being is more important.
ReplyDeleteI can see how my children were only engaged with the Church while at school and this engagement has not progressed beyond their school years however they have been involved with BIRDs and Saturday sports with children with disabilities. Is this church for them? It is a different way of living their faith? Is attending Mass enough? Don't we want more from our Catholic identity?
ReplyDelete