In this thought-provoking podcast episode, distinguished global Catholic speaker, Jonathan Doyle, delves into the profound concept of a Catholic school, as exemplified by the Church’s teaching on its three core aspects. Drawing inspiration from the Church’s wisdom, Jonathan takes listeners on a transformative journey that goes beyond mere knowledge, uncovering the holistic approach of Catholic education.
The episode centers on the Church’s powerful quote, highlighting the seamless integration of learning and formation within the educational project of a Catholic school. Jonathan masterfully guides listeners to understand that a Catholic school is not merely a place for acquiring facts, but a sacred space where students are nurtured in both knowledge and wisdom. The various school subjects are not limited to the transfer of information but are also vehicles for inculcating essential values and unearthing profound truths.
As Jonathan weaves through his engaging discourse, listeners will explore the three core aspects that define the essence of a Catholic school:
- A Search for Truth: The podcast unveils the significance of creating an atmosphere in a Catholic school characterized by the pursuit of truth. Beyond imparting knowledge, the school becomes a beacon of curiosity and exploration, where students are encouraged to seek truth in all aspects of life. Educators, dedicated and coherent, serve as refections of the one Teacher – Jesus Christ, illuminating the path towards wisdom and understanding.
- Integration of Learning and Formation: Jonathan emphasizes the inseparable nature of learning and formation in a Catholic school. The episode sheds light on how students are not only recipients of knowledge but also participants in a transformative journey of personal growth and character development. Here, education transcends the classroom, nurturing the whole person in mind, body, and spirit.
- Values and Truths: Delving deeper into the Church’s teaching, Jonathan reflects on the crucial role of Catholic education in instilling enduring values and discovering profound truths. The podcast explores how students are not only prepared for academic success but also equipped with a moral compass to navigate the complexities of life.
Join us as Jonathan Doyle unravels the beauty and richness of a Catholic school’s educational project. Listen in as he explores the transformative impact of an education that goes beyond knowledge and fosters wisdom and character. Through captivating insights and personal anecdotes, Jonathan inspires educators, parents, and students to embrace the profound mission of Catholic education and its role in shaping compassionate, knowledgeable, and virtuous individuals. Prepare to be enlightened and encouraged as we delve into the heart of Catholic education and its transformative power in nurturing young minds and hearts.
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Transcript
Well, hello, my friend, Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome back to the almost daily Catholic teacher podcast.
Speaker:We do try to get to it as often as possible.
Speaker:Because you matter because the work that you are doing every
Speaker:single day is incredibly important.
Speaker:The longer I live, the more convinced I am of this every single
Speaker:day, that one Catholic teacher can make the most profound difference
Speaker:in the life of any young person.
Speaker:So thank you.
Speaker:As always for what you're doing every single day today.
Speaker:We're going to talk a little bit about that.
Speaker:Uh, in terms of housekeeping as always, please make sure you've
Speaker:subscribed to the podcast.
Speaker:If you like what you're hearing, I'd love.
Speaker:If you could share this with people, throw it on your social feed, send it around.
Speaker:It does make a difference as it grows.
Speaker:As we reach more Catholic teachers.
Speaker:I'm back speaking again.
Speaker:So there'll be links here.
Speaker:If you would like to book me to speak live, there is plenty of good stuff there.
Speaker:I think we've got a new webpage yet now, a new main speaking page for me.
Speaker:So hopefully I've got that in the links.
Speaker:By the time you're hearing this.
Speaker:My friend today, I want to share with you one of my all time.
Speaker:Absolute favorite quotes about Catholic education.
Speaker:And I hope it will be an encouragement to you.
Speaker:I actually shared this with some senior educational leaders
Speaker:in some meetings last week.
Speaker:It's one of those quotes that over the years has just stayed in my mind.
Speaker:It's a lodged there in a incapable of being removed as the years
Speaker:passed, because I think it goes to the heart of what we really need
Speaker:to be about in Catholic education.
Speaker:It's a quote from the document, the Catholic school.
Speaker:On the threshold of the third millennium.
Speaker:It's an important document, but this quote always stayed with me.
Speaker:Let me share this with you.
Speaker:Now.
Speaker:It says this.
Speaker:In the Catholic schools, educational project.
Speaker:There is no separation between time for learning.
Speaker:And time for formation.
Speaker:Between acquiring notions.
Speaker:And growing in wisdom.
Speaker:The various school subjects do not present only knowledge to be
Speaker:obtained, but also values to be acquired and truths to be discovered.
Speaker:All of which demands an atmosphere.
Speaker:Characterized by the search for truth.
Speaker:In which competent.
Speaker:Convinced and coherent educators.
Speaker:Teachers of learning and life.
Speaker:Maybe your reflection.
Speaker:Albeit imperfect, but still vivid.
Speaker:Of the one teacher.
Speaker:So there's a fair bit in there, but don't just want to draw your
Speaker:attention to three kind of themes that emerge in these sentences.
Speaker:The first one is this important point about there being no separation.
Speaker:Between time for learning and time for formation.
Speaker:One of the challenges I think we have in this commercialization of education,
Speaker:this factory model of modern education, which is I've said before is essentially
Speaker:based on the Prussian military system.
Speaker:If you haven't heard me talk about that before there is
Speaker:extensive evidence that the.
Speaker:Kind of the school systems that we inhabit these days.
Speaker:Didn't pop into existence.
Speaker:Out of nowhere, they were very much based deliberately on the Prussian
Speaker:military model of the late 19th century, in terms of things like lining
Speaker:up bells, order control, all these different things that formed education
Speaker:as it emerged into the 20th century.
Speaker:And we've still got so many of those things with us.
Speaker:We have these, this sort of structure, but I keep calling the factory model where.
Speaker:We ship inputs in.
Speaker:And then they shipped out.
Speaker:Now I know that's not how you approach education because you're
Speaker:listening to a podcast like this.
Speaker:But unfortunately there's a lot of compartmentalization
Speaker:happening in education where we do education to young people.
Speaker:We bring the inputs in, we process the inputs and we get input inputs out.
Speaker:And that's why this line here.
Speaker:Here, where it talks about there being no separation.
Speaker:Between time for learning and time for formation, it's really important.
Speaker:We don't have these boxes in a Catholic school where we do education to students.
Speaker:And then we do other things, the Catholic educational project.
Speaker:Is like a seamless garment, if you will, it's this process by which.
Speaker:Young people are this, this integral formation idea, right?
Speaker:This idea that, that the person of Christ is present right throughout the school
Speaker:day, that our vision of what it means to be human, how we see young people.
Speaker:Isn't just like, well, now we're going to do math to them.
Speaker:And now we're going to do English literature to them.
Speaker:And, uh, and occasionally we're going to talk about their behavior.
Speaker:It's like, there's no separation.
Speaker:That all of our interactions with students.
Speaker:And hopefully as we build a community in our school, a good Catholic
Speaker:community, all of our students' interactions with each other.
Speaker:Also begin to blend into this.
Speaker:Seamless process of formation of the human person.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:The intellectual formation.
Speaker:But yes, also the moral and the spiritual formation as well.
Speaker:So that's the first part that we want to.
Speaker:Get away from this compartmentalization.
Speaker:And as we go into our work each day, we want to sense that what
Speaker:we are doing is sort of spreading across the entire school day.
Speaker:Each conversation, each interaction are all important.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:The second key theme in this quote was when my absolute favorites,
Speaker:where it talks about teachers.
Speaker:In a Catholic school, people like you, my friend being referred to as
Speaker:competent convinced and coherent.
Speaker:That's the part that has stayed with me all these years,
Speaker:competent, convinced and coherent.
Speaker:Of course, we want Catholic teachers who are competent.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:It's not enough just to, to love the Lord.
Speaker:It's it's it's also important that we are masters of our disciplines because.
Speaker:The more skilled we are, the more competent we are, the more we can be a
Speaker:blessing to the young people in our care.
Speaker:So I want to be competent.
Speaker:We never want to walk into a classroom, you know, radically unprepared.
Speaker:I know there's times when we're.
Speaker:Super busy and there's a lot happening and maybe one lesson isn't as
Speaker:magnificent as the one that proceeded it.
Speaker:Whole, perhaps as magnificent as the one that will follow it.
Speaker:But what matters in general is this competency, this desire to master our
Speaker:craft so that in mastering our craft, we can truly serve young people.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So that's competent.
Speaker:The next part is convinced that we want to make sure that, uh,
Speaker:that the truths of the faith.
Speaker:That the good news that the charisma that the gospel has
Speaker:truly become central to our lives.
Speaker:Catholic schools are not like other schools.
Speaker:It's it is essentially impossible to be a Catholic educator.
Speaker:If you're not convinced.
Speaker:Of the truths of the faith.
Speaker:The incarnation who Christ city is what he undertook in this world.
Speaker:The meaning of his passion, the establishment of his church.
Speaker:The beauty of the sacraments, the teaching magisterium of the
Speaker:church throughout the centuries.
Speaker:If we're not convinced of these things, then it is very
Speaker:difficult for us to be motivated.
Speaker:Excited and passionate about the work that we're doing is we want to be competent.
Speaker:We want to be convinced.
Speaker:And most importantly, we want to be coherent.
Speaker:Coherent means that our lifestyle.
Speaker:What's happening in our private lives is not radically in opposition.
Speaker:To what we are saying by being a Catholic teacher, I really feel
Speaker:you feel very strongly about this.
Speaker:I don't think it's possible to be a Catholic teacher.
Speaker:If your private life is utterly incoherent, as it relates to the faith.
Speaker:This offend some people they're like, well, you know, you can't judge anybody.
Speaker:Jonathan.
Speaker:Um, well, I think, I don't know about that.
Speaker:Not me personally judging people, but this idea that we can have no opinion about
Speaker:other people's choices and behaviors.
Speaker:Uh, I think this idea of nonjudgmental ism can be absolutized to mean
Speaker:that we're not supposed to.
Speaker:I have an opinion about everything.
Speaker:We we're human.
Speaker:We're a human species.
Speaker:We live in community.
Speaker:We live in relationship with each other.
Speaker:So if there are people.
Speaker:In a particular community saying that they believe one thing, but
Speaker:living something completely different that affects the entire community.
Speaker:So a lack of coherence in our personal lives.
Speaker:Can become extremely problematic in our professional lives.
Speaker:I mean, we see it in our political life.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:We, we get, you know, the, the mainstream media gets very up in arms or I don't
Speaker:think they really care personally, but I think it makes great copy.
Speaker:When political leaders get compromised, whether it's corruption
Speaker:or, you know, other things that they get caught out doing.
Speaker:It's like, well, we expect them to be this, but they're
Speaker:doing this in the background.
Speaker:And then of course we get terribly offended, but because we see a lack
Speaker:of coherence, we have an expectation that they'll do one thing, but
Speaker:privately, they're doing another.
Speaker:And so we want, we don't want that because we say to fix the decision
Speaker:making and to fix that there.
Speaker:They're public role.
Speaker:Well, I dunno, I don't really understand.
Speaker:My Catholic education is very different.
Speaker:You know that if we say that we believe these things, but we're
Speaker:acting totally contrary to it.
Speaker:And then we want to pretend that we're going to be able to
Speaker:discharge our vocational duties.
Speaker:So I want to temper this, of course, by saying that we're all
Speaker:sinners and we're all on a path, we're all moving towards wholeness.
Speaker:So I'm not saying in this message that we all have to live it absolutely
Speaker:perfectly, or that we're going to live.
Speaker:It absolutely perfectly.
Speaker:Of course, we're not.
Speaker:But it's the general desire.
Speaker:It's the, you know,
Speaker:There's no great homily the other day where this priest was saying.
Speaker:Look, it's not so much about the sin that may play guy lives.
Speaker:It's about the repentance.
Speaker:It's about constantly moving back towards Christ.
Speaker:So friends.
Speaker:If you're listening to this and you go, Jonathan, I don't think
Speaker:my life's particularly coherent.
Speaker:Well, my friend.
Speaker:Then what matters is the trajectory?
Speaker:What matters is a turning back, a metanoia repentance turning back towards Christ.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So I want to be competent.
Speaker:We want to be convinced of the faith and we want to be coherent.
Speaker:So that's the second great theme out of this very powerful quote.
Speaker:And the last part was just a reminder here where it says that we are reflections it
Speaker:says we are reflections albeit imperfect but still vivid I have the one teacher
Speaker:All right so we got these three to three themes first theme No separation between
Speaker:time for learning and everything else that is about the formation of the person
Speaker:so there's this seamless approach second theme that we're called to be competent
Speaker:convinced and coherent third theme here is that we are called to be reflections
Speaker:albeit imperfect But yet still vivid i like this beautiful language it's like
Speaker:going you know we are a way to reflect christ even if we do it in perfectly
Speaker:we're still examples reflections of the one teacher I think that's something
Speaker:really worth remembering to be.
Speaker:Uh to be examples to remind ourselves every single day as we go about our work
Speaker:that we are Reminders to our students we are I Reflection albeit imperfect but
Speaker:still vivid Of the one great teacher So often it's like well you know we've got
Speaker:so many kids in our schools that aren't catholic these days a really great article
Speaker:about that the other day it's very true depending on where you live you can
Speaker:have many many students coming into your schools who are not Baptized catholics
Speaker:so how do they encounter christ will They encounter christ Through encountering you
Speaker:They encounter christ Through encountering you because there's this beautiful quote
Speaker:says you are a reflection albeit imperfect but yet still vivid Of the one teacher
Speaker:so friends that's three great themes that emerged from this one Very small section
Speaker:of the catholic school on the threshold of the third millennium I hope it's a
Speaker:blessing team Uh, I'm going to go and get prepared for tomorrow's episode i'm
Speaker:gonna bring you some more tomorrow but please make sure you've subscribed And uh
Speaker:and go check out the link so you can book me to speaking at copies of my book It
Speaker:is all there God bless you my friend my name's jonathan doyle this is the catholic
Speaker:teacher almost daily podcast and i'm going to have another message for you tomorrow
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