Catholic School Climate

Imagine a Catholic school without Catholic teachers. You might have desks and books and screens and students but if you take out the teachers there is no Catholic school. At the very heart of what defines a Catholic school is the unique lived witness of the teachers whom Jesus has placed in that unique environment. Listen is as I provide some encouragement about how teachers make all the difference.

Author

Jonathan Doyle

Jonathan Doyle is an international speaker, author, businessman and executive coach who has spoken around the world to more than 400,000 people on topics related to personal development, peak performance, leadership, relationships and much more.

His recent keynote addresses include the NCEA National Convention in St. Louis Missouri to 10,000 delegates and he is a frequent keynote speaker in the US, Asia and Europe.

He is also the founder of an influential education and media business that delivers training content to hundreds of organisations and thousands of individuals around the world on a weekly basis.

Jonathan holds an undergraduate degree in education from the University of Canberra, a Masters Degree in Leadership and Management from the University of Newcastle and has also undertaken post-graduate study in philosophical anthropology.

He is the author of numerous books on relationships and peak performance and each day shares these same ideas with a large global audience via The Daily Podcast with Jonathan Doyle.

Make sure you grab a copy of my new book Finishing Strong. Just click the book image on the left and it will take you straight there.

Finishing Strong is a loud and clear call for every young person to make the very best of their final years of school. Based on hundreds of seminars around the world to a huge number of students Jonathan Doyle offers powerful, practical advice that can make a major difference.

Each chapter offers inspiring stories, clear principles and actionable steps for identifying and moving forward in study, life, friendships and each key area of life.

Jonathan also includes journal questions and guided reflections at the end of each chapter to maximise learning and ensure the ideas and principles can be made real, personal and achievable.

If you want to help your child or students make the very best of their final years of high school then it;s time to help them finish strong!

TRANSCRIPT:

 

Catholic School Climate

 

Jonathan Doyle:
Well, hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you once again. Welcome, friends, to the Catholic Teacher daily podcast. I’ve been doing okay. I hope I can bring you a little bit of encouragement today. I hope you’ve been carrying your vocation. I hope you’re enjoying it. I definitely found when I was teaching Catholic schools, I was tired. It was probably more to do with me, always hustling, pushing, and trying to give 150%. Hopefully for you, there’s still joy there. There’s joy in connection with this important work that you’re doing.

Jonathan Doyle:
Today, I want to share with you just another simple quote from the church documents on education. Always remember if you go to onecatholicteacher.com, and go to the resources tab, you’ll see the Going Deeper program there. Go and check that out. It’s a free trial, a free trial, like three episodes just grab that. It’s an amazing program. A lot of what I’m doing here in the daily podcast comes from the Going Deeper program.

Jonathan Doyle:
Now, today I want to share with you a quote from a great church document in education, Lay Catholics in Schools: Witnesses to Faith. Now, this was written by the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education. I mean, who wouldn’t be Catholic, right? We just have these great names for everything, my gosh. Listen to this beautiful quote, “By their witness and behavior, teachers are of the first importance to impart a distinctive character to Catholic schools.”

Jonathan Doyle:
One of the great things about these church documents is that there’s so much packed into the smallest statements. I’m hoping that happens because the people drafting these are prayerful and really consider what they’re doing. Listen to it again, “By their witness and behavior, teachers are of the first importance to impart a distinctive character to Catholic schools.”

Jonathan Doyle:
Who we are is so central to the experience of everybody in the Catholic school. What we bring as individuals. We create what the documents call a climate. See I always said that if you took all the teachers out of a school, you left all the furniture, all the other stuff, and you left the students, yes, there’d be a riot. But a Catholic school wouldn’t be a Catholic school if you took the teachers out of it. Imagine that.

Jonathan Doyle:
You are the guys that provide the distinctive character. What do we want that character to be? We want it to be the character of Christ. How do we do it? This is so simple. It’s what I teach all over the world. The more that individual Catholic teachers allow the Holy Spirit to shape them and form them in the image of Christ, schools become amazing. The greatest Catholic schools in the country, in the world, are led by men and women who desire to be like Christ. Then they just live, they act, they teach, and they lead, and the school takes on a distinctive character.

Jonathan Doyle:
You see, left to ourselves and our own human nature, we always end up in ambition, power, and all sorts of craziness. The sooner that we allow Christ to be formed in us, how do we do that? It’s simple. We do it through the sacraments. We do it through scripture. We do it through prayer. We do it through Christian community. We make those things important in the Catholic school. Then the Catholic school takes on a distinctive character.

Jonathan Doyle:
Tomorrow I’ll pick up on this a little bit more deeply, but I think that’s a really simple idea worth remembering. That who we are, and what we bring into the Catholic school environment, is what shapes it. Very simple. Let’s be asking Christ to form us, to shape us, to make us more like him, so that we can be a greater blessing to the young people in our lives. All right, that’s it. Please make sure you’ve subscribed to this podcast. It’s very short every day, a little bit of encouragement on your drive to work. Hit subscribe, share this with some people. Everything else is on the website, onecatholicteacher.com.

Jonathan Doyle:
Last thing, I’m thinking of doing some coaching for those in leadership in Catholic schools. If you’re a principal and that’s interesting to you, reach out to me, just send me an email. You can get me at jonathon@onecatholicteacher.com, jonathan@onecatholicteacher.com. Just reach out and say, “Jonathan, I’d like to know more about it.” I think in this COVID recovery, I think our principals and leaders just need a bunch of encouragement and assistance so reach out. If you’re interested in that, we can talk about it. All right, friends, God bless you. Thanks for the amazing work that you do in Catholic education. My name’s Jonathan Doyle, and I’m going to have another message for you tomorrow.