An alternative Catholic vision of teaching

Published on Wednesday 11 May 2005 00:30

I WISH TO offer a handful of thoughts. You may find some challenging, but I offer them to you in a spirit of genuine affection and a deep pastoral concern for yourselves as leaders in our Church.

1Leaders are only followed when they are regarded as "authentic", when they have credibility for being faithful to their creed: "walking the walk" as well as "talking the talk". In the community of faith and learning which you are leading, how "authentic" are you in being a witness to your faith? How does your own prayer-life manifest itself in the life of the school? Would staff and pupils recognise you as a spiritual person, someone who sets aside time to nourish a personal relationship with God?

Do you feel comfortable in leading others in prayer or do you prefer to delegate that task? Do you ensure pupils and staff are given opportunities to experience prayer in meaningful ways? You need to nourish your personal spirituality if you are to offer nourishment to others.

2How confident are you in your knowledge of the faith? While you will have had the benefits of a sound education in faith, have you been able to develop your knowledge and understanding of the church’s teaching? Are you familiar with church documents on moral, ethical and social issues? Are you able to develop your knowledge and understanding by reading Catholic journals, textbooks, even newspapers? Are such publications available in your school? Do you regard this as a priority for your professional development?

3How confident are you that your overall school community takes seriously its mission to be "at the heart of the church" - a phrase is used in The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium, issued by the Congregation for Catholic Education in 1998?

The document asks you to ensure this mission can be seen as "a distinctive characteristic which penetrates and informs every moment of its educational activity, a fundamental part of its very identity and the focus of its mission".

I commend the Charter for Catholic Schools in Scotland which illustrates the key characteristics the Bishops would expect to find in any Catholic school taking its mission seriously. I urge you to use this in your school not as another document but your main reference point for evaluating your school’s success in offering effective Catholic education.

This will require detailed consideration of how your school provides "an inclusive ethos which honours the life, dignity and voice of each person". This gets to the heart of relationships in your school community and reflects the values and attitudes displayed by all staff, by students and by parents. It will also involve you in articulating how the school shows a "commitment to the search for wisdom in life" in an age when success is often measured in material terms.

4How are the values of the gospel understood, taught and lived in your school community? Where are they articulated in your school policies? How much do they influence the daily practice of teachers? To what extent are they evident in all classrooms? How are your pupils helped to appreciate the need for values which are at odds with those which prevail in today’s society? How are they led to understand the importance of absolute truths in an era when everything seems to be relative; when personal convenience has displaced moral understanding as the guiding principle in many lives?

5My final thought relates to what is becoming a significant testing ground for our claims to provide a distinctive form of education. I refer to the developing sexual health agenda. You will recall the build-up to the publication of the Scottish Executive strategy to improve the nation’s sexual health. The church responded quite robustly to the draft strategy document, offering a vision of sexuality which was much more ennobling of the person and less obsessed with issues of sexual identity. But we took part in the debate in a measured manner and responded constructively.

Ahead of publication of the final strategy, the media were suggesting the church would opt schools out of sex education altogether and they predicted a mighty fall-out.

When the document Respect and Responsibility was published and we responded by welcoming many of the revisions to the draft document, the media suggested a conspiracy, that the Executive had "submitted" to church pressure and watered down its proposals. There were voices which called for a withdrawal of funding from Catholic schools if we didn’t "deliver exactly the same services as every other school".

This showed ignorance of the McCabe report and subsequent guidance which governs the conduct of sex education in schools. From this it is clear the church has the right to provide guidance to schools on the teaching of sex education and the headteacher is responsible for determining the content and delivery of sex education, in accord with the values of the school community.

These are important guarantees which ensure that you have control over the approaches taken in your school to deliver appropriate relationships and moral education for young people. To that end I am pleased at the progress being made to develop further support for teachers and schools.

However, it is clear to me that we need to remain vigilant in this area. I fear that this will be particularly vital where health boards or local councils may be pushing an agenda which fails to take into account our own Christian understanding of the person and of sexuality. It appears some agencies, in their legitimate determination to reduce teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, appear only to be treating the symptoms of the problem rather than addressing its root causes. What we need to do is to change behaviour, to challenge young people to respect themselves and others, and to teach them how to consider the moral consequences of their actions.

There are already signs some agencies are determined to promote a "safe sex" message to all young people, irrespective of their age, schooling or religious belief. This will impact on your school to some extent. I commend the brochure recently published by SCES on Understanding Relationships and Moral Education. This provides clear guidance on how to agree protocols with various agencies who are asked to respect our values in the provision of any information to young people. It also makes clear the vital role you and your staff need to play in guiding young people. I urge you to ensure staff are familiar with it, and take the opportunities which will be provided to support and develop their own understanding. This is a very important issue which will affect the lives of our young people and the welfare of families. We need to show that the Catholic school is offering them an alternative vision to what is on offer elsewhere.