Le Chéile – Issue 22• By identifying, exploring and promoting ways in which this vision can be lived in Catholic schools.
• By seeking to empower teachers with a renewed and revitalised sense of the spirituality and vocational nature of teaching.
• By aiming to encourage and inform practitioners in Catholic education locally.
This edition’s editorial is entitled: ‘Delighting in Spiritual Discovery’.
It reads as follows:
Time and again these pages have sought to remind and gently challenge both schools and teachers to keep the full dimensions of Catholic education to the fore in their life and work. Because schools are so busy coping with the increasing demands of teaching, curricular change, assessment and a myriad of other concerns, there can be a temptation to accept passively such developments and, indeed, those in wider society, without much reflection or critique. This is a pity. A truly Catholic education can never settle for the limited horizons of school league tables, meeting the next general inspection and a tired resignation to social and cultural trends.
While we indeed rightly strive to make our schools real centres of Gospel values, of Christian life and faith, neither is it our role, however, to shield students from challenges to belief. Rather, our great goal is to help them and teach them to respond constructively to whatever comes their way. Thus Catholic educators, living out our baptismal calling, our personal vocations, join with Jesus, the Great Teacher, in gently and respectfully seeking out, inviting and accompanying the young people in our care in our respective schools. I think we do this in three ways. First, we stand strong in faith, trusting in the integrity of our beliefs in Jesus and the distinctive mission of our schools. Second, we need to be open to criticism, acknowledging that we as Catholics, both institutionally and personally, often fall short, at times scandalously so, of Christ’s call to love and service. We need to wrestle with this truth, to read and study, to inform our thought and practice so that Catholic teachers can respond to young people’s questioning more effectively and credibly. Third, we must seek to help our students to discover and become more attentive, most especially in these secular times, to the movement of the Spirit in their own lives, hence the importance of daily prayer, liturgy, retreats and reflection in school, and outreach to the poor both at home and overseas.
Perhaps the best we can do is to model a reflective way of being in our own interaction with them, sharing something of our own spiritual experience and journey in our teaching and classroom prayers and assemblies. Really good teachers delight in seeing the light of discovery in their pupils’ and students’ eyes, and this should be as true of the spiritual dimensions as it is of other aspects of learning.
This edition, as ever, seeks to help us reflect on and understand better some dimensions of our changing schools and society.
The articles are as follows:
- Margaret Martin reviews the changing face of Catholic trusteeship and underlines the importance of
recognising and nurturing the distinctive identity of the Catholic school.
- Fr Martin Boland wrestles with the ways that developments in information technology are radically
changing life today, both in the classroom and beyond.
- The indefatigable Sr Mary Dolores Sweeney underlines the importance of solidarity with the poor as
she gives an eyewitness account of the Ebola crisis in West Africa.
- Dr Maureen Glackin entreats teachers to be risk-takers who teach experientially, evoking fuller pupil
learning.
- Dr Matthew Martin, in a Christmas thought, reminds us that the teacher cannot be content with
“taught facts” which do not enter the heart.
- Fr Tomás Ó Caoimh introduces some of the great, early medieval saints of Ulster, indicating that they
would be suitable figures for school projects.
- Dr Geraldine Magennis outlines her imaginative approach to developing further her student teachers’
abilities to engage pupils with good children’s literature.
- Dr Eibhlin Mhic Aoidh reflects on a recent PGCE field trip to the Donegal Gaeltacht as a team-building
exercise.
- Finally, student teacher Conor Bradley discusses the indomitable spirit of the poor people among
whom he worked in the Philippines last summer, and a secondary school student, Ellen McCrory,
briefly speaks of her personal faith journey to date.
Happy Christmas!
recognising and nurturing the distinctive identity of the Catholic school.
- Fr Martin Boland wrestles with the ways that developments in information technology are radically
changing life today, both in the classroom and beyond.
- The indefatigable Sr Mary Dolores Sweeney underlines the importance of solidarity with the poor as
she gives an eyewitness account of the Ebola crisis in West Africa.
- Dr Maureen Glackin entreats teachers to be risk-takers who teach experientially, evoking fuller pupil
learning.
- Dr Matthew Martin, in a Christmas thought, reminds us that the teacher cannot be content with
“taught facts” which do not enter the heart.
- Fr Tomás Ó Caoimh introduces some of the great, early medieval saints of Ulster, indicating that they
would be suitable figures for school projects.
- Dr Geraldine Magennis outlines her imaginative approach to developing further her student teachers’
abilities to engage pupils with good children’s literature.
- Dr Eibhlin Mhic Aoidh reflects on a recent PGCE field trip to the Donegal Gaeltacht as a team-building
exercise.
- Finally, student teacher Conor Bradley discusses the indomitable spirit of the poor people among
whom he worked in the Philippines last summer, and a secondary school student, Ellen McCrory,
briefly speaks of her personal faith journey to date.
For further information please contact Rev. Dr Niall Coll at 028 90268262.