Abstract Title
To be or not to be - that is the question: without continual professional development, Catholic primary schools in Ireland, will not be!
Abstract
Catholic primary schools face many external and internal challenges to their existence in Ireland. At the moment, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) are reviewing the national curriculum and an anthropology of the child is absent, there is no mention of the moral, spiritual or religious identity of the child, as there is in the current curriculum. This new curriculum is also planning on removing Religious Education as a curriculum subject from the new curriculum and replacing it with the Patron's programme. This will transfer the responsibility for the religious education of children in schools from the state to the Patron. In this case, the Catholic schools will continue to teach Christian Religious Education as part of its Patron's programme, however, this will now be without the support of the state.
Coupled with these external pressures, there is also the question of capacity on the part of teachers in Catholic primary schools in Ireland (they form 89% of the schools in the state) to appreciate, understand and further the philosophy and theological underpinnings of Catholic education. In a recent study, over 80 percent of first year students, in a college of initial teacher education, believed in God but only a third of them believed in a personal God (O'Connell, et al. 2018). And while many prayed, very few had a positive understanding or appreciation of the Catholic church’s contribution to society in general. Much of their understanding of faith and belief lacked depth or consideration and might be framed as ‘shy piety’.
Given that the state is now going to hand over responsibility for religious education of children to the Patron and that the state no longer articulates an anthropology that is in keeping with a Catholic understanding of the human person, the time has come for the Catholic church to take on more responsibility in both these areas.
And if it is going to offer a particular vision of education that is now distinct from that of the state, it needs to provide the resources to the teachers and staff to realise this vision, hence the need for continual professional development (CPD). If there is no CPD in the Patron's programme, how will teachers be nourished in teaching this subject? If there is no CPD with regard to the nature and purpose of Catholic education in Ireland today, there will be inevitable mission drift. The Catholic school is on rapidly thinning ice.
b) I would want to ask teachers what is their current experience of teaching in Catholic schools, what are some of the key values at work in their school, how did these values get there, how do they work, what is their effect on the life of the school in general and the children in particular; I would want to know about their experience of teaching religious education, do they teach it, what works well for the children and what is challenging; I would want to know about their understanding of the nature and purpose of the Catholic identity of their school, what is the place of belief in God and who is God for them, how does God work in their lives and the life of the school - is this something they have ever thought about; I would then want to know what they would like to receive by way of CPD with regard to the ethos of the school and/or the provision of the Patron's programme, which in this case, would be Christian Religious Education.
c) There has been some work done with regard to ethos in a couple of dioceses and I could follow into these schools where this work has taken place and conduct some mixed methods research with a view to developing some models of good practice with regard to what CPD might look like in into the future, having established the stated needs of the teachers.
d) I believe that grace is at work throughout all our schools, in so many ways - that it would be wonderful for the staff and teachers in our schools to notice the work of God already going on, the challenge is to learn to 'pay attention' to the present moment that is 'charged with the grandeour of God' (Hopkins). To realise that whatever humanises the person also divinises the person - whatever makes the person more human, more like themselves, is sacred, of God and grace at work, already. And the more our staff and teachers can notice this, then the more they can co operate with it in an intentional and deliberate manner.
Bibliography
O’Connell, D., Ryan, M., and Harmon, M. (2018) “Will we have teachers for Catholic primary schools in Ireland?” in Whittle, S., (ed.) What ought to be happening in RE in Catholic schools? Perspectives from England, Ireland and Scotland, London: Peter Lang.
To be or not to be - that is the question: without continual professional development, Catholic primary schools in Ireland, will not be!
Catholic primary schools face many external and internal challenges to their existence in Ireland. At the moment, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) are reviewing the national curriculum and an anthropology of the child is absent, there is no mention of the moral, spiritual or religious identity of the child, as there is in the current curriculum. This new curriculum is also planning on removing Religious Education as a curriculum subject from the new curriculum and replacing it with the Patron's programme. This will transfer the responsibility for the religious education of children in schools from the state to the Patron. In this case, the Catholic schools will continue to teach Christian Religious Education as part of its Patron's programme, however, this will now be without the support of the state.
Coupled with these external pressures, there is also the question of capacity on the part of teachers in Catholic primary schools in Ireland (they form 89% of the schools in the state) to appreciate, understand and further the philosophy and theological underpinnings of Catholic education. In a recent study, over 80 percent of first year students, in a college of initial teacher education, believed in God but only a third of them believed in a personal God (O'Connell, et al. 2018). And while many prayed, very few had a positive understanding or appreciation of the Catholic church’s contribution to society in general. Much of their understanding of faith and belief lacked depth or consideration and might be framed as ‘shy piety’.
Given that the state is now going to hand over responsibility for religious education of children to the Patron and that the state no longer articulates an anthropology that is in keeping with a Catholic understanding of the human person, the time has come for the Catholic church to take on more responsibility in both these areas.
And if it is going to offer a particular vision of education that is now distinct from that of the state, it needs to provide the resources to the teachers and staff to realise this vision, hence the need for continual professional development (CPD). If there is no CPD in the Patron's programme, how will teachers be nourished in teaching this subject? If there is no CPD with regard to the nature and purpose of Catholic education in Ireland today, there will be inevitable mission drift. The Catholic school is on rapidly thinning ice.
b) I would want to ask teachers what is their current experience of teaching in Catholic schools, what are some of the key values at work in their school, how did these values get there, how do they work, what is their effect on the life of the school in general and the children in particular; I would want to know about their experience of teaching religious education, do they teach it, what works well for the children and what is challenging; I would want to know about their understanding of the nature and purpose of the Catholic identity of their school, what is the place of belief in God and who is God for them, how does God work in their lives and the life of the school - is this something they have ever thought about; I would then want to know what they would like to receive by way of CPD with regard to the ethos of the school and/or the provision of the Patron's programme, which in this case, would be Christian Religious Education.
c) There has been some work done with regard to ethos in a couple of dioceses and I could follow into these schools where this work has taken place and conduct some mixed methods research with a view to developing some models of good practice with regard to what CPD might look like in into the future, having established the stated needs of the teachers.
d) I believe that grace is at work throughout all our schools, in so many ways - that it would be wonderful for the staff and teachers in our schools to notice the work of God already going on, the challenge is to learn to 'pay attention' to the present moment that is 'charged with the grandeour of God' (Hopkins). To realise that whatever humanises the person also divinises the person - whatever makes the person more human, more like themselves, is sacred, of God and grace at work, already. And the more our staff and teachers can notice this, then the more they can co operate with it in an intentional and deliberate manner.
Bibliography
O’Connell, D., Ryan, M., and Harmon, M. (2018) “Will we have teachers for Catholic primary schools in Ireland?” in Whittle, S., (ed.) What ought to be happening in RE in Catholic schools? Perspectives from England, Ireland and Scotland, London: Peter Lang.