Are you a Catholic educator? Teach at a Catholic school! Teachers play a vital role in ensuring a school’s Catholic identity. With them lies the primary responsibility for creating a unique Christian school climate, as individuals and as a community. The Holy See’s documents pay considerable attention to the vocation of teachers and their specific participation in the Church’s mission. Yours is a calling and not simply the exercise of a profession.
Practising Catholics committed to the Church and living her sacramental life are particularly suited to teach in a Catholic school. Catholic schools need teachers with a clear and precise understanding of the specific nature and role of Catholic education. Catholic education is strengthened by its “martyrs”, a word that means, in the original sense, “witnesses”.
Children will pick up far more by example than by masterful pedagogical techniques, especially in the practice of Christian virtues. Educators at every level in the Church are expected to be models for their students by bearing transparent witness to the Gospel. If boys and girls are to experience the splendour of the Church, the Christian example of teachers and others responsible for their formation is crucial.
The words of Pope Saint Paul VI ring true today: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses”. What teachers do and how they act are more significant than what they say – inside and outside the classroom. That’s how the Church evangelizes. “The more completely an educator can give concrete witness to the model of the ideal person [Christ] that is being presented to the students, the more this ideal will be believed and imitated”.
The Archdiocesan Commission for Catholic Schools (ACCS) is building a database of Catholic educators in our diocese. This is to enable us to reach out to you, through Sowers, our monthly EDM, regarding formation programmes for Catholic educators as well as other related matters, such as the annual MOE Posting Exercise.
For the upcoming MOE Posting Exercise, ACCS has worked with our MOE-Govt Aided schools to compile a list of vacant teaching positions in our Catholic Schools for 2025. If you are an MOE educator and are interested to apply for these positions (subject to availability of vacancies and MOE guidelines) please provide your details in this form and we will send you the list in due course.
The Catholic School: Frontlines of Humanistic Education
The future of the Catholic Church in America looks rather bleak, and its decline in influence and status seems to be inevitable. Dr. Stephen Bullivant’s latest course for the Word on Fire Institute, Understanding the “Nones” and How to Reach Them, confirms this all too convincingly. Religious affiliation trends were bad before COVID, but they’re expected to only get worse. Read more.
Pope Francis: A true educator accompanies, listens and dialogues
Before the General Audience on Wednesday, the Pope met with a delegation from the “Global Researchers Advancing Catholic Education Project,” reiterating the importance of a dynamic education. Read more.
Why Catholic Schools Matter
At the beginning of February, the Church in the United States celebrates Catholic Schools Week. I would like to take this opportunity to sing the praises of Catholic schools and to invite everyone—Catholic and non-Catholic alike—to support them. Read more.