As the lead evaluator of institutions applying for Newman Guide recognition, I often get asked what makes a \u201cNewman Guide\u201d academic program. I want to highlight here some of the most important aspects, drawing from our resources on the K-12 school with principles relevant to all levels of education.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, the curricula of Catholic schools and colleges were much more uniform, often guided by systems developed over centuries by the Jesuits, Benedictines, Dominicans, and other teaching orders and saints. With the rise of public secular education and emphasis on student choice, curricula in the United States have generally became disintegrated with a wider selection of courses, including core liberal arts and sciences but also a variety of electives. The Catholic faith is taught in catechesis and theology courses, but its relevance to other subjects is often tenuous.<\/p>\n
So what meaning does \u201cCatholic education\u201d still have today? Can we identify key elements for every faithful school or college?<\/p>\n
The Cardinal Newman Society\u2019s answer to these questions begins with our Catholic Curriculum Standards. First developed in response to the Common Core Curriculum Standards\u2014which were intended for public secular education but were adopted by many Catholic dioceses\u2014our Catholic standards help shape school curricula for English, history, math, and science and are part of the criteria for school recognition in The Newman Guide.<\/p>\n
But there are also broader principles for Catholic education. These are found in the Church\u2019s many documents on education and in the experience of exemplary institutions.<\/p>\n
Rooted in mission<\/strong><\/p>\n When evaluating an institution\u2019s application for The Newman Guide, the first thing I look at is its mission statement and philosophy of education. What is the purpose or goal of education and what does the school believe about the human person? Do its foundational documents describe what education is for and how a student learns best? These are important, because all curricular offerings should flow from the school\u2019s mission and what it hopes to achieve.<\/p>\n Key aspects of the mission of Catholic education are articulated in Church documents: \u201cTo make disciples of all nations\u201d; to assist the Church in her salvific mission and to evangelize and proclaim the good news; to provide a \u201ccritical, systematic transmission of culture in the light of faith\u201d; integral formation of each student\u2019s physical, moral, intellectual, and spiritual faculties; teaching responsibility and the right use of freedom; and preparing students to fulfill God\u2019s calling in this world, so as to attain the eternal kingdom for which they were created.<\/p>\n More than preparing students for college and career, Catholic education aims for a deeper incorporation into the heart of the Church and the even higher calling of an eternal destiny with God in Heaven. Man was made to worship God in this world to live with Him in the next, and that is what Catholic education is called to help do.<\/p>\n This point should be evident in an institution\u2019s documents and programming. School leaders should hold firmly to an eternal telos when deciding courses, activities, and events for the institution. Bringing this into programs and courses brings students closer to their full human flourishing and helps them be leaven in this world and joyful apostles for the Lord.<\/p>\n Human education<\/strong><\/p>\n Schools and colleges included in The Newman Guide hold an educational philosophy based on a clearly articulated Christian anthropology. If they don\u2019t understand the human person, they won\u2019t get their educational programming right. It\u2019s important first to articulate what beliefs the school holds about the human person and how students learn best, and to see how these beliefs align with Church teaching and proven educational practice.<\/p>\n Is each student valued as a person for their inherent worth, made in the image and likeness of God and invited into communion with Him? How is this lived out daily in the school or college? A fallible nature, elevated by God\u2019s grace and personal fortitude, should be the starting point for student formation. Each student should be viewed as a unified body, mind, and spirit with an intellect and a will capable of improvement and growth. Other questions to consider:<\/p>\n Catholic education should embrace learning theories that attend to the abilities of students as creative, imaginative, logical, emotional, adaptable, and spiritual human beings capable of finding and entering into the truths about reality. Students should also be taught that that faith is a valid way of knowing.<\/p>\n Thinking with faith<\/strong><\/p>\n St. John Paul II taught that:<\/p>\n \u201cFaith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth\u2014in a word, to know himself\u2014so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Catholic education looks to both faith and reason to attain understanding beyond simple knowledge. \u201cWhat does our faith have to teach us about this or that?\u201d should be an instructional methodology included in all academic disciplines, which still retain their own particular methods of inquiry. The pursuit of truth is a hallmark of Catholic education, and contemporary educational methodologies designed to confine students to only thinking about an author\u2019s position and not how that position relates to Church social and moral teaching, or how it makes us feel, or contrary positions, or personal experience are to be avoided.<\/p>\n As students in Catholic education are taught to think with the certainty of faith, they are also being formed in the acquisition of moral and intellectual virtue, even at the college level. Some Catholic schools choose to incorporate virtue programs as separate curricular offerings, while others incorporate virtue through content-rich literature including the Good and Great Books\u2014texts that have stood the test of time, because of their consideration of the perennial triumphs and foibles of man. Catholic colleges include virtue formation in student life programming, such as holding Theology of the Body seminars or promoting households that exemplify saints and their qualities.<\/p>\n In whatever way, the moral virtues taught to students stem from the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance as elevated by God\u2019s grace and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. These are distinctively different from the qualities and characteristics of the learner taught in public education. For instance, the International Baccalaureate program\u2019s learner profile is designed to make students \u201cinquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced, and reflective.\u201d There\u2019s nothing wrong with any of that, but it\u2019s insufficient for Catholic education\u2019s purpose of training students in virtue so as to attain the eternal kingdom and not just maintain amiable relationships in the here and now.<\/p>\n Catholic education also cultivates the intellectual virtues, including art, prudence, understanding, science, and wisdom<\/em>. This is what makes a Catholic education unique\u2014it reaches toward the transcendent, especially in teaching wisdom and asking life\u2019s deepest questions. All courses can employ philosophical questioning, such as, \u201cWhy is man the only rational creature? What is man\u2019s place in the universe? Why is this or that the way it is?\u201d These help students grasp the relationship between humanity and existential realities. Methodologies should provide opportunities for students to wonder about higher things, and philosophical questioning helps with this. It fosters student engagement and, to paraphrase St. Thomas Aquinas, the water of philosophy brings out the wine in theology. Philosophical questioning leads us to the truth of a thing, and that ultimately leads us to Truth Himself, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n Integrated curriculum<\/strong><\/p>\n All courses should be taught, as much as possible, in an interdisciplinary fashion. This means that when a subject or concept under discussion moves beyond the confines of the discipline, it is not tossed aside as inconsequential but explored for the understanding it can bring to the subject at hand. St. John Henry Cardinal Newman stated in Idea of a University<\/em>, \u201cAll branches of knowledge are connected together, because the subject-matter of knowledge is intimately united in itself, as being the acts and the work of the Creator.\u201d Being open to transcendent truth and objective reality allows each discipline to bear on others for comparison, correction, completeness, and adjustment. Catholic education should include the humanities such as drama, music, and the arts to lift artificial silos of learning and satisfy the aesthetic sense of the human soul.<\/p>\n Academic disciplines within Newman Guide-recognized schools include specific content standards unique to Catholic education and laid out in The Cardinal Newman Society\u2019s Catholic Curriculum Standards, such as \u201cDescribe the importance of thinking with images informed by classic Christian and Western symbols and archetypes\u201d and \u201cExplain the history of the Catholic Church and its impact in human events.\u201d These curricular standards are derived from Church teaching and the expectations of exemplary Catholic colleges. When examining Church documents for aspects of curricular design, we noted that many documents looked to the formation of the student more than specific Catholic content.<\/p>\n For example, mathematics should help a student develop the acuity of precision, determination, inquiry, reasoning, and an appreciation of beauty and God\u2019s orderly design. Science standards include, \u201cTo exhibit a primacy of care and concern about all stages of life\u201d and to \u201cdisplay a deep sense of wonder and delight about the natural universe.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, a curriculum cannot be delivered without a prepared and spiritually formed teacher, who is faithful to the teachings of the Church and practices those teachings daily. Many teachers in the exceptional Newman Guide institutions see teaching as a personal means of sanctification and an answer to a call, not just a profession. They are willing to build a relationship with students and to journey with them as they discover life\u2019s many challenges and delights. It is through a face-to-face, \u201cincarnate education\u201d in an environment that is simple yet beautiful that these relationships are best forged. With a successful curriculum, students are encouraged to wonder, gain wisdom, and worship the one true God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the lead evaluator of institutions applying for Newman Guide recognition, I often get asked what makes a \u201cNewman Guide\u201d academic program. I want to highlight here some of the most important aspects, drawing from our resources on the K-12 school with principles relevant to all levels of education. Traditionally, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7592,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"issue":[246,245],"item_type":[],"coauthors":[67],"class_list":["post-7591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","issue-commentary-higher-ed-curriculum","issue-curriculum"],"yoast_head":"\n\n