Parents are the first and foremost educators of their children.<\/p>\n
Catholic educators can sometimes ignore this fact, especially when students appear to lack solid formation and even basic care in the home. Trained to be experts in pedagogy and curriculum, teachers and especially college professors may not think much about what parents want and may regard even simple communications from them as interference and undue distrust of professionals.<\/p>\n
Parents, too, can forget or refuse their key role in the formation of their children, for whom they are accountable to God. Generations of parents have been told to take a hands-off approach to child-rearing. And many Catholic adults do not receive the sacraments and deny Catholic teachings, while failing to form their children in the faith.<\/p>\n
Still, the Church is clear: \u201cSince parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators\u201d (Gravissiumum Educationis<\/em>, 3).<\/p>\n So how does this work? Within the rapidly growing field of homeschooling, there is no parent-school relationship\u2014but parents still must collaborate with homeschool curriculum providers, publishers, tutors, priests, and collaborating parents. In schools and colleges, a \u201cparent as primary educator\u201d policy can be difficult to navigate. Yet respecting parents\u2019 primary role is necessary, even essential, to Catholic education.<\/p>\n Sources of parents\u2019 role<\/strong><\/p>\n Some have misread Vatican documents to imply that a parent\u2019s role as \u201cfirst\u201d educator refers only to early, pre-school learning, and the role of primary educator must later be given over to professional teachers. But the Vatican speaks many times of the parents\u2019 role in formation throughout a child\u2019s life, and despite objections arising from our culture\u2019s insistence that an 18-year-old no longer needs parents, I think today the job continues through college.<\/p>\n As for whether only professionals should direct education, there\u2019s the obvious fact that, throughout much of Christian history until the last couple centuries, most parents partly or wholly handled the education of their younger children.<\/p>\n Parenthood, practiced rightly with due respect for the rights of the child, is a natural aspect of the vocation of marriage. It follows from the lifelong love and commitment of a man and a woman, producing offspring for whom the parents are primarily responsible in the graced bond of matrimony. If a child\u2019s guardian is not a natural parent in a loving marriage, still the guardian assumes responsibility for providing an upbringing that attempts, as much as possible, to fulfill the nature and obligations of parenthood within marriage.<\/p>\n Education is a key obligation of parents. Vatican documents that reference parents\u2019 primary role in education often cite the natural and divine status of the family.<\/p>\n Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man\u2026 It is particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and office of the sacrament of matrimony, that children should be taught from their early years to have a knowledge of God according to the faith received in Baptism, to worship Him, and to love their neighbor. (Gravissimum Educationis<\/em>, 3)<\/p>\n Here it is clear that the Church\u2019s foremost concern for children is their integration into the life of the Church and their relationship with Christ. The family is vital to the moral and social formation of young people. However, does this suggest that intellectual formation belongs primarily to professionals and is not included in parents\u2019 primary role? The Vatican documents repeatedly speak of parents\u2019 primary role even when their children are enrolled in schools\u2014even Catholic schools\u2014and so parents must be responsible for intellectual as well as moral and social formation.<\/p>\n We can also find a foundation for parents\u2019 educational role in the rite of Baptism. Parents affirm that they will raise their child in the Catholic faith. Many interpret this to mean catechesis only, but baptism begins the Christian\u2019s journey to salvation, which implies more than knowledge of the tenets and practices of the faith\u2014as important as these are. The human gift of intellect is key to human dignity and our ability to know, love, and serve God and others. Surely the full work of Catholic education\u2014forming the intellect integrally with one\u2019s physical and moral development, so that a young person is healthy, knowledgeable, wise, and virtuous\u2014is entailed in Catholic formation. Therefore, it can be said that a Catholic child has a baptismal right to Catholic education from the parents.<\/p>\n A health analogy<\/strong><\/p>\n St. Thomas Aquinas employs an analogy of bodily health when explaining how people learn. I think the analogy can also be applied to the question of a parent\u2019s role in education.<\/p>\n Consider this: aside from education, parents are responsible for ensuring a child\u2019s physical health. They do this by providing food and shelter, teaching healthy habits, and caring for illnesses and injuries. If a parent must seek the professional help of a doctor\u2014and invariably this will be necessary in today\u2019s world\u2014the parent never considers simply handing over primary responsibility for the child\u2019s health. The doctor provides much-needed expertise, and the parent yields to that expertise to the extent necessary, but ultimately the parent must decide what is best for the child, including the choice of whether to get help for the child and which doctor should provide it.<\/p>\n Why is education perceived to be any different? One reason may be that schools require more waking hours with a child than even the parents have at home\u2014and that\u2019s something I believe deserves some reflection. But regardless, ultimately it is the parent\u2019s primary responsibility to ensure that a child is educated, and that includes the choice of educator. Yet so few parents today take up this responsibility, blindly accepting or even ignoring what happens in school.<\/p>\n Catholic educators may chafe at substantial parent involvement with a school or college\u2019s day-to-day activities. And it\u2019s right that Catholic schools limit such direct engagement, if it interferes with education. But parents must at least have the information needed to assess whether a school is serving the parent\u2019s needs and objectives for their child, so the parent can enter into dialogue with the school or choose to withdraw. The parent can also choose to take on a child\u2019s education entirely.<\/p>\n On the all-important matter of monitoring fidelity to Church teaching and fulfillment of the mission of Catholic education, \u201cThis responsibility applies chiefly to Christian parents who confide their children to the school. Having chosen it does not relieve them of a personal duty to give their children a Christian upbringing\u201d (Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, The Catholic School<\/em>, 73). By \u201cutilizing the structures offered for parental involvement,\u201d parents must \u201cmake certain that the school remains faithful to Christian principles of education.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately it comes down to this: parents must take full responsibility for the education of their children and the choice whether to employ professionals in that task\u2014and which ones. Catholic educators, in service to parents, should fully support this role and help parents know and choose the special value of faithful Catholic education. In all, the complete Catholic formation of the student must be paramount.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Parents are the first and foremost educators of their children. Catholic educators can sometimes ignore this fact, especially when students appear to lack solid formation and even basic care in the home. Trained to be experts in pedagogy and curriculum, teachers and especially college professors may not think much about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"issue":[463,462],"item_type":[53],"coauthors":[70],"class_list":["post-8406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","issue-commentary-parents-role","issue-parents-role","item_type-blog"],"yoast_head":"\n