Thought for the Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
And we’ve been going downhill since we decided to sign on to secular education. Even the Catholic schools aren’t immune.
LKL,
As a longtime veteran of Catholic education (student and teacher alike), I can attest to this greatly – one of my constant complaints is how much we merely ape the government school system.
What are we doing to set ourselves apart? The problem is that all education structures, government and private alike, are self perpetuating…all leadership and administration go to through the same education programs and so I have to deal with the same jargon and nonsense as my government school colleagues.
Josh-
I’m sure from your comments that you are a great asset to the classroom. Thanks for helping form young Catholics (and youngsters who hopefully will become Catholic.)
What you say about most Catholic schools being the ape of the public school is the primary reason why we never sent our kids. Any school we might have had access to was secular ed, with a thin Catholic whitewash. And it would have taken most of our second income to pay for it. Instead, we abandoned the second income in order to homeschool. Thank God we have been able to.
It’s been tight sometimes. Really tight. But, knowing there’s nothing toxic in the curriculum, being able to adjust to the kid’s needs, not dodging the tough questions – it’s all been worth it.
The disappearance of the religious orders have deprived the Catholic schools of their faculty. It was a faculty which had had religious instruction, lived communally, and was paid modest stipends. They hire lay teachers and have to pay the salaries to attract them. The clientele of the school comes to resemble that in the more handsome suburban townships. The teachers and administrators manifest the enervation of the faith in today’s laity when they have an affiliation at all. (How many of them went through the same crappy ‘schools of education’ your government school teachers did?). Remember the treatment Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel received at Charlotte Catholic High School? Who teaches there, who sends their kids there?
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As for non-Catholic private schools, recall the situation of Dr. Ryan Anderson, who runs the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He’s not only unwelcome at the private high school he attended in Baltimore, defenses of him on the school’s social media accounts are deleted by the headmaster.
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There are school administrators who aren’t humbugs, one supposes. (The one I knew personally died in 2012).
TBO,
I appreciate the kind words, and believe me, teaching a subject like theology sometimes just leaves me on the border of despondency from time to time.
My colleagues and I in theology have referred to ourselves occasionally as the “missionaries” within the school. I find throughout most Catholic schools, religion is just the veneer and the “insurance” to be able to differentiate juuuuuust enough, because, as Art Deco said above, most of the “leadership” (including the diocesan level) of our schools are M.Eds and Ed.Ds. – as useful as mammary glands on a bull.
Science is the unending study of God’s creation. Anything else is indoctrination in ideology.
Art Deco:
“As for non-Catholic private schools, recall the situation of Dr. Ryan Anderson, who runs the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He’s not only unwelcome at the private high school he attended in Baltimore, defenses of him on the school’s social media accounts are deleted by the headmaster.”
I believe Dr. Anderson attended a Quaker school. I am disappointed that they have no interest in reality and have closed their minds and hearts to the Truth of freedom.