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Abstract
This paper discusses the integration of faith, culture and life in Catholic schools, offering keys to understanding and pedagogical orientations. First, based on magisterial documents, the text identifies three features that characterise this integration: a comprehensive understanding of knowledge, a testimony offered through the lives of teachers, and an approach to Catholic schools as a ‘community laboratory’. Second, the paper exemplifies the integration of faith, culture and life through a secondary school mathematics class. This example allows manifesting those three features in concrete pedagogical practice. Finally, the paper provides orientations that can foster the integration of faith, culture and life in Catholic Schools. These guidelines are related to: promoting teaching-learning experiences based on analogy, discussing the understanding of knowledge that runs through the school curriculum, articulating the pedagogical principles that guide teachers’ work, and guaranteeing institutional commitment to transform the school into a community laboratory.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This work was supported by the ‘Programa de Pedagogía en Religión Católica de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile’
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Los autores declaran no tener conflictos de interés.
Este estudio se hizo con el apoyo del ‘Programa de Pedagogía en Religión Católica de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile’
Notes
1 The quote within the quote comes from the document The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium (Congregation for Catholic Education 1997, 4).
2 Certainly, there are researchers that have already approached this issue ‘Catholic schools have a mission common to all schools, public and private. They also have a unique purpose congruent with their role as an extension of the Church's educational function: to help students synthesise faith and culture and faith and life’ (Schuttloffel Citation1998, 295).
3 What could further deepen the issue of catholic school identity, among other relevant themes (Aristimuño Citation2020; Friel Citation2020).
4 The quote within the quote comes from The Catholic School (Congregation for Catholic Education Citation1977, 37).
5 In all contemporary languages of Latin origin, the verbal root 'kn' or 'gn' -present in the English ‘to know’- is preceded by the prefix 'co', indicating that knowing is a shared relationship. For example, in French ‘to know’ is ‘connaitre’, and ‘naitre’ means ‘being born’. This is to say, in French, knowing refers to the action through which we are born together with others.
6 ‘A good teacher knows that his responsibility does not end within the classroom or the school, but is also oriented to the territory of belonging, and manifests itself in sensitivity towards the social problems of his time’ (Congregation for Catholic Education Citation2013, 83).
7 Italics are ours.
8 It is worth mentioning Pope Benedict XVI (Citation2009) had already stated ‘Thanks to the teaching of the Catholic religion, school and society are enriched with true laboratories of culture and humanity in which, by deciphering the significant contribution of Christianity, the person is equipped to discover goodness and to grow in responsibility, to seek comparisons and to refine his or her critical sense, to draw from the gifts of the past to understand the present better and to be able to plan wisely for the future’.
9 Recursion is the practice of describing certain elements in terms of other elements that precede them in a series. It can also be understood as self-referentiality, autopoiesis, fractality, or, in other words, a construction that develops in reference to an original proto-type. Hofstadter (Citation1987) recalls how recursion is also present in figurative art (for example, in Escher’s work) and in music (for example, in Bach’s work). Such examples raise opportunities for further pedagogical developments of analogy.
10 The expression ‘Divine Proportion’ was coined by a 16th century Franciscan Friar: Luca Pacioli.
11 We remember the wisdom books ‘Of the greatness and beauty of creatures, one comes, by analogy, to contemplate their Author’ (Wis 13, 5).
12 Aquinas Citation1961, I Q2 a2
1 La cita dentro de la cita proviene del documento ‘La escuela católica en el umbral del tercer milenio’ (Congregación para la Educación Católica 1997, 4)
2 Existen investigaciones que han planteado el tema de la integración fe, cultura y vida en la escuela católica. Por ejemplo, Schuttloffel (1998) argumenta que ‘las escuelas católicas tienen una misión que es común a todas las escuelas, públicas y privadas. También tienen un propósito distintivo congruente con su rol en tanto extensión de la función educativa de la Iglesia: ayudar a los estudiantes a sintetizar fe y cultura y fe y vida’ (295).
3 Consideramos que nuestra contribución podría ayudar a una mejor comprensión de la cuestión de la identidad de una escuela católica, entre otras cuestiones. (Aristimuño2020; Friel 2020).
4 La cita dentro de esta cita corresponde al Documento Escuela Católica (Congregación para la Educación Católica1977, 37), un referente ineludible para el Magisterio contemporáneo, especialmente en lo vinculado a la comprensión del conocimiento y el rol decisivo de los docentes.
5 Mientras que en inglés ‘conocer’ se dice ‘know’, en todas las lenguas de origen latino la raíz verbal ‘kn’ o ‘gn’ está antecedida por el prefijo ‘co’, indicando que conocer en una relación compartida. El idioma francés expresa esta relación de un modo contundente ya que conocer se dice literalmente ‘connaitre’, y ‘naitre’ significa ‘nacer’. Es decir que, en francés, conocer alude a la acción a través de la cual nacemos junto a otro.
6 ‘Un buen profesor sabe que su responsabilidad no termina dentro del aula o de la escuela, sino que está orientada también al territorio de pertenencia, y se manifiesta en la sensibilidad hacia los problemas sociales de su tiempö (Congregación para la Educación Católica 2013, 83).
7 La itálica es nuestra.
8 Ya Papa Benedicto XVI (2009) se había referido a la escuela católica como ‘laboratorio de cultura y humanidad’.
9 La recursividad es la forma en la cual un proceso se especifica y desarrolla basado en su propia definición inicial. También puede ser comprendida como autorreferencialidad, autopoiesis, fractalidad, o, en otras palabras, una construcción a partir de un mismo tipo propio. Hofstadter (1987) recuerda que la recursividad se muestra también en el arte figurativo (por ejemplo, en la obra de Escher) y en la música (por ejemplo, en la obra de Bach). Eso plantea oportunidades de desarrollo pedagógico de carácter analógico.
10 Este nombre de Divina Proporción fue otorgado por un Fraile Franciscano del siglo XVI: Luca Pacioli.
11 Recordamos a los libros sapienciales ‘De la grandeza y hermosura de las criaturas, se llega, por analogía, a contemplar a su Autor’ (Sb 13, 5)
12 Tomás de Aquino 1961, I Q2 a2
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Notes on contributors
Carmelo Galioto
Carmelo Galioto is Phd candidate in Education at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, with a dissertation about the concept of quality in Chilean educational policies for school education. He works at Education Service of Arquidiocese Santiago de Chile. He has published in Phainomena and Revista Digital de Investigación Lasaliana.
Guillermo Marini
Guillermo Marini is Associate Professor at the School of Education, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He holds a PhD in Philosophy and Education from Columbia University, and an EdM in Arts in Education from Harvard University. His research deals with philosophies in teacher education and everyday aesthetics in education. He has published in Visual Communication, Journal of Aesthetic Education, Studies in Philosophy and Education, Educacao e Sociedade, and Trans/Form/Acao.