An authentic Catholic education does more than prepare workers for the job market or turn out model citizens. It forms people who can change the world — not in spite of their desire for God and their hope for heaven, but because of it. As a Catholic educator, you have a monumental task, but the good news is that you’re not alone.
In Educating for A Teacher's Companion for Making Every Class Catholic, Brett Salkeld, Ph.D., explains the role of Catholic anthropology in education and accompanies Catholic teachers in integrating the Faith into all aspects of the curriculum. From math and science to health and social studies, every subject can and should be taught from a Catholic worldview. And in doing so the true purpose of Catholic education is fulfilled.
For teachers, this isn’t “one more thing” to do in the classroom — this is a new approach to everything you’re already doing in the classroom. No matter what class or age you teach, Educating for Eternity presents a truly effective way to explain and model eternal truths to your students.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brett Salkeld, Ph.D., is archdiocesan theologian for the Archdiocese of Regina, in Canada. He earned his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Regis College at the Toronto School of Theology and has a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Regina, where he studied to become a social studies and math teacher. He has worked with graduate and undergraduate education students and with Catholic teachers in various professional development settings, including an online course for ThinkCatholic. He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, with his wife, Flannery, and their seven children.
I found this book to be a great resource for Catholic educators who want to get a handle of what a genuinely Catholic pedagogy looks like. I think this book should also be looked at by pretty much any Catholic school administrator so that schools can use these guidelines in department workshops. I only withhold the 5 star because I felt that he could have given more specific curriculum ideas for a Catholic classroom and compared them with what a conventional school would teach (for example, a conventional public approach would be to teach the “ancient world, ‘Middle Ages,’ and ‘Renaissance/enlightenment following the standard “myth of progress” approach, so how exactly do we articulate to a Catholic history teacher how the structure of the curriculum will be different?
Overall, I found the book enjoyable since Salkeld is a theologian by training and he approaches each subject from an insightful Catholic theological lens. His approach is a reminder of why the Catholic Church has historically called theology the “Queen of the Sciences”: its subject matter is of infinite dignity and it “rules” the other subjects by bringing them all together and giving them meaning.
Jean-Paul Sartre famously said that “without an infinite reference point, all other things become loose ends.” In a Catholic school, the intellectual tradition of the Church—particularly her theological tradition—ought to be the “infinite reference point” from which all our thinking is related and understood.
This book was a great overview on how to bring Catholic identity into all different classes within a Catholic school. I think it would benefit any Catholic school teacher and their students. Having now heard Brett speak twice, he is even better in person with his passionate examples.
Wow. This book is dense in a good way. It needs to be taken slow and probably read several times for everything to fully sink in. It will definitely be this teacher’s companion.
Everyone should read, just to be introduced to a Catholic way of seeing. Most of what passes for "education" in our time is not education at all. I graduated high school, but I wasn't educated.