Catholic Teacher Formation

The complexity of modern education means so many Catholic teachers are constantly up-skilling. This is a good thing but sadly the area of deep and consistent faith formation is often overlooked. In this episode I offer some encouragement as to why faith formation for Catholic teachers is so important. A simple daily habit of formation can begin to make a big difference in both our personal spiritual journey and our impact as educators and evangelists..

Author

Jonathan Doyle

Jonathan Doyle is an international speaker, author, businessman and executive coach who has spoken around the world to more than 400,000 people on topics related to personal development, peak performance, leadership, relationships and much more.

His recent keynote addresses include the NCEA National Convention in St. Louis Missouri to 10,000 delegates and he is a frequent keynote speaker in the US, Asia and Europe.

He is also the founder of an influential education and media business that delivers training content to hundreds of organisations and thousands of individuals around the world on a weekly basis.

Jonathan holds an undergraduate degree in education from the University of Canberra, a Masters Degree in Leadership and Management from the University of Newcastle and has also undertaken post-graduate study in philosophical anthropology.

He is the author of numerous books on relationships and peak performance and each day shares these same ideas with a large global audience via The Daily Podcast with Jonathan Doyle.

Make sure you grab a copy of my new book Finishing Strong. Just click the book image on the left and it will take you straight there.

Finishing Strong is a loud and clear call for every young person to make the very best of their final years of school. Based on hundreds of seminars around the world to a huge number of students Jonathan Doyle offers powerful, practical advice that can make a major difference.

Each chapter offers inspiring stories, clear principles and actionable steps for identifying and moving forward in study, life, friendships and each key area of life.

Jonathan also includes journal questions and guided reflections at the end of each chapter to maximise learning and ensure the ideas and principles can be made real, personal and achievable.

If you want to help your child or students make the very best of their final years of high school then it;s time to help them finish strong!

TRANSCRIPT:

Catholic Teacher Formation

Jonathan Doyle:
Well, hey everybody. Jonathan Doyle with you once again for the Catholic Teacher Daily podcast, hope you’re doing okay out there in Catholic education world. Hope you’re doing okay. Hope you’re looking after yourself. I hope you’re taking time during the day to get a few breaks in. I remember as a young teacher just driving myself straight into the ground, I would say yes to everything. I would barely eat. And what I did eat was not great. It was whatever I could find at the time that took minimal effort.

Jonathan Doyle:
So just want to say this to you. Hydration. Good food. Moments of stillness and peace. Maybe just walking past the school chapel, if you have one and just sitting inside for four or five minutes, just to have that beautiful gift of peace and silence. So remember if you’re not taking care of yourself, then the engine will break. And when the engine breaks in a teacher and burn out happens, then not only is it very hard on you and your family and the people that love you, it’s your students miss out. So look after yourselves friends. Now, listen, I want to talk to you today about the power of formation. And of course, if you go to the website, onecatholicteacher.com, once you go to the resources page and you’ll see Going Deeper, go hit that Going Deeper button, because that’s going to give you a free trial of the Going Deeper formation program.

Jonathan Doyle:
So go check that out. onecatholicteacher.com, resources tab. Friends, formation for Catholic teachers. How much are you getting? Do you think about it? I mean, many of us are just so busy that we’re just struggling to keep up with what’s actually happening that we think formation Jonathan, like formation really? Like where are we going to find the time for that again? That’s why we did that Going Deeper program to make it easy. But I want to give you a cool quote. Listen to this. This is from the beautiful church document we talked about yesterday. Lay Catholics in schools, witnesses to faith from the sacred congregation for the faith for sacred congregation for Catholic education. So listen to this quote, “Formation is indispensable. Without it the school will wander further and further from its objectives. Formation is indispensable. Without it the school will wander further and further away from its objectives.”

Jonathan Doyle:
What are it’s objectives? To make Jesus Christ known and loved. To help young people understand the love of the Father, to form good Christians and good citizens, to do integral formation so that all subjects develop the full goodness of the person, the image of Christ. They’re the objectives, evangelization, wisdom, knowledge, love. So this short quote is saying that without formation for the educators, without formation for teachers, the school can quickly wander away from its objectives and what happens? Well, usually if the school doesn’t slowly implode and become a pretty negative place, it’ll wander off to the classic place it goes, which is factory model. What do I mean factory model of education, ship the students in, cram them full of stuff, test them, get them good scores, and then get them into colleges or good high schools, and then get them into the economic system.

Jonathan Doyle:

The only problem with that, it’s not a bad thing, is that it’s not true Catholic education. We’re not running factories. We’re not running conveyor belt or assembly lines where students are shipped in processed and shipped out. We’re educating young people as Pope Benedict used to say to put them not just in touch with the person of Jesus Christ, but in intimacy with Jesus Christ. That’s all we’re actually doing. So formation means finding ways for you to deepen in your understanding of the faith. How do you do it? When I was a young teacher, I actually used to have the catechism, the little Catholic catechism, and each day I would just put a little section up on the board and I’d go through it with the students. I was getting some formation, myself, giving them a little bit, just a tiny bit, only took a few minutes.

Jonathan Doyle:
So each day I would be reading a little bit of that. These days, I mean, I’m still praying the divine office, the office of readings. So there’s good formation in there. There’s great podcasts. Maybe like this one. There’s so many great resources online. YouTube. There’s a lot of really good stuff. You’ve got to check it, of course. But I just want to encourage you. All I want to say in this message is make sure that you are in some way getting formation in what it means to be a Catholic educator. So go and check out onecatholicteacher.com the resources tab, Going Deeper. Grab that trial. There’s one option. It may be the catechism. It might just be a beautiful spiritual book. I’m reading a lot of Father Henry Nouwen’s stuff at the moment, the Prodigal Son, Return of the Prodigal Son. I’ve gotten lots of just great little daily things that I read to try and increase my faith and increase my knowledge of the faith.

Jonathan Doyle:
So friends don’t give up on this formation piece. It’s really important. All right, that’s it for me. God bless you. Thank you for what you’re doing. Praying for you all as Catholic teachers. Come in, check out the website. Onecatholicteacher.com. As we emerged from COVID, I’ll be back on the speaking circuit. So if you want to get me in to go deeper into all this stuff with your staff, reach out to me, send me an email, Jonathan, at onecatholicteacher.com. God bless you friends. God is so proud of what you’re doing. Press on. What you’re doing is so beautiful. It is powerful. It is changing lives. One conversation at a time, one class at a time, one moment of care for a student at a time. One word of encouragement for a colleague at a time. One word of encouragement for parent. You’re making a real difference. God bless you. My name’s Jonathan Doyle. This has been the Catholic Teacher Daily podcast. Come and follow me on Instagram, Jonathan Doyle 47 or Twitter. If you’re on Twitter, come find me today. Being Catholic one. God bless your friends. This has been the Catholic Teacher Daily podcast. I’ll have another message for you tomorrow.