The Religious Education of the Religion Teacher in Catholic Schools

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the question of what might constitute an appropriate religious education for the religion teacher in a Catholic school. Religious education in the Catholic school helps people to engage with and understand the religious impulse, the nature of religion, and their own personal engagement with this so as to be able to draw on that as a resource for their own spiritual wisdom and ethical practice. The paper then argues for an explicit religious education for the teacher that (i) prepares them for their professional task of understanding religion(s) and communicating this, and (ii) helps them to continually develop a way of seeing, interpreting, and appropriating concepts and images in ways that shape who they are in the world, what they think, what they feel, and how they are to participate in the world. An explicit religious education for Catholic teachers has its roots in the integral relationship between theology and religious education. The term theological education will be introduced as a way of reconceptualising a study of theology that moves from a theory-to-practice approach to a constructivist approach where teachers become agents in their own learning. This approach to theological education is concerned with inviting teachers to engage with theology in such a way that they can appropriate its insights into their own life and worldview. In its consideration of the relationship between professional preparation and the development of personal meaning-making skills through its focus on developing a reflexive praxis, theological education has the potential to be an appropriate form of religious education for teachers.