Reorienting the religion curriculum in Catholic schools to address the needs of contemporary youth spirituality Reading 7 Therese Wilson

Traditional education into the Catholic faith Culture of Catholic meaning Church as authority Children raised in catholic households Religiosity enhances spirituality

Young people in Catholic schools today For many young people, religion is seen as an optional resource for how to live one’s life Consumers in today’s society Concerned with succeeding in their own lives and therefore may show a “detached, almost clinical anthropological interest in organized religion and structured traditions” (Crawford, M & Rossiter, G. 2006)

Young people today cont. Show a move from obedience to God to egocentrism There has been a move in the locus of spirituality because of a loss of the cultural religious overlay Young people are more autonomous in their behavior and thinking Occurring is a privatization of belief that is influenced greatly by various social factors

Implications for RE Curriculum in a secondary all girls Catholic school Need to develop a curriculum that gives a framework and language for young people to be able to explore meaning in life “ The aim is to understand what feeds the spirit of young people and to create a curriculum and methodology that would allow educators to honor, evoke and nourish the souls of students” ( Liddy, S. 2002)

Implications cont. The curriculum needs to : Give opportunity for access & understanding of an individual’s inheritance of cultural religious meaning, and Develop the skills of critical interpretation and evaluation of culture

Why develop access to cultural religious meaning? In the search for meaning and purpose in life, familiarity with one’s own religious tradition is helpful It provides young people with a starting cultural reference point It contributes to the formation of a positive religious identity

Why develop skills in critical interpretation and evaluation ? To give young people the capacity to evaluate different cultural meanings that they are being exposed to in today’s society To provide a framework by which young people can appraise contemporary social issues To help young people understand decision making & the historical, political and ideological influences upon how they are made

In summary… “One of the aims of Religious Education is to encourage and skill young people to go beyond being ‘passive consumers of culture’ to become ‘active consumers of culture’. This acknowledges that cultural meanings are socially constructed and open to evaluation, not something that is a given, and hard to identify and change”. ( Rossiter, G. 2011) It promotes the development of cultural agency