Comparing school teaching and family teaching
The complementary roles of home, church and school in religious education
At a recent national conference of the Australian Association for Religious Education, one delegate expressed
dismay about the numbers of Jewish children being sent to non-Jewish independent schools and feared that this
would result in a loss of Jewish religious faith.
Rabbi Karen Soria, who addressed the conference, answered emphatically: "No!" From her experience, both in
Australia and in the United States, she concluded that no amount of school teaching could give a child Jewish
identity and religious faith. These could come only from a household where the Jewish faith was alive and strong.
The issue is also relevant to Catholic schools. If the religious character of the home is the most important
influence on a child's faith, what then is the role of the school? To claim that the home predetermines a child's
faith can be disconcerting for educators in Catholic schools. They may wonder: "Are we achieving anything?
Does it matter what we teach in religion? Do we need Catholic schools?"
Statistically, the religious background of the home is the best predictor of how religious school children will be.
But the home does not completely determine whether young people will have faith or not -- particularly when
they leave school and become independent. Certainly, the family can be a fundamental source of religious beliefs
and convictions. However, some young people will give away the practices of their church while others from the
same home will not. (Care is needed to avoid suggesting that church attendance and formal religious practices,
valuable though they may be, make up an adequate picture of the religious life and faith of individuals.)
Rather than predetermining a child's faith, the home predisposes the child towards the family's particular religious
'baseline'. Whether or not children pray before sleeping at night, or how they feel about going to church on
Sundays will be strongly influenced by the family's habits. Nevertheless, young people may eventually change
their position in relation to the religious baseline of their childhood. They may retain it, develop it or disregard it
to varying degrees. What they ultimately believe in is not determined by their home background. How they
change may well be influenced by experiences outside the circle of the home. This is where the school has a
crucial role to play.
The school can have a pivotal role in fostering the religious development of young people because it is one
agency that can help them learn 'to think' about religious issues. The role of religion teachers is vital, but it is
different from that of parents; they do not have to try to be a 'religious mother or father' to the children. Neither
should they try to be a 'parish priest' for the children. Their distinctive contribution is educational. Some teachers
worry about the children in Catholic schools who have little or no religious background at home. While the
school can compensate to some extent for what may be missing in a child's religious background, the most
valuable contribution that the school can make is to do its educational task well.
The teaching of religion at school is one vital link in the chain of experiences contributing to the overall religious
education of young people. Religion teaching links home experience and the traditions of the Church. Even if
there is little formal contact between the home and the local church, the teaching of religion can inform children
about the richness of their religious tradition.
Religion teaching is also important for young people because it can encourage them to think about religious
issues in their own lives and in the world today. It involves them in an educational encounter with religion, quite
apart from their experience of religion in the home or the local church.
As well as providing young people with an education in religious matters, the Catholic school provides scope for
religious activities which are directly concerned with their spiritual life. In addition to the classroom teaching of
religion, there are opportunities for prayer and for the celebration of the Eucharist and Reconciliation. Retreats,
religious camps, and pastoral care structures complement what is done in the classroom.
Whatever the type and quality of religious encounter that young people have in home and local church, the
educational encounter in the school needs to be challenging in its own right. Ideally, all three should be
complementary and mutually reinforcing. Nevertheless, no matter what the mix, the school's contribution is vital
The study of religion in the classroom provides young people with information about religion and an experience
of intellectual searching in the religious sphere which do not depend on the religious input or lack of it from the
Comparing school teaching and family teaching
2
home. They may come to understand aspects of Catholic religious tradition, history, theology and practice which
they might never meet elsewhere. They can empathise with believers from different religious traditions. They
can make a start on clarifying and developing their own religious beliefs and feelings.
Through classroom religious education, young people can become more aware of the influence of religion on
their lives. They can develop their capacity to think and decide about religious issues. These activities have
humble beginnings in religious education at school, yet they may eventually be valuable steps taken in the
direction of religious maturity. Perhaps years after leaving school, when young adults will be making decisions
about their lives, independently of their parents, the earlier influence of good religion teaching will remain as a
source of guidance.
When mature adults believe and feel strongly that something is true and important for them, they do so because
of their own conviction and not because someone else says it is so. Young people can pick up beliefs and hold to
them in a conventional way as the beliefs of their family or community. Eventually, however, they will need to
work through those beliefs to determine whether they will hold them by personal conviction or whether
conventional beliefs will just fade from their lives. If young people do not have a sound knowledge of their
religion and if they have not learned how to seek out further knowledge and how to think critically about
religious issues, they will not be in a good position to know what to accept or to reject. They will not know how
to appraise the role that religious faith might have in their lives.
For young people at school, their beliefs may be somewhat dependent on the strength of the convictions of
parents or other church members and not on their own But if these beliefs are to mature, then there must be a
transfer to a basis in their own convictions. The process of transfer has beginnings at school and becomes more
important in the later years of secondary schooling. When young adults go their own distinctive religious ways
independent of their families, their religious dispositions become ones of intention rather than convention. If they
were to retain their family religious orientation by mere inertia, without ever questioning and developing it, or
even thinking seriously about it, then it might prove to be an immature faith, one which does not last and does not
stimulate them to enter creatively into the challenges of life.
Thus classroom religious education makes a special contribution to a process that progressively becomes very
important for the development of religiously mature people. This is also its distinctive contribution to the
development of a personal religious faith.
If young people's encounter with religion in the classroom is to be meaningful and effective, then the teaching of
religion should be experienced as an open, inquiring education. It should not be indoctrination; it should not
attempt to impose values or faith; it should not pre-empt their choices. It should acquaint them with Catholic
traditions in theology, Scripture, morality, spirituality and liturgy. It should help them explore religions and
religious/social issues at different levels -- intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, personal and social. As a study, it
has the capacity to be as interesting, as challenging and as relevant as any other subject area.
Complementary forms of teaching: 'school-teaching' and 'family-teaching'
To clarify the role of the religion teacher one needs to ask -- "How appropriate are teachers' expectations of what
they should do in the classroom and how appropriate are their expectations of the ways students should respond?"
One way of looking at this question is to consider how the teacher might 'teach' religion in the classroom and to
compare it with other ways in which young people are 'taught' religion.#l
What it means 'to teach'
Different meanings can be given to the word 'teaching'. People are familiar with the idea of school-teaching.
This type of teaching brings to mind the professional school teacher, the classroom, a curriculum with literary
and audiovisual resources, text-books, study skills such as reading, writing and discussion, homework and
assignments, tests and assessment. The main focus of school-teaching is on intellectual knowledge, even though
it will also be concerned with the education of pupils' emotions and with the learning of a variety of skills.
In addition to school-teaching, there is a more fundamental type of teaching that calls for recognition and
appreciation. It is practised by most people, particularly parents, and it is not restricted to a formal classroom
situation; it does not require the professional qualifications of school teachers.
Comparing school teaching and family teaching
3
Consider the following examples of this different kind of teaching:- a parent teaching a child honesty; teaching a
child to care for the elderly; teaching a child belief in God; teaching a child to pray; a parish community
teaching a child a sense of belonging to the Church; a parish teaching a child how to worship.
This type of teaching which can be called family-teaching does not involve academic learning processes,
textbooks, study and writing; it depends on the quality of the family's personal relationships and not on the usual
type of teacher-pupil interactions that are typical of classrooms. Family-teaching does not require an academic
curriculum; it occurs in all types of family situations; it is based more on modelling, personal sharing and
affirmation and not on formal instruction.
Family-teaching occurs in all types of family groups: two-parent families, single parent families, extended
families and also to a certain extent in groups that have some sense of 'family'. For example, one can think of a
'parish family'. The quality and influence of family-teaching in parishes, schools, clubs and associations will
depend on the quality of the community spirit of the group. The school has a role in family-teaching, but it is
limited by the nature of the school as an institution.
It is in the sense of family-teaching that the Church and many contemporary societies state that parents are the
prime educators of their children; also implied is the parents' overall responsibility for the education their
children should receive through school-teaching.
What a child learns (or fails to learn) about religion through family-teaching in the home and parish community
cannot be adequately substituted for by the school. However, the school may still make a valuable contribution to
the religious education of children without much home and church religious background. While a Catholic
school should do what it can to enhance the religious family-teaching of home and church, the school as 'school'
is designed to specialise in school-teaching.
The Church document entitled The Catholic School suggested that "the educational value of the Catholic school
is its fundamental reason for existing and the basis of its genuine apostolate (or mission)". Similarly, the
Australian Bishops considered that "the school's fundamental preoccupation is the integral formation of young
people as citizens through contact with their culture. Religious education (in Catholic schools) must be seen in
this context". (From The Renewal of the Education of faith.)
One of the special tasks of the Catholic school is to provide the school-teaching of religion which will
complement the more personal, family-teaching of religion in the home and parish. The school-teaching of
religion can be more effective when young people come from homes where the family-teaching of religion is
sound and when they come from parishes where the sense of faith community and worship is vital and engaging.
Nevertheless, no matter what the religious background of the pupils, the Catholic school should provide them
with a good religious education.
As part of its commitment to the education of young people, the Catholic school should also do what it can to
develop a good personal atmosphere for its community of learners. The school thus endeavours to do some
family-teaching as well as its school-teaching of religion. The Church document, The Catholic School,
emphasised the importance of this role when it suggested that "the school must be a community whose values are
communicated through the interpersonal and sincere relationships of its members". The school strives to live
with the values of a 'Christian' community.
Confusion of 'school-teaching' with 'family-teaching'
Much of the anxiety about religious education in Catholic schools comes from a view of religious education
which does not make an adequate distinction between the school-teaching of religion and the family-teaching of
religion. The main task of the classroom religion teacher is the school-teaching of religion -- that is to help pupils
acquire knowledge of their faith tradition. This knowledge does not of itself automatically generate personal
faith and commitment. Yet this knowledge and its accompanying affective learning contribute vitally to the
maturing of a personal faith in young people.
Because faith is a very personal matter and because it is regarded by Christians as a free response to a gift from
God, the religion teacher should have profound respect for the freedom of pupils to make their own response in
faith. The religion teacher's task is to help pupils become better informed and capable of thinking seriously about
Comparing school teaching and family teaching
4
their faith and about religious matters in general. Whether this deepens their personal faith or not is beyond the
control of the religion teacher.
Some people may expect too much of classroom religious education in the way of family-teaching. They May
expect that something should be done in the school-teaching of religion to improve the Mass attendance of young
Catholics and to temper moral problems like permissiveness. The natural limits to the influence that classroom
religious education can have in these matters are not recognised. These problems are influenced more by factors
such as home background, peer groups, cultural expectations, and experience in the local church. Knowledge of
religion gained in the classroom may enrich young people's religious practices but it does not inevitably generate
such practices if they are initially absent. What a good religious education can do is stimulate an interest in
religious practices, helping in the growth of a religious life.
A different type of problem occurs where teachers try to achieve too much in the way of family-teaching in the
classroom while neglecting the type of teaching that is most effective in that setting -- school-teaching. For
example, while personal sharing and discussion of experience may be appropriate in a retreat or voluntary youth
group, some teachers can give too much emphasis to unguided/openended discussions in the classroom;
sometimes teachers may put psychological pressure on students to reveal their own personal views and
commitments in the classroom. Studying religion through reading, writing, analysing and discussing content may
be neglected. Students may find that an overemphasis of openended discussion of their experience without an
opportunity to look carefully at new content may lack challenge and seriousness when compared with what is
done in other subjects; they may also find that a constant direct focus on their own attitudes and personal
responses can be an affront to their privacy. Nevertheless, it should be noted that good personal discussions
usually flow quite naturally from well run religion classes where plenty of content is considered. What is crucial
is how the teacher goes about allowing for discussion.
There is a need to achieve balance in classroom religious education, giving sufficient attention to content while
allowing for the consideration of the pupils' interests, views and questions. While attention needs to be given to
the experience of pupils and to contemporary social issues, the Church's traditions in theology, Scripture, history
and religious practices should have a prominent place content.