Catholic Education and Values: A review of the role of the Catholic schools in promoting the spiritual and moral development

Catholic Education and Values: A review of the role of Catholic schools in promoting the spiritual and moral development of pupils

By Professor Graham Rossiter, School of Religious Education,
Australian Catholic University, Sydney

(G.M. Rossiter, 2003, Catholic Education and Values: A review of the role of Catholic schools in promoting the spiritual and moral development of pupils, Journal of Religion in Education, 4, 105-136. Mater Dei Institute of Education, Dublin, Ireland.)

While the title of this paper is Catholic Education and Values, I would like to expand it with a more precise subtitle to help address a problem of vagueness in the discourse about values in education. [1] I have chosen this subtitle because it emphasises the role of the whole school — both the formal curriculum and the school as a community — in promoting the spiritual and moral development of pupils. Too often, considerations of the spiritual role of Catholic schools is restricted to religious education and to general statements about desired religious goals, without spelling out in enough detail how all teachers, across all areas of the curriculum, can be involved in a shared spiritual project.

Firstly, the paper will look at expectations of Catholic schools from three different groups -- parents, Church and government education authorities. It will argue the case for more realism and humility about the spiritual role of Catholic schools, because they are under too much pressure from unrealistic expectations to produce personal change. If there is a realistic view of the school’s capacity in this regard, it is more likely to be spiritually effective because the aims can be better translated into practice. Otherwise, a lot of the talk about the role of Catholic schools in relation to values runs the risk of remaining at the level of an attractive ‘wish list’ of the desirable personal changes that teachers would like to produce in pupils, without practical suggestions as to how this might be achieved through educational processes.

Secondly, the paper will examine a list of personal/spiritual change processes to see what range of mechanisms can bring about change in people’s beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviour. It is suggested that most of these processes do not normally take place in schools, or if they do, it is to a minimal extent. Educators then need to consider which of the processes are naturally and ethically appropriate to the school as an educational community; these are the processes that need to be developed, particularly those that have relevance to the formal curriculum.

Some attention will be given to the way in which contemporary young people construct meaning and values.

Finally, the paper will consider some of the ways in which the formal classroom teaching of religion can contribute to pupils’ spiritual and moral development. Similarly, it will be proposed that all learning areas in the curriculum, and thus all teachers in the school, can make a constructive contribution to pupils’ spiritual and moral development. Often, too much is expected of religious education in Catholic schools, while the spiritual/moral role of the rest of the curriculum (and the role of teachers not involved in religious education) is neglected.

One of the key proposals emerging from this discussion is the need for a more issue-oriented education within Catholic schools — its purpose: to help pupils learn how to become well-informed, critical thinkers, capable of looking discerningly at contemporary spiritual and moral issues. This can help them to become critical interpreters of culture. An education of this type would help young people see that their Catholic school and its curriculum were sensitive to the experiences in life and spiritual/moral/justice issues that touch and affect people — one important starting point for spirituality. This approach can also help them see that the school is oriented towards the development of discerning, responsible citizens who are prepared to interrogate the cultural conditioning that affects people’s beliefs, values and behaviour -- often a valuable starting point for social action.

Spiritual/moral expectations of Catholic schools on the part of parents, Church and government education authorities

In relation to its potential role in bringing about personal change in students, Catholic schools are subject to three prominent sets of expectations (as well as to expectations from other segments of the community like young people themselves, teachers’ organisations, the business community, etc.). These come from parents/home, the Church and from government education requirements.

The expectations of parents

For parents who naturally want the best for their children that can be provided by schooling (within their affordability range), they usually have very high expectations of the school. These expectations are not only for the general education, academic development and future success of their children, but also for their development as persons.

For some parents, their expectations of the school may be more in the personal domain than in the academic. The letter below to an Australian newspaper in the mid-1980s is a typical example of parental expectations that schools will change their children significantly.

What is needed is an education, even at high school level, on personal relationships.

School curricula should include classes in "living" with such subjects as "making a marriage work", "responsibility of parenthood", "job-hunting", "family break-up" and "drug and alcohol abuse".

And why not also include counselling in responsible behaviour, self-confidence and self-esteem, and coping with life generally?

Some preparation for dealing with the problems of life is essential before our young people leave school and surely these subjects are relevant to everyday living and just as important as the subjects now taught in schools.

After all, a technical or academic education is not much use to those who have become anti-social and can't cope with life.

This sort of parental concern evokes two different responses in educators. Firstly, it both amuses and angers teachers that some in the community (including parents, education authorities and politicians) want to make schools more responsible for the solution of social problems. It puts unreasonable pressure on schools to bring about moral and behavioural change in young people, overestimating the school’s capacity to do this. The idea of introducing school programs on sex, AIDS, toxic substances abuse, child abuse, domestic violence, peace, citizenship, driving, leisure, bicycle riding, careers, etc. is often the first response when people think about remedies for particular social problems.

This is a long running problem for schools. As one education administrator noted:

This belief that schools can cure society's ills simply by running specific courses about them is regularly reinforced by the various media gurus who daily define our social realities for us. The conclusion is reached that the only answer to the problems is better education; schools must take more responsibility! This places teachers under enormous pressure. They are being submerged under what can be appropriately called an 'addition' curriculum, now with more additives than a dry packed dinner. (Dwyer, 1985)

The second response of educators, or rather, a non-response, is to be too dismissive of such community concerns; this can lead to a neglect of what might be both a realistic and appropriate role for schools in addressing social problems. In not accepting too great a responsibility for producing personal change in students, educators should not neglect the important capacity of the school to inform young people about social issues and teach them how to think critically about them. I believe this is the main role that can be reasonably expected of the school in relation to social problems. This is the role that is central for Catholic schooling, affirming the conviction that school education should be concerned with more than academic knowledge, skills and vocational training. It should be an education for life. Later in the paper, more attention will be given to spelling out this role, because there remains ambiguity about what it entails.

The expectations of the Church

It is of interest to note that educators in Catholic schools, perhaps more than any group in the Church, have given serious attention to Church documents. While this is to be commended, it also carries with it an unintended problem. Flowing from their familiarity with these documents, there is a tendency for educators (mainly the Catholic school authorities, school executives, and religion teachers) to use predominantly religious/ecclesiastical language to describe the purposes of Catholic schools; in so doing, they overestimate the extent of the Catholic school’s contribution to the mission of the Church. In turn, this reinforces the problem of exaggerated community expectations for Catholic schools to produce personal change in pupils as discussed above.

A distinctive sort of religious/ecclesiastical language has come to dominate the discourse about the aims and purposes of Catholic schools. It is evident in Catholic education policy documents, mission statements, vision statements, articles, conference papers and discussions of the role of Catholic schools. (See the examples in Appendix 1. This includes a secondary school mission statement, a primary school set of aims for religious education, and a wider list of aims for religious education showing how two of them are commonly emphasised while the remainder tend to be neglected.) Words like mission, ministry, evangelisation, inculturation, witness and catechesis, together with a range of spiritual words like praxis, empowerment, consciousness-raising etc. have strongly coloured the language about aims for Catholic schooling. In addition, the spiritual development of pupils is framed almost exclusively in terms of a personal relationship with God and in participation in the life of the Catholic Church. While these purposes are central to Catholic education, and are not in question, they need to be complemented with aims that are more directly concerned with education -- and not just with the Church’s mission, religious development of pupils and Church membership. I believe that a Catholic school culture has developed in which there is a felt pressure to write the aims for Catholic schools with such an emphasis on formally religious terms that there is a tendency to neglect the basic educational aims of the school. If this distinctively educational thrust of the school is neglected, then it seems to me unlikely that its religious dimension will be as effective as it might otherwise be.

This argument should in no sense be interpreted as a downplaying of the religious role of Catholic schools. To that role I am very committed; but I think that there is a subtle but significant lack of balance in thinking about it; this role needs to be reformulated in language that is more appropriate for teachers in Catholic schools and the wider community.

There are a number of excellent writings which explore in detail the role of the Catholic school within the mission of the Church, and they base much of the argument on Church documents and Theology (for example, a paper at the 2000 South African Catholic School conference presented by my colleague Denis McLaughlin. See McLaughlin, 2000, for a theological reflection on Catholic school aims). While not wanting to diminish the importance of these writings, I believe that Catholic school educators need to approach questions about the mission of the Catholic school with some caution so that they do not create unrealistic expectations which eventually become counter-productive and inhibit the spiritual role of the school. My concern is with excessive use of ecclesiastical/religious language, which, I believe, exaggerates the religious expectations of the school. I do not see the same tendency in discourses about the religious mission of Catholic hospitals, Catholic aged care institutions and other Catholic agencies; they are not expected to do as much as Catholic schools in bringing about personal and spiritual change in those they serve. My experience in a religious order is that we always had trouble trying to see how we could best be an evangelising, social justice presence in the local Church. If religious orders, which were primarily set up to do this, have difficulty in conceptualising their religious role, then we should not expect too much of communities mainly of children and adolescents, as principal agencies of evangelisation. Where this aspect is over-emphasised, a gap widens between the aims and practice. Teachers can then tend to see Catholic school aims as religious rhetoric which has little impact on practice. Also, excessive religious language tends to alienate, marginalise, or at least exclude, teachers who are not Catholic and Catholic teachers who are uncomfortable with religious/ecclesiastical language (this is particularly the case in large secondary schools).

While we have many theological reflections on the role of Catholic schools, I would like to see this complemented with educational reflections which spell out in more detail how teaching and learning, and the community life of the school can promote the spiritual and moral development of pupils, an important part of which is their religious identity. Also needed, is an appropriate spiritual/moral/educational language to describe these processes; this is not an easy task, but a most important one, as will be considered later in the paper. My main purpose here is to encourage such reflections and to stimulate debate.

Besides the benefit of a more comprehensive understanding of the spiritual/moral role of the school, such reflections are important for two other reasons. Firstly, such an understanding is needed to win the moral support of all school staff and parents, who, as noted above, are often left unimpressed by most of the theological reflections on Catholic schooling. Secondly, as discussed in the next section, there is a new emphasis on promoting spiritual/moral development in government education documents. Catholic schools need to be able to describe their mission in terms that show how they respond to such aims; traditional Catholic mission language needs to be complemented/updated/reformulated to be able to do this well.

Within the last 25 years, in most Western countries, there has been a notable increase in the reference to values and to a spiritual/moral dimension to education within educational discourse. It is evident in government education policy documents. The development is welcome because it indicates that in educational circles and in the community generally, there is greater readiness to acknowledge that this is a vital dimension to education in all schools (public, religious and non-religious private schools). It shows a commitment to the ideal of a holistic education, which attends not only to knowledge and skills, but to the spiritual, moral, emotional, aesthetic and cultural development of pupils.

These developments are particularly relevant and instructive for Catholic schooling. Catholic schools have always claimed commitment to these aims; they should be ‘specialists’ in spiritual/moral education. However, as noted earlier, this commitment is often expressed mainly in ecclesiastical/religious language and has concentrated on religious education -- making it difficult to see what relevance this might have for education in public schools. If Catholic schools are to take up seriously the challenge to address the spiritual and moral dimension across the whole curriculum, and not just in religious education, then they will need to have a compelling rationale and realistic strategies that can win the support of all their teachers – particularly those teaching secular subjects. Catholic schools need to be able to reformulate their aims for spiritual/moral education within a more educational language that has currency both for their own teachers and for public education; this does not mean abandoning a theological perspective, which remains important; but it means an effort to show what spiritual/moral education means in educational terms that open the way for dialogue with public education. If this can be done, then Catholic schools may be able to play a significant leadership role in the development of spiritual/moral education across the curriculum in all schools in the country.

While this development represents desirable progress for public and private school education, a number of problems remain with much of the educational discourse about the spiritual/moral/values dimension. For example, consider the following quotation from a state Government education document in Australia in 1990.

The moral, ethical and spiritual development of students is a fundamental goal of education. It is clearly not confined to one area of the curriculum. All teachers, across all areas of the curriculum have a responsibility to inculcate in their students positive values and a capacity for moral and ethical judgment.

Government schools should actively promote the moral values which are shared by the majority of people in our community. There is merit in the clear statement of this responsibility.

In particular, this document will give greater emphasis to the link between education, work and personal fulfilment, as well as encouraging imagination, creativity, excellence and the search for meaning and purpose in life. It will give more recognition to the place of the family and family values in our society and the rights and responsibilities of parents in the area of morals and values. Greater stress will be placed on students achieving high standards of self-discipline, personal conduct and social responsibility. As recommended . . . the document will also acknowledge the importance of all students developing spiritual values. (Metherell, 1990. p. 65)

This affirms the importance of a spiritual/moral dimension to education for all schools (a principle that has long been central to the philosophy of Catholic schooling). However, it can be intimidating for teachers of secular subjects. A role in students’ spiritual/moral development is said to be central to their endeavours, but this is not spelled out in any detail – leaving a significant gap between these spiritual aims and what might be done in classroom practice. [2] Also, these teachers were not trained for moral/values education. In addition, this new requirement can be perceived like a ‘grafting’ of moral/values education on to their normal teaching; this could subvert the integrity of their regular subject matter and compromise their teaching of an academic discipline.

An example of the understandable concern of teachers (in this instance, from the United Kingdom) is illustrated here. [3] (Rossiter, 1996A)

A 1993 press review of the debate spoke in journalistic terms of "overworked teachers girding themselves for battle in a new crusade for spirituality and moral values in the classroom". This shows the teachers’ concern: are they to become responsible for the moral behaviour of students? The accompanying headline, "Teachers Told to be Moral Guardians: Juvenile crime levels prompt push for moral values" (Oswald, 1993, p.43) does, however cynically, highlight the often ambivalent view of government. The government view stresses the need for schools to do more to improve moral standards and discipline; this is a government version of the ideas expressed earlier in the parent’s letter on aims for education. Policy documents may talk about values/spirituality in the curriculum in a holistic way; but there also seem to be undertones of a pragmatic social aim: the school is being given the role of solving social problems. In addition, there may be an underlying assumption that the moral concerns will harmonise with other government education aims motivated by economic rationalism: Eg. aims for higher standards in vocationally oriented competencies to achieve increased productivity and competitiveness on global markets (Crawford and Rossiter, 1993A). The ‘outcomes movement’ in education is strongly influenced by this thinking. The emphasis on values/spirituality sits in tension with the aims that seem to treat students as economic assets whose productivity is to be enhanced through education; performance indicators are like measures of their efficiency and of their ultimate instrumental value for the economy.

What is said about values in education often talks about a list of the desirable values in pupils that a school should promote. There will be phrases like “these are the values to be taught”, and “values need to be inculcated”, but little is said about how these values actually develop and change within individuals, about how values might be communicated, and about how educational processes within the formal curriculum might promote such value development. Because of this omission, much of the discussion of values in education does not proceed far enough beyond a ‘wish list’ of the desirable values that a school education might ideally develop. Nevertheless, I see it as helpful to draw up a list of what are called ‘graduate attributes.’ They show the ideals the school is trying to promote, and this can give direction to both the curriculum and the community life of the school. However, this is not enough.

The language of the discourse about education and values often gives the impression that values are to be ‘taught’ in the same way as anything else is taught in the curriculum -- without acknowledging the great complexity of the process of value development. Such discussion also seems to fail to acknowledge that one cannot expect a simple, linear causal link between an educational process and change in beliefs/attitudes/values in the same way as there are causal links between classroom teaching/learning processes and changes in pupils’ knowledge and cognitive skills. This same problem is also important with regard to attempts to write values outcomes, which will be considered later.

While it is necessary to articulate the values that it is hoped schooling will promote in pupils, the way forward requires a clarification of the links between classroom teaching/learning processes and personal change in pupils (the development of beliefs/values/attitudes). Attention will now be given to this question. This task will be a useful way of trying to respond constructively to the expectations from the three areas just considered. I consider that this task is a very important one, because if educators cannot come up with appropriate and realistic approaches to spiritual/moral education across the curriculum, then the attractive personalist aims that have become more prominent in educational discourse may remain empty rhetoric -- and economic rationalist purposes for education will gain an increasing sway. Theory and practice are needed which build on the aims for an holistic education that attends to the spiritual and moral development of pupils as individuals and unique persons whose personal development and ongoing education are worthwhile ends in themselves, and not justified by their instrumental value to government economic purposes.

To get some perspective on what schools can do realistically to promote personal change in pupils, it is helpful firstly to draw up a list of processes that are thought to catalyse personal change, and then to judge which of these might be used appropriately within the school, and in particular within the formal classroom curriculum.

In one sense, new knowledge and skills change the individual personally; to be able to imagine new possibilities and new horizons is also a personal change, or at least a prelude to such change. However, when the words ‘personal change’ are used, the usual meaning is that there has been change in one or more ‘personal’ aspects such as beliefs, emotions, attitudes, values, commitments and behaviour. A brief note on these aspects is given below:

beliefs: principles believed to be true; may be religious beliefs and inspired by religious faith; may be inspired by people, significant others, science, etc.

emotions: fundamental visceral feelings such as joy, euphoria, zest, fear, depression, sexual feelings etc.

attitudes: abiding dispositions to think, feel and behave in particular ways with reference to an issue, person or things.

values: beliefs or principles which the individual holds as important and which can have an orienting influence on behaviour. Values show the personal direction of an individual’s life.

commitments: values/beliefs to which the individual adheres and to which he/she is prepared to be accountable.

Personal change is complex, and in some ways mysterious. It occurs in response to a combination of internal and external factors, that cannot always be clearly delineated. It is not just a ‘stimulus – response’ sort of change. It can be initiated by a free, thinking individual; to interpret personal change only in terms of causal factors implies a mechanistic view of the human person that neglects important spiritual capabilities like fee will. Change is not always fully understood by the individual. What is meant by personal change depends on the operative view of human nature; the view underpinning this paper is that authentic personal change needs to be initiated, appropriated or accepted freely by the individual (if not at the time, then eventually).

If we are to consider how various agencies and experiences can function as agents or catalysts of personal change that promote personal learning in some form or other, then the following can be looked at as a preliminary list of personal change processes. This is not an exhaustive list; but it gives an idea of the range that might be involved.

Preliminary list of personal change processes (while the concept ‘values’ is used most frequently here, personal change, as described above, is considered as change in any one or more personal categories).

1. Absorbing beliefs/values/attitudes from human relationships: Absorbing the values implicit in the ways individuals are treated by parents and others. Human relationships as a source of values; particular ways individuals are treated may confirm certain values, or may promote other values through a negative reaction to the way they are treated.

2. Emulation of the values displayed by others: Individuals may emulate values displayed by others (both positive and negative). Heroes and heroines can be important sources of values. Friends, local and foreign people, as well as the stars of sport, music, film and television can be role models for lifestyle and values.

3. Values/attitudes arising from the satisfaction of personal needs: Values may develop out of the ways in which individuals satisfy personal needs -- patterns or regularities in the ways they behave in satisfying wants and needs (altruism, politeness, self-centredness, selfishness etc.)

4. Adopting values out of a sense of idealism: The attraction of an ideal can facilitate the development of particular values as ones the individual esteems and tries to incorporate into his/her life.

5. Adopting values inspired by spiritual/religious beliefs, and by religious experience and practice: Religious beliefs can be a fundamental source of personal values. This can include what individuals might describe as spiritual or transcendent experience.

6. Adopting values/beliefs/attitudes after exhortation: Individuals are told what is good and important for them and for the good of others (this will be affected by the level of respect for, and perceived authority of, the source).

7. Adopting values as a result of fear or coercion. This is where psychological pressure is brought to bear on the individual to change. It might be motivated by a sense of oppression, anxiety, fear, shame, guilt etc.

8. Changing values as a result of personal experience or events: This may be long term experience or shorter, critical (sometimes traumatic) experiences which trigger an appraisal of values. There may be a significant emotional component to the change. Change could result from experiences of the natural environment, and of animals and vegetation, as well as from artistic experience.

9. Changing values/attitudes in the light of the experience of different cultures: Travel and other ways of experiencing different cultures and lifestyles can prompt some change in the perceptions of others and can lead to changes in values.

10. Developing values through personal reflection on experience or learning: Individuals may change their values as a follow up to new knowledge and understandings. These could come from experience (as noted above) as well as from reading, watching theatre, films and television.

11. Developing beliefs/values/attitudes in the light of experience of an ethical, formal educational process: While all sorts of experience can be considered as contributing to an individual’s education, this category refers to formal/semi-formal educational programs which respect personal freedom and individuality. Through information, analysis, interpretation, evaluation – involving preliminary judgments about worth -- individuals may be persuaded or prompted (by the process) without coercion, to consider the desirability or importance of adopting particular values. The educational process may or may not be designed specifically to promote particular values; whether or not the individual changes depends on the individual and not on the program; educational programs do not automatically change values – the intention to change values through education is no guarantee that change will result. Sometimes the change in participants’ values may be unintentional as far as the program is concerned.

12. Changes in attitudes/values through a counselling process: A counselling process in which the individual works interactively with a counsellor (professional or non-professional) can lead to the adoption of different attitudes and values as well as different ways of behaving. It may include change coming from advice as well as from desirable changes that the individual comes to consider and then tries to adopt.

13. Developing attitudes/values through indoctrination: Values may be changed through an instructional process that educators would see as inappropriate or unethical. That is, through a process which is thought to be flawed by being too partial, or which intentionally does not give a full picture of what is going on, or which keeps relevant information from participants. The persuasion to change values is not fully open to rational evaluation. There is some form of deceit when information is concealed or misrepresented.

14. Values influenced by propaganda: A process like indoctrination, propaganda deliberately sets out to change values/attitudes by promoting a particular ideology. It may appeal to nationalism, fear of foreigners, fear of compromise of one’s own lifestyle, or fear of danger. It may give misinformation and appeal to images and myths that are not true.

15. Changing attitudes and values as a response to advertising: Values and lifestyle may be influenced, even subtly, by advertising. This may affect particular values; or it may have an influence on lifestyle (Eg. to varying degrees, attitudes to consumerism and the use of money).

16. Values influenced by economic circumstances: A desire to make money, to achieve financial security, to provide for family and children, or other economic pressures may affect people’s values and attitudes. This sort of change may be driven by envy of those perceived to be privileged or better off; it may be influenced by compassion for those who are poor, or unemployed, or who have less financial resources.

17. Changing values through participation in the life of groups: This can involve groups of peers, interest groups, sporting groups and many different sorts of organisations. Individuals can absorb the attitudes/values that are prominent in the group.

18. Changing values as a result of political action: The action of governments and their agencies can affect people’s values in positive and negative ways.

Sometimes a group of change processes is said to be involved in socialisation. This refers to the way individuals can absorb values/beliefs/attitudes and lifestyle in a relatively unconscious way. It can occur in the home and local community as well as in particular groups or social agencies like schools. However, it is helpful to contrast socialisation with education (especially school education). The former is a relatively informal ‘environmental’ or ‘community’ learning process, although there can be clear intentions to socialise individuals into a particular values/belief system; on the other hand, classroom education within a school is a relatively formal instructional/learning process which is primarily concerned with handing on an intellectual culture, and with helping pupils learn how to think, and to become ‘literate’ in a number of key learning areas (including religion); aesthetic and affective elements are included within the educational mix.

What personal change processes are available to the (Catholic) school curriculum in its endeavours to promote pupils’ spiritual and moral development?

A list of personal change processes like that above, while not exhaustive, can help educators get a more realistic perspective on what a school can actually achieve in terms of changing pupils’ beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviour.

* the extent to which one individual can intentionally influence the personal development of another.

* the influence of the total schooling experience on young people’s beliefs/values development.

* the influence of the formal school curriculum on individuals' beliefs/values development.

While most of the change processes listed above (provided they are ethically acceptable) are possible to some extent within the school, it seems that the majority of them happen mainly outside the school. This suggests that people should not count on the school as a likely change agent that can make a significant difference to pupils’ beliefs, attitudes and values. On the other hand, for some pupils the overall school experience can make a decisive and life long difference, setting them on a life trajectory characterised by particular beliefs/values/attitudes that remain and are enhanced during life. The school may provide the experience and the values direction, but the path individuals take is not automatically determined by their school experience.

It seems to me reasonable to judge that the school can make a real difference to the beliefs/attitudes/values of its pupils, but there is a need to be cautious about expecting too much and about trying to measure ‘success’.

At this point it is useful to differentiate the potential for pupils’ personal change that are related to the formal classroom curriculum and to all other aspects of school life that can be grouped under the construct ‘community life of the school’. The latter includes the important area of pupil-teacher and pupil-pupil relationships. My experience suggests that it is the latter which in the long term has the most significant personal influence on the beliefs/attitudes/values of young people. This narrows even further the potential for personal change that can be hoped for from the classroom curriculum. In other words, classroom teaching/learning has a limited band of personal change processes available to it. While there are community aspects to the classroom, this formal context is, in the main, limited to process 11 above as its principal mechanism for promoting personal change.

Some educators (and parents) may feel uncomfortable and disappointed with this interpretation, and would propose a more extensive account of the classroom’s capacity to promote emotional, aesthetic, values and spiritual development, together with corresponding attention to direct personal ‘experience’ in the classroom. I think that such claims are extravagant. I suggest that the primary role of classroom education in schools is to help pupils learn how to be well informed and to think critically (‘literacy’ in a rich sense). This is not a ‘back to basics’ or ‘primeval’ view, but one that I think is important for getting perspective on the most appropriate role for classroom teaching/learning as regards its capacity to promote personal change. If there is an open, inquiring study going on in the classroom, where there is an emphasis on student study and research, with access to the most up-to-date information, a rich intellectual learning process makes up the core of teaching/learning in that context; and it provides the most appropriate substrate within which attention to the emotive, aesthetic, and affective dimensions fits naturally. Also, this same process is the most natural, the most appropriate, and in the long run, the most effective, way of educating for personal change in beliefs/values/attitudes. This view proposes that teachers educate students in beliefs/attitudes/values; they do not actually ‘communicate’, ‘inculcate’, ‘form’ or ‘inject’ beliefs/attitudes/values. Rather, they educate students in beliefs/attitudes/values, and they hope that this might dispose them towards personal change, which, to be authentic, must come from within, and must have the personal authorship and appropriation of change by the students themselves.

This view suggests that personal change in some students may develop eventually, following up their classroom learning at school; similarly, other students who have experienced the same teaching may not change. Further, this proposes that personal change would be better regarded as the hopes of Catholic schools rather than as measurable aims or outcomes. It is unrealistic to expect that a lot of personal/spiritual change will happen in classrooms. It is not possible to measure personal change because of its complex personal nature; also I consider that to propose a measurement of the spiritual/moral development of pupils is not ethical.

A note on the potential impact of the ‘outcomes movement’ on spiritual/moral/values education

This discussion has significance for educators with regard to the outcomes movement that has had a strong impact on school education in recent years in a number of countries. I suggest that there is a need to take a clear stand as regards so-called outcomes as far as beliefs/values/attitudes are concerned; it appears to me both naïve and unrealistic to write values outcomes in the same vein as knowledge and skill outcomes. I propose that we do not use outcomes for values/attitudes/beliefs, but rather ‘hopes’ (or if the word outcomes has to be used, then something needs to be added to differentiate the meaning like ‘personal outcomes’ or ‘long term outcomes’). Outcomes, as originally specified, should remain as performance measures for knowledge, understanding and skills. For any learning area, there are contradictions in proposing measurable outcomes in the domains of values and attitudes. Hopes is a more appropriate term for any desired change in the personal domain. However, it is acknowledged that the word hopes does not have a strong connotation in current educational discourse. [4]

Some work needs to be done if hopes are to be developed for educational use in this way. Even though they are not open to empirical measurement as are outcomes, this does not mean that hopes (in any learning area including religion) are unimportant. They need to be articulated along with aims and outcomes because they are important for giving direction to the curriculum and to the selection of content, and for guiding the way the community life of the school is organised. A review of the place of hopes for education is, in my view, important for conceptualising the role of the whole curriculum in promoting the personal and spiritual development of pupils.

Thinking about how the school curriculum might promote personal change needs to take into account another important aspect -- the spirituality of young people. Only brief attention can be given to this here before the final discussion of education for personal change.

Some notes on the spirituality of contemporary youth

If their education at school is to be relevant to their spirituality (their search for meaning, identity, beliefs and values), then it needs to sensitive to young people’s beginning experiences of the spiritual in their life world. It needs to address what they see as the important spiritual and moral issues of the day; education authorities will want more in the curriculum than this, but they cannot afford to neglect the spiritual starting points of contemporary young people — the experience and thinking where they come face-to-face with the spiritual and moral dimensions of life. Of concern to many educators in Church-related schools in Western countries is that, for the majority of youth, their spirituality is secular and seems to draw little from their religious traditions.

Some of the key characteristics of the way many young people in Western countries construct their spirituality are as follows:

* Their spirituality is often secular in tone and not very dependent on traditional religion; for some adolescents, their search for meaning and identity is separate from their religion.

* In constructing spirituality (even if this is not articulated in such language), young people are often eclectic drawing on a wide range of resources -- not the least significant is the world of film and television, and the entertainment and consumer industries which support it; these have become the principal moral and spiritual reference points in the culture. Popular music is a medium that keeps many of their feelings and desires on a ‘low simmer’.

* Seeking identity is a major developmental task; it is difficult to balance the polarities between the core personal needs to have distinctive individuality and to feel a sense of belonging to groups; in trying to avoid conformism to traditional patterns, young people can fall into the trap of conforming to some popular commercial pattern that is proposed to them as a way of distinctive self expression; taking on a largely ‘retail’ identity may be part of the identity experimentation they are engaged in at this stage of life.

* Personal freedom is presumed to be an absolute -- at least in Western countries; balancing freedom and responsibility is often problematic.

(More detailed discussions of youth spirituality and of various influences on their spiritual and moral development are given elsewhere. See Crawford and Rossiter, 1993B, 1996B and Rossiter, 1996B, 1996C, 2000, 2001A, 2001B, 2002)

While it is helpful to take into account generalisations about young people’s spirituality, it is also important to acknowledge that there is considerable variation. There is always a proportion of youth who are very religious. There are those who are uncertain about what role, if any, organised religion is going to have in their lives. Then there are others who are indifferent to, or even antagonistic to formal religion. The Catholic school and its religion program should be able to do something to enhance the spiritual lives of young people in all three of these categories. For those who are believers, their faith can be educated and enhanced. For those who are uncertain, their understanding of their religious tradition can be extended. For those who are indifferent or antagonistic towards religion, they should at least be given an adequate access to their religious heritage as well as an education that enhances their spiritual resources for life. No matter what the final religious affiliation of those who leave Catholic schools (as some would say “whether or not they ever become ‘card carrying’ Catholics”) a Catholic school education should help them to become more aware of the spiritual and moral issues that pervade life and help them learn how to think in a critical and informed way about these issues. For a significant proportion of young people, their Catholic schooling may be their most significant period of contact with the Catholic Church. The approach proposed here may well be the best one to present to young people the option of becoming an active member of a faith community.

In the light of a consideration of youth spirituality, educators are in a better position to see how school education, and religious education in particular, might better help young people in their search for a relevant spirituality. In the changing social, economic and familial landscape, many of the traditional support networks and structures for giving meaning are no longer so visible; and the relevance of their message is not so obvious, particularly for youth. For many young people, the beliefs about life's meaning usually drawn from religious convictions no longer seem so compelling. On one hand they experience a lack of meaning; but paradoxically, they live in an environment awash with ways to make meaning and ways to find the ‘true self’. They need help in learning how to chart their way through this confusing territory.

The role of formal religious education in promoting the spiritual and moral development of young people

My concern here is with the formal religion curriculum. I presume that the community life of the school, its prayer, liturgy and retreats and its voluntary social commitment groups can probably make a more significant contribution to young people’s spiritual and moral development. For the role of classroom religious education, I refer back to the earlier discussion, suggesting that what is needed is an open, inquiring study with a special emphasis on student research. How religion is taught should in no way be inferior to the intellectual and study demands that students experience and take for granted in other subject areas. Where religion does not have the same academic status as other subjects (Eg. formal assessment and sometimes examinations (even public examinations), university entrance status etc.), it will never be treated as seriously by students as are the subjects that ‘count’ -- even by students who are religious. This is a natural part of the context of a church school which makes religious education a core subject, whether or not it has government endorsed academic status. However, teachers of religion need to acknowledge and accept the consequences of this situation that always naturally apply to their subject. (This problem of the ‘psychology of the learning environment’ is explained in Crawford and Rossiter, 1992). Nevertheless, and also taking into account what was said earlier about not creating unrealistic expectations for personal change, I think that a good religious education can make a valuable contribution to young people’s spiritual development. It can educate them in their own faith tradition, with some knowledge of other traditions. But its special contemporary contribution, I believe, is in helping them learn how to think critically about spiritual and moral issues, and through learning how to become thoughtful interpreters of culture; students can learn how to become more aware of the shaping influence of culture on thinking and values; they can hopefully make links between their own 2000 year faith tradition of wisdom and the challenges of making sense of contemporary life. Religious education may well become more influential because of the decline in the relevance of other agencies which traditionally give support for meaning and purpose in life.

However, for this to occur, I think that there are further fundamental changes that are needed both in the teaching/learning methods and content of Catholic school religious education. Comment has already been offered about the methods of inquiry. As regards appropriate content, I am not confident that Catholic schools are ready or able yet to make what I think is a crucial adjustment. Elsewhere (Rossiter, 1999), I suggested that both the Catholic diocesan religion syllabuses (in Australia, and probably also in other countries) and the state Religion Studies syllabuses are too ‘tame’ for different reasons. In my view, they need to be more adventurous in allowing for a direct study of crucial questions of meaning and purpose.

For the Catholic syllabuses, this does not mean abandoning formal religious content, but adding more balance with a complementary focus on issues of meaning, purpose and values, and through teaching/learning which tries to highlight the meaning dimension of what is taught about religious traditions. At present, mainly because of episcopal oversight of Catholic school religion syllabuses, they tend to be written predominantly with language and content that are perceived by young people as artificially pious and presumptive of a committed Church membership -- hence the syllabuses do not stray far from traditional Catholic content. The content outlines of many diocesan syllabuses look just like a seminary curriculum; and I believe this is inappropriate.

In Australia, in the final two years of schooling, many Catholic schools use the state Religion Studies courses that are given the same academic status as regular subjects (Eg. Studies of Religion, Religion and Society, etc.). These religion studies courses are also too tame because they are dominated by descriptive phenomenological content, and their syllabus writers feel constrained to keep within traditional accounts of world religions.

Research conducted by Nipkow (1991), a prominent religious education scholar in Germany, found that if the teaching of religion did not focus in some way on what young people perceived to be the main spiritual and moral issues of the day, then they tended to regard descriptive content as religious paraphernalia, more concerned with institutional maintenance than with people's search for meaning and values. This was comparable with the findings of a large survey of Catholic schools in Italy (Malizia and Trenti, 1991). I have heard similar interpretations from religion teachers and scholars in the United Kingdom and North America, and I suspect that research would come up with similar findings in Australia and probably in other countries as well. I would like to know whether students are not antagonised by a lack of perceived relevance in the content of their religious education -- they may be tolerant, regarding it with a type of detached, clinical, anthropological interest. The real danger is an un-challenging religious education that seems to confirm for young people their suspicion that religion, while it may be an interesting phenomenon to study, is of no consequence to their lives.

To change this situation means including more controversial content in religious education. To do this calls for a subtle balance between issues and more formal theological topics. It also needs diplomacy. At present, the religion syllabuses in Catholic schools are presenting a religion that is too 'domesticated'. It is not that every line of the syllabuses has to be issue-oriented. But the present pattern needs to shift more in this direction. Some colleagues seem to be saying “just give them more Theology, Scripture and good Liturgy”. If only it were that simple. This emphasis may be appropriate for seminaries, but not for today’s Catholic schools. I am persuaded by the current situation that a more issue-oriented approach is the direction that would make religious education more relevant to the majority of young people. It will not automatically magnetise student interest; neither will it be a panacea; nor will it make the teaching easier; but I think it will make for a better religious education. Also, I believe it is the best option in the classroom for representing the case for the Church, and for fostering Church participation. Because there are still strong differences of professional opinion about where the balance should be, I see an urgent need for more in-depth research on students' perceptions of the role of religion in giving people meaning in life and on their perceptions of the relevance of different content in religious education.

I think that the points considered above about the study of contemporary issues in religious education have relevance to the role of the whole school curriculum in promoting the spiritual and moral development of pupils. And so in this concluding part of the paper, I want again focus attention on this latter area.

Further consideration of the role of the whole school curriculum in promoting the spiritual and moral development of pupils

Earlier I suggested that one of the principal problems with the discourse about values in education was the hiatus between theory and practice. It was not clear how the attractive values goals could be translated into classroom teaching/learning strategies. I believe that one of the answers to this problem is the same issue-oriented strategy that has been discussed above for religious education. The school curriculum cannot communicate values; but it can educate students to be well informed and think critically about issues -- with the hope that this may dispose them towards personal change.

There is some indication that this approach is being followed in secular subjects. Increasingly, particularly in subjects like English, History, Social Science and Personal Development, there is a focus on values, questions about meaning and social issues. However, I think that the developments are somewhat piecemeal, and what is needed is a systematic interpretation of how the whole school curriculum might address social issues. Below is one attempt to do this. It takes the perspective that spiritual, moral and also justice issues are inherent in, or closely related to, the content that is being studied in different learning areas. What is needed is a way of addressing these satisfactorily without compromising the integrity of the subjects or the professionalism of the teachers. This is subtly different from approaches that have been taken in some Catholic schools where a type of ‘values infusion’ language is used -- for example, phrases like the “injection of Catholic values into the curriculum”, “evangelising the curriculum”, and “adding a sense of the sacred to the curriculum” have been used. While these approaches have something to recommend them, in my experience, this apparent ‘addition’ of values to the curriculum does not come across as educationally appropriate and it does not sound plausible or convincing to a majority of teachers; they get an impression that it is a ‘top down’ approach where Catholic education authorities are trying to impose Catholic values on their teaching to highlight the Catholic identity of the school. The conceptualisation below presumes that there is no need to inject values; they are already there embedded in regular subject matter -- it is a matter of identifying them, bringing them to the ‘surface’ and treating them in class in a way that helps inform students. This is proposed as a natural part of good education in the various learning areas and not a special addition. If the values/spiritual/religious/moral/justice dimensions were not attended to before, then this was an unfortunate lacuna in the teaching/learning process which needs to be addressed -- in all schools.

A way of conceptualising how values/spiritual/religious/moral/justice issues can be addressed across the school curriculum

Three principal approaches to learning and teaching can be followed to articulate how these issues can be handled across the curriculum. It is proposed that this scheme can be applied to all school types, and in appropriate way for all age groups and levels of maturity.

1. Explicit approach. This occurs where values, spiritual, moral, religious and justice content are the explicit, formal content of a subject. The aims of such studies are to help students become well informed, critical thinkers about these areas -- in turn, promoting their spiritual and moral development. This is the justification for having religious education in the curriculum. It could also justify the study of philosophy (including ethics) politics, or personal development. This approach occurs in two forms.

A) Where all of the content of the subject is in the area of spiritual/moral/religious/justice. (Eg. Religious education)

B) Where specific parts of the subject content are concerned with spiritual/moral/religious/justice. (Eg. A section of a Citizenship course on values, a section of Social Science on particular religions).

2. Contextual approach. This occurs in units where values and spiritual, moral, religious and justice issues arise in relationship with the substantiative content of the subject (the issues are not the formal unit content). In this situation, issues can be addressed in a way that acknowledges their importance and their influence while not compromising the integrity of the principal subject matter. (for example, where issues arise in the context of English, Geography, Science, Mathematics etc. examples of issues are: human relationships, ethical issues, bioethics, ecological sustainability, globalisation etc.)

3. General skills and consciousness-raising. The learning and teaching processes in all subjects contribute in some way to the ‘personal’ learning of students by developing skills that can be applied to life and which make a valuable contribution to personal and spiritual development. For example, skills in the areas of:- self-directed study, research, problem posing, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, appraisal of arguments, differentiating facts from beliefs, interrogating cultural conditioning, historical perspective, values perspective, ecological perspective etc. Such life skills are proposed as a basic part of an approach to personal learning throughout life that may help students to become critically aware of spiritual/ethical dimensions; this may dispose students to consider responses through committed action.

All three approaches are to be guided by an appropriate code of professional teaching ethics. In particular, this will provide guidance on method and on the place for the teacher’s own personal views in the teaching/learning process (see Crawford and Rossiter, 1985, chapter 5).

A first principle would be to establish for staff, parents and students that it is educationally desirable to address spiritual, moral and justice issues where they arise appropriately within the curriculum. The range of issues covered should not be excessive; there should be balance; the aim is not to cover all possible issues, but to help students learn how to think critically about them. This needs to be done sensitively, avoiding any artificial pressure to include value sensitive content. Some subjects may need little if any attention from this perspective. To overemphasise this dimension can be as inappropriate as to neglect it. The aim is to highlight (but not exaggerate) a spiritual and moral dimension to young people’s general education.

For teachers, there need to be appropriate guidelines about how to do this so that where these issues are addressed, it needs to be relevant and integral to the purposes of the subject, and not an imposed extra dimension -- a perception that would make the study of issues counter-productive both for teachers and students. The following summarises important aspects in the teaching of values/spiritual/moral/religious/justice sensitive material as a normal part of the educational process.

1. Systematic study of issues: Regular subjects or learning areas in the school curriculum are appropriate places for the study of values/spiritual/moral/justice issues; unplanned, informal discussion of issues is not an adequate substitute for systematic, well resourced study and informed discussion;

2. Limited treatment: Identification of issues and their exploration need to be within the limitations of time and depth of treatment which do not compromise the integrity of the primary subject matter;

3. Open, inquiring study: Issues should be studied in an open, inquiring fashion with the aim of helping students learn how to become informed about the issues and better able to identify and evaluate the related values and implications. This may include the identification of particular religious beliefs and values which are relevant to the issue; it may also refer to views which are controversial and contested, noting some alternatives, including the stances of different religious traditions and non-religious views of life;

4. Hopes for personal change: While there may be a contextual 'hope' that students will appropriate particular values and beliefs (those formally proclaimed by the school), and will take up committed social action, the purpose of teaching and learning related to contemporary issues is primarily to help them become well informed and critical thinkers. What personal stance and social action they eventually take will be influenced by many factors outside the classroom -- not the least of which is the free will of the students themselves;

5. Avoiding presumption and not requiring personal responses: The teaching/learning environment (a type of public forum, even in the church-related school) should not presume beliefs or commitments in students, or that these should be expressed in class; if there is a climate where personal beliefs and commitments are freely discussed, then this is valued for the sensitive contribution that it makes to the learning -- but such contributions are not required;

6. Respect for student freedom: Profound respect needs to be shown in class for the privacy, the beliefs and autonomy of individual students and teachers;

7. A systematic code of teaching ethics: Such a code would guide teachers as to how they might refer to their own beliefs, views and commitments on a topic, if they perceive that this would make an educational contribution to the study. Their views (and student views) would be evaluated on the same terms as other content. This stance is described in the literature as ‘committed impartiality’ (see Hill, 1991). The teaching/learning situation is not seen primarily as an opportunity for the teacher to propose his/her own views, but rather for helping students become more critically informed about the issues -- this may well include diplomatic reference to personal views of teachers and students;

8. Appropriate time commitment: The time given to values aspects should be appropriate and not excessive and in accord with the extent of the content for the topic;

9. Student resources: Appropriate study materials are needed to resource the teaching of value sensitive issues; it should not consist only of unresourced, informal discussion. Students may be directed to more detailed resources, or to other teachers, to follow up in their own time -- particularly if only limited time can be given to issues in class.

If the study of spiritual/moral issues is intended to be relevant for students, then they need to be able to see that the content deals with real issues that are of concern in the community. It is not anticipated, that with their present limited experience, that students would be able to judge wisely on all aspects of this matter.

A good way of illustrating the formula proposed here is to look at particular topics that might be studied. These could be of variable length and could be integrated within the study of various subjects. See the list in Appendix 2. This list is intended primarily for senior school students. However, I believe that good teaching should be able to address most of these issues in some simple way with younger children. We should not underestimate the capacity of children and adolescents to understand issues. For example, in the 1980s an Australian ten year old boy was instrumental in beginning a program in which children entered a competition to make ‘anti-smoking advertisements’; the results, in which participants changed words and images in the current advertisements for cigarettes to reverse the attractive pro-smoking messages showed that children could become aware of the way that advertisements manipulated images to make smoking appear attractive to young people. In another example, a class of mainly eight year olds had a short weekly “big issues” session in which everyone in groups of three at a time got a turn in talking for a few minutes (with illustrations if they wished) about what they thought were important world and local issues at the time (in the light of what they saw on television.) The impression I had was that the class understood that an important part of their education was to be informed about what was happening in the world.

The approach being considered here does not presume that every treatment of issues has to be a detailed study. In some cases it may be little more that identifying issues; at other times it will be some new information and discussion; or, more time may be spent identifying and evaluating the arguments. Another complementary aspect of this approach is how teachers talk with pupils about issues in informal conversation. This too can make a valuable contribution to their spiritual/moral development. Teachers can model what it means to be a critical evaluator of culture, even in their conversations with students.

This view of a spiritual and moral dimension to the school curriculum needs to be incorporated as central to the ‘Catholicity’ of the Catholic school. As considered earlier in the paper, there is a danger of overestimating the capacity of the Catholic school as a primary agency of evangelisation; a reason for this view that the Catholic school may be particularly effective in communicating Catholic beliefs, values and religious practice seems to presume that "education is a key to personal and social change". The discussion proposed that personal change may or may not eventuate; as a practical follow up here, it is suggested that Catholic schools can actually educate students in spiritual/moral/justice issues. Whether or not this leads to personal change is not dependent on the educational process. This results in a view of the religious role of the Catholic school in more realistic terms than before; therefore, I believe that this view has a better chance of winning the moral support of all school staff, no matter what their religious adherence. This may be a more basic and humble spiritual role description for the school, but this is what I think of when I hear talk of Catholic schools as “an evangelising, countercultural, world transforming presence in the Church and the wider community”!

A more detailed development of this argument is given on the website 203.10.46.30/mre/mod9/module9.html and across the various publications noted in the references. In addition, this website considers how the theme “education for wisdom” can be used as an integrating theme for helping teachers of all subject areas see how their ordinary teaching can contribute to the spiritual and moral development of pupils (see also Crawford and Rossiter, 1992).

Conclusion

The argument in this paper for an issue-oriented approach to address the spiritual/moral/justice dimensions of the curriculum may sound attractive, but is it realistic? Are the teachers in Catholic schools ready for it? Are they capable of it? Are traditional, rather didactic methods of teaching so prevalent that a critical, inquiring, student-centred approach is too much to aim for? Would the extent of professional development programs needed to develop a new approach be too great and too expensive?

The answers to these questions are not simple, but I hope that the ideal is not dismissed as unrealistic. Progress may be very slow and long term. But what is important at this stage is to look at the case presented and see if it is an ideal for Catholic education that can be adopted. It is not really anything new; in my opinion, it is just a reformulation of traditional religious role of Catholic schools in more education-friendly language; also, I believe that good teaching is already contributing in this direction.

The aim of this paper has been to stimulate thinking and debate about the possibilities. If there is a growing consensus about the need for a critical inquiring education in relation to contemporary issues across the curriculum, and if this is to be implemented effectively, then it requires a positive understanding of this role on the part of teachers and a commitment to the approach. For some teachers, this might involve a significant change in teaching orientation (a change from the situation where the teacher has “all the information”, and tells the students “what is right”.) If there is to be change, then educators have to think and talk more about it, and they need to test the approach and see how students respond. If it is a good theory, then it should translate into good practice. If that can happen even in a limited way, then the emulation of examples of good practice can be way of extending this approach through schools; the development of useful student resources is an essential part of the process.

There needs to be a balance. A ‘gung ho’ overemphasis on issues would be counter-productive in a wide ranging education in which the critical, socially evaluative role is but one aspect. However, it is an aspect that deserves special attention.

I conclude with two ideas from Postman and Weingartner’s 1969 book, Teaching as a subversive activity, which have remained with me as expressions of my long term commitment firstly, to the realistic possibility of promoting the personal and spiritual development of young people through education, and secondly, to working towards this goal through an open, critical study of contemporary issues.

Postman and Weingartner saw themselves as "simple, romantic people who risk contributing to the mental-health problem by maintaining a [stubborn] belief in the improvability of the human condition through education" (p. 12)

All children are born with an inbuilt crap detector. One of the important roles for education is to develop and sharpen the function that instrument. (p. 16)

References

Dwyer, B. 1985, A New Course Is Not Always the Answer!, Catholic School Studies, 58, 1, 3.

Catholic Education Office Sydney, 1996, Faithful to God, Faithful to People (Archdiocesan Religious Education Curriculum Documents for secondary schools), Catholic Education Office, Sydney.

Crawford, M. L. and Rossiter, G. M. 1985, Teaching religion in the secondary school: Theory and practice, Christian Brothers Province Resource Group, Sydney.

Crawford, M. L. and Rossiter, G. M. 1992, Teaching Wisdom: Religious Education and the Spiritual and Moral Development of Young People, Journal of Christian Education, Papers 101, 47-63.

Crawford, M.L. and Rossiter, G.M. 1993A, The Future of Holistic Education: The Recession We Had to Have? Curriculum Perspectives, 13, 1, 37-46.

Crawford, M.L. and Rossiter, G.M. 1993B, The Spirituality of Today's Young People: Implications for Religious Education in Church-related Schools, Religious Education Journal of Australia, 9, 2, 1-8.

Crawford, M.L. and Rossiter, G.M. 1996A, School Education and the Spiritual Development of Adolescents: An Australian Perspective, in R. Best (ed.) Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child, Cassell, London.

Crawford, M.L. and Rossiter, G.M. 1996B, The Secular Spirituality of Youth: Implications for Religious Education, British Journal of Religious Education, 18, 3, 133-143.

Hill, B. V. 1991, Teacher commitment and the ethics of teaching for commitment, in G.M. Rossiter, Religious Education in Australian Schools, Curriculum Development Centre, Canberra.

McLaughlin, D. 2000, The Common good and the Catholic school on the threshold of the third millennium: A South African perspective, in M. Bodenstein, M. Potterton & C. Northmore, Catholic Schools and the Common Good: A school leadership conversation, Centre for School Improvement and the Catholic Institute of Education, Johannesburg, 20-40.

Malizia, G. and Trenti, Z. 1991, Una Disciplina in Cammino: Rapporto sull'Insegnamento della Religione Cattolica nell'Italia Degli Anni 1990 (English translation: An Evolving Enterprise: Report on the Teaching of Religion in Catholic Schools in Italy in 1990). Societa Editrice Internazionale, Torino.

Metherell, T. 1990, Excellence and Equity: New South Wales Curriculum Reform, NSW Ministry of Education and Youth Affairs, Sydney. Originally appearing in NSW Government, 1989, White Paper on Curriculum Reform in Schools in NSW, Oct 1989.

Nipkow, K. E. 1991, Pre-conditions for Ecumenical and Interreligious Learning: Observations and Reflections from a German Perspective, Australian Catholic University Moral and Religious Education Project, Sydney.

Oswald, L. 1993, Teachers Told to be Moral Guardians: Juvenile crime levels prompt push for moral values, Education Review, The Weekend Australian, April 24, 1993, p. 43.

Postman, N. and Weingartner, C. 1969, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Penguin, Ringwood (Victoria).

Rossiter, G.M. 1996A, The Moral and Spiritual Dimension to Education: Some Reflections on the British Experience, Journal of Moral Education, 25, 2, 201-214.

Rossiter, G.M. 1996B, The Alternative Religious Education: The Formative Influence of Film and Television on Young People's Spirituality, Word in Life, 44, 3, 3-9.

Rossiter, G.M. 1996C, The Formative Influence of Film and Television on Young People's Spirituality: Implications for Religious Education, (Part 2), Word in Life, 44, 4, 6-16.

Rossiter, G.M. 1999, Historical perspective on the development of Catholic Religious Education in Australia: Some implications for the future, Journal of Religious Education, 47, 1, 5-18.

Rossiter, G.M. 2000, The shaping influence of film and television on the spirituality and identity of young people: An educational response, (Part 3), Journal of Religious Education, 48, 3, 2-16.

Rossiter, G.M. 2001A, Reasons for living: Religious Education and young people's search for spirituality and identity, In B. Roebben and M. Warren (Eds.) Religious Education as Practical Theology: Essays in Honour of Professor Herman Lombaerts, Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia Series, Peeters Publishing, Leuven.

Rossiter, G.M. 2001B, The development of identity: Implications for Religious Education, in M. Ryan (Ed.) Echo and Silence: Contemporary issues for Australian Religious Education, Social Science Press, Wentworth Falls (NSW).

Rossiter, G.M. 2002, Addressing an apparent crisis for Catholic School Religious Education: The importance of ‘Relevance’ and of the theme ‘Search for Meaning’. Journal of Religious Education, 50, 2.

Appendix 1 Examples of Australian Catholic school documentation which illustrate the prominence of religious/ecclesiastical language in mission statements and in aims for religious education

2. Example of an Australian Catholic primary school’s aims for Religious Education (2001). This is typical of the aims expressed in the mission statements of many Catholic primary schools in Australia.

At [St X Catholic school], the teaching of Religious Education permeates the whole school curriculum in fostering the development of the “whole Person”. Through this, it is our aim to continue the Catholic Church’s mission of spreading the “Good News” of Jesus Christ. We aim to provide a systematic approach to the fulfilment of this mission by teaching and learning what the Catholic Church believes, celebrates, lives and prays.

The specific aims of Religious Education are to:

· Foster the children’s growth in their relationship with God.

· Raise the personal awareness and appreciation of the Church’s faith tradition and development.

By educating children in our faith, we are handing on to them the teachings and beliefs of the Catholic Church in the hope of fostering an individual and personal relationship with God

3. Example of the range of Aims for Australian Catholic School Religious Education

Appendix 2. Topics that might be studied as part of an approach to issues across the curriculum for senior school students.

Note: These examples were intended primarily for senior school students. One might look at them and think that they could not be applied for younger students. However, this is not the case; teachers who understand their students at whatever age, including children in primary school classes, would be able to introduce some aspects of most of these issues for younger children. For example: the idea in ‘globalisation’ that companies would want to manufacture their goods in countries where the cost of labour is lowest, while being able to sell freely in any country can be explained simply to primary school children. The idea in a critical education is not to overwhelm pupils with complicated concepts, but to help them gradually, and in small steps, to learn how to become critical thinkers and evaluators. What is important is a capacity to communicate ideas to children in simple terms.

[1] There is some difficulty with the use of the concept ‘values’ in this context. Firstly, it is not always the best term to cover the various spiritual, moral, religious and justice aspects of school education. Secondly, while the term values seems to be used usually with a positive connotation (especially in values education), there remains some ambiguity, because what is valued by people may not always be good. Values can be positive or negative. For this reason, the concept of ‘virtues’ has much to offer as an alternative, particularly with respect to moral education. It seems to convey the idea of moral content better than education in values which may often be perceived as a process of clarification without clear indication of what is good.

[2] While this emphasis on spiritual/moral development is regarded as valuable, there remains a hiatus between these aims and practice. A consideration of this problem is given in Crawford and Rossiter, 1993A. A more detailed discussion of the various issues raised in this section is given across a series of publications, Crawford and Rossiter, 1992, 1996A, and Rossiter, 1996A. This is summarised on the website http://203.10.46.30/mre/mod9/module9.html

[3] Both developments in spiritual/moral/values education and the level of public debate seem to have been more vigorous in the United Kingdom than in other Western countries, following the new emphasis on this dimension in the 1988 Education Reform Act. See Rossiter, 1996A.

[4] Some colleagues have argued the case for values outcomes and for some ways of measuring them. Some diocesan Religious Education curriculum documents in Australia also support this view -- see the Sydney Archdiocesan Religious Education guidelines Faithful to God and Faithful to People. However, I remain unconvinced that this approach is appropriate. Many of the outcomes noted in the diocesan documents seem to me to be ‘knowledge outcomes related to values’, rather than ‘values outcomes’ which I would see as actual changes in the students’ own personal values.

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