We’ll find hand of God in sex ed curriculum

The release last month of the Ontario government’s revised physical education and health curriculum is an opportunity for Catholic schools to again demonstrate an approach that is both distinctive from but supportive of secular goals.  

Catholic education has always approached curriculum from a different starting point than its secular counterpart. That’s not to say the secular approach is deficient. Indeed, the two approaches are often compatible. It would be wrong to suggest that everything we do is so distinctive that other insights have no bearing on our school system. Trying to be different just for the sake of being different is of no value to our students.

But one area Catholic schools proudly identify our distinctiveness is in the belief that curriculum is about more than schooling. Catholic education forms the entire individual for life, and beyond this life. We believe curriculum should be practical and theoretical. Catholic schools discern what is valuable in all manner of curricular materials and incorporate those into schools.  Even St. Augustine encouraged Christian curriculum to take the best from non-Christian sources and leave the rest.