In 1830 the early roots of Catholic education were formed in Upper Canada  in the Kingston diocese by Bishop Alexander Macdonell who was able to seek funding from the government to provide education to a small  group of students in his diocess. From this small action by Bishop Macdonell, Catholic education roots have flourished over the years. The rights of Catholic education were further entrenched in subsequent legislation in Canada.

Catholic education today educates over 575,000 English students and 77,000 French students — representing one-third of all students schooled in Ontario. Add to this that many Catholic school boards are growing as they seek to come to terms with urban expansion from our cities and beyond. Catholic education continues to have great academic success with graduation rates, student credit retention and success on provincial testing. Yet this must never be the only measure of success for Catholic schools.

Catholic education, from those early days of 1830, continues to be faithful to its early roots up to today. Our schools today seek not to just educate or pass on knowledge to our students in the hope that they will be prepared for a job upon graduation. As St. Pope John Paul II said, “we must grasp firmly the challenge of providing a kind of education whose curriculum will be inspired more by reflection than by technique, more by a search for wisdom than by the accumulation  of information.” Rather our school systems must seek to engage the student in a deeper process. 

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Most recently one of the first statements issued by Pope Leo XIV was on Catholic education, indicating its importance in the mission of the Catholic Church and to the larger community. In Pope Leo’s apostolic letter Drawing New Maps of Hope, issued on the 60th anniversary of the Vatican document Gravissimum Educationis, Pope Leo reminds us:

“Today in the face of rapid change and disorienting uncertainties, where educational communities allow themselves to be guided by the word of Christ, they do not retreat but are revitalized, they do not build walls but bridges. They respond with creativity, opening up new possibilities for the transition of knowledge and meaning of schools. Because the Gospel does not grow old but makes all thing new.” 

This month we celebrate Catholic Education Week, a celebration of the continual revitalization of Catholic education in our communities. Catholic education must always fight the twin evils of becoming a museum of the past, clinging to a nostalgic way of seeing students, education and society and becoming the plaything of the latest fad or ideology, our sound bite.

Pope Leo  XIV reminds the Catholic community “that ecclesial community is called to support environments that integrate faith and culture, respect the dignity of all and engage in a dialogue with society.” He  goes on to warn us about reducing education to a functional training or an economic approach that seeks to fill the job market — “a person is not a skills profile, they cannot be reduced to a predictable algorithm, but is a face, a story, a vocation.”  

While Catholic education does a very good job at educating for the skills that are needed for development and lifelong learning, these analytical skills must be wrapped in a strong commitment to ensure student understanding of the ethics of learning, or as Pope Leo states, “Education is not measured with the axis of efficiency: it measures it according to the dignity, justice, the capacity to serve the common good…  Catholic education puts the person at the centre educating them to see with farsightedness of Abraham (Genesis) helping them to discover the meaning of life, their inalienable dignity and their responsibility towards others. Education is not only  the transmission of content but also the learning of virtues.” 

Catholic schools do this by ensuring that the curriculum they use supports the mission of the Catholic vision of life, while respecting the pedagogical  practices of teachers and has the student at the centre of all our educational endeavours. Our new catechetical program, Growing With Christ, from Kindergarten to Grade 9, ensures a faith-based resource for our students to learn about their faith and themselves. We invite our students to come into relationship with Jesus, to walk with Him, as those who did on the road to Emmaus.   

With our Family Life program (Blessed and Beloved) and our celebration of the liturgical year, we call our students into greater knowledge of the purpose of life. At the same time ensuring that our curriculum is presented and woven throughout with Catholic content and examples regardless of the subject: social studies, literature, economics, science, mathematics. These academic subjects must be taught at appropriate levels for student success while at the same time using our vision for life, to be integrated into all subjects, evaluations and discussions. It allows Catholic schools to provide a context for the knowledge that they are imparting. 

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Supporting the Catholic endeavour of Catholic education are a number of agencies in our province — the Institute for Catholic  Education, the Assembly of Catholic Bishops, our local bishops and a host of professional organizations — that work diligently to ensure resources are available for Catholic teachers to deliver content established by the Ministry of Education but through a Catholic lens.

This work of Catholic education is done with parents, teachers, school principals, directors and superintendents, parish priests, support staff, trustees, chaplains, grandparents, all working to ensure that students receive both a relevant and integrated Catholic education that will serve them in their present reality and into the future, because Catholic education educates ultimately for the future. 

Newspapers are often dominated by the challenges that education faces, and to be sure school boards and schools face real concerns that will not go away and need to be discussed and resolved in meaningful dialogue. Often the success of Catholic schools gets buried in the constant 24-hour news cycle. Schools have a list of areas that they must constantly reinvent themselves to deal with, finding new approaches to meet new challenges. Never have expectations been greater on Catholic schools, but we must balance these demands with just as much  concern that the education present is firmly grounded in our Catholic vision, and our appreciation of the world that students live in.  

The complexities of the classroom are great, from individual learning styles and ability levels, equity, physical and emotional needs of students layered over by the desire to provide a strong spiritual context to  the student population. Challenging yes, insurmountable no. 

Our classrooms and schools are a reflection of society, into each classroom a student walks in with a myriad of concerns. Food insecurities, housing insecurities, anxiety, economic hardship, family distress, the crushing weight and divisiveness of social media, concerns and fear regarding the present and their future, the inclusion of A.I. in every part of their life, and the constant claim “that you aren’t good enough.” A culture that wants them often to grow up too fast and enter into the world of adulthood well before they are ready. A culture that supports violence, bullying and society that is often antithetical to the Gospel message. This is what we ask our teachers and administrators to confront each day. 

You know what? They do it, and do it very well. Because all who truly understand the mission our Catholic school system in Ontario take support from Pope Leo XIV: “When Catholic education prevents our students from forgetting our common humanity, which has given rise to divisions and violence, when the Earth suffers, Catholic education cannot be silent: it must combine social justice and environmental justice, promote sobriety and sustainable lifestyles and form consciences capable of choosing not merely what is convenient but what is just. Every small gesture, avoiding waste, choosing responsibility, defending the common good constitutes cultural and moral literacy.” 

This is the challenge each day for Catholic education. So, we give thanks to Bishop Alexander Macdonell, who sought funding for the first Catholic school in Upper Canada. Today that legacy lives on in the over half a million students who attend our schools each day in French and English. 

So, let’s celebrate Catholic Education Week, participate in the events at your local school and  parish, pray for the continued growth of our Catholic schools and that they never become museums of the past or captive to the ideologies and fads of the day, our students are much too important. 

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So that our students may say when they look back upon their Catholic education experience, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” 

(Kostoff is the executive director of OCSOA, a frequent contributor to The Catholic Register and a long-serving Catholic educator.)