Skip to main content

Teacher Formation Reading #1: "It's About Navigating Life: The Importance of Philosophy and Theology" by Dr. Peter Kreeft

Underlying many of the Catholic Standards are the philosophical transcendentals of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. In this article by Dr. Peter Kreeft he speaks to how the use of philosophy can broaden our understanding of the world, especially when coupled with the light of our Catholic faith.

This article was written to provide guidance for high school students in choosing a Catholic college, but has very practical and basic information for the Catholic educator as well. I am providing the beginning of the article here with a link to the full article on The Cardinal Newman Society website. On the side bar I have included some comprehension questions and thought provokers to assist those implementing the Catholic Standards with a deeper understanding of why this philosophical approach has been included.

     "Here is one of the clearest criteria for choosing or judging a college: you can be almost certain that any college that has dropped philosophy and theology from its core curriculum is not serious about a liberal arts education. And in my experience I find that this is true of many of the colleges in America.

        This raises two questions: (1) What are philosophy and theology, and why are they crucial to a young person's education today? (2) Aren't they outdated, impractical, abstract, irrelevant, elitist, superfluous and even dangers to faith an sanity?"    To continue reading the article click here.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to the Catholic Curriculum Standards Blog!

This site is designed specifically for teachers and administrators who are interested in, or who are currently using, the Catholic Curriculum Standards .  Our hope is to share our insights into the development and structure of the Standards, provide ideas for implementation, and to provide a forum for dialogue and collaboration among users.  A NOTE FROM THE PROJECT LEADS: The Cardinal Newman Society offers these Catholic Curriculum Standards as a resource for educators to help keep focus on what is unique about Catholic elementary and secondary education: its evangelizing mission to integrally form students in Christ and transmit a Christian worldview. The standards cover English language arts, math, scientific topics, and history, focusing on unique Catholic insights into these curricular areas and complementing the CHurch's standards for religious instruction. They are broadly grouped into two grade levels, K-6 and 7-12. They express student levels of learning, inviti...

Sample Unit Plan for Mathematics Incorporating Beauty

Here is a sample unit plan on symmetry which uses several of the Catholic Curriculum Standards and the philosophical questions pertaining to Beauty. Other mathematical standards might be included with this unit as well, but the main point here was to show how the philosophical questioning of Beauty might pertain to the academic discipline of Mathematics. See the Transcendental Taxonomy in the Resource Section for a full list of questions pertaining to Beauty. Title of Unit Plan: Symmetry Grade Level: 3-5th Subject Area: Mathematics School Name: Time Frame to Complete  Lessons: 2-3 days (w/art) Stage 1: Desired Results Established Goals: (Standards) CS.M.K6.GS1  Demonstrate the mental habits of precise, determined, careful, and accurate questioning, inquiry, and reasoning. CS.M.K6.DS2  Respond to the beauty, harmony, proportion, radiance, and wholeness present in mathematics. CCSS. 4.G.A.3  Recognize a line of symmetry f...

Teacher Formation Reading #3: Awakening Wonder!

Formation reading #3 is from the text listed below. It only includes Chapter 4, but as with all the text selected for this study the other chapters will provide rich information. This choice is not specifically Catholic. It was chosen because it concisely focuses on the transcendentals of truth, beauty, and goodness and provides us with a classical approach for comparison. (Sample answers are provided under Teacher Formation Reading #3 in Resources). Awakening wonder: A classical guide to truth, goodness, & beauty  by Stephen Turley PhD. Classical Academic Press. (2014). “Chapter 4: Truth, goodness, and beauty in the Christian world, Part II”. 1.)    According to St. Augustine (354-430 AD), how do we come to truly know God? 2.)    What happens when one truly knows oneself? 3.)    What awakened the desire of a “meaning and purpose outside himself?” 4.)    Describe Truth for St. Augustine.  5.)  ...