Daydreaming again...

So I think I may have just discovered the topic for my Synthesis Seminar (Senior Thesis for MDiv, basically):

I'm very intrigued by different ideas about education. Here are a few things I've read about / or have heard about that immediately come to mind:

* Rod Dreher's treatment of Education in Crunchy Cons (one chapter gives a rather convincing pro-homeschooling argument)
* Maria Montessori & Sofia Cavaletti's educational philosophies
* The Educational Philosophy of St. John Bosco
* Unschooling Movement -
* Steve Kellmeyer: Destined to Fail: Catholic Education in America (this I heard about through a friend's blog. I haven't actually read the book yet, but the premise of it is quite provocative).
* Vatican Documents on catechesis / education

Though I do not have an education degree (Recently, I've thought about applying to ACE (Alliance for Catholic Education - 2 year education program at ND) or its New England equivalent, Providence Alliance for Catholic Teachers (PACT) through Providence College when I finish the MDiv), lately I've been thinking more and more about becoming a teacher. Most of this comes out of the day dreaming that I've been doing lately - or rather, prayerful reflection on where God is calling me in life. Thinking about teaching gets me really excited!

Actually, this "daydreaming" that I've been engaging in got me thinking back to what really led me to go to FUS and into studying theology / catechetics in the first place. It dawned on me that there were two precipating experiences that really gave me a desire to pursue this program of studies: 1) my own experience of the Steubenville Conferences as a place of dynamic evangelization and catechesis coupled with 2) the experience of my own religious education experience (religious ed in Catholic school, followed by 2 years of CCD) which, to put it charitably, left much to be desired, particularly regarding the CCD part. (Looking back, my Catholic school experience had been quite good, though it lacked the evangelistic and conversional dynamic so evident in my experiences at the Steubenville conferences, etc.)
Furthermore, I distinctly remember my 9th Grade CCD teacher asking us to write down any suggestions we had to make our religious ed experience better, and I wrote a whole 3 page letter with all kinds of ideas and suggestions. In fact, I was the only person to respond to this request!

A frustration of mine has been what I perceive to be the religious education culture of my home diocese. My dream would be to develop some sort of program for religious education and to work for the renewal religious education (catechesis & Catholic school religious ed). More on this in another post, perhaps. =)

Anyway, so as I consider teaching, I'm trying to formulate and articulate my own "educational philosophy" and let's just say that there are many different different voices that are weighing in on the conversation for me. More and more I feel myself being pulled to reject the popular model of education which in many ways seems to depersonalize education, making it into a factory-like process through which we push our children expecting that having done their time in the system they'll emerge "finished products." In many ways, our modern educational system is failing our young people.

At the same time, while I appreciate the more freedom that approaches like homeschooling, or more radically, unschooling provide, I don't want to go to the opposite extreme of presuming that having a set curriculum is a bad thing. After all, we need a common language in order to be able to navigate the world around us! (Conventional homeschooling does not to go this extreme - but unschooling, does). Ultimately, it seems that the task of constructing an adequate educational philosophy is allowing these different voices to weigh in and add their insights, and that the task for the educator is to create an educational method and philosophy which hold all their insights in tension, keeping a balance between extremes.

Could this be my life's project?