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The Catholic Education Playbook and Mission Outcomes document is the framework for understanding how the school can animate the Church’s mission ever more deeply for this age the Lord has placed us in. Specifically, the Playbook and Mission Outcomes give details on what Archbishop Sample means by “Mission Passionate Catholic Education” in the Archdiocese of Portland.

Each month, this section of the Mission Monthly will examine one section of the Mission Indicators (starting on p. 5 of the document linked above), giving explanations and examples of what that Mission Indicator could look like in the life of the school. We began in January unpacking Spiritual Formation of Disciples. In March, I began writing about the defining characteristics of Rigorous Catholic Intellectual Formation and Scholarship.

This month, we’ll continue looking at the practical application of the characteristics of Rigorous Catholic Intellectual Formation and Scholarship. 

Archbishop Sample, through the playbook invites us to make sure our instructional moves are forming children in what is most human. The Catechism (paragraphs 31-38) tells us there are ways the human person comes to know that are necessary not only to know facts, but to know God. The ways a human person comes to know well are through imitation, attention, deliberation, inquiry, memory, and calculation.  

Continuing the series from March, let’s expand on another of these faculties: inquiry.

My son, Pier, is 7 years old. I recently spent two days straight writing down every question he asked me. Here are some of my favorites: “How come when we drive at night the moon follows our car?”, “What does an atom do during the day?”, and “How come when we look in the sky we cannot see Venus if Venus is in front of us in the solar system?” You can see that he was in a season of wonder about science and space!

While his questions are adorable, I bet they remind you of the young children in your life, too. Children at Pier’s age ask hundreds of questions every day. Each one of us is born with an innate, created desire to know about the things which there are to know. The Lord gave us hearts with which to love, and minds with which to know. The human person desires to understand, and we begin with wonder.

When we as teachers protect the innate desire to know, and design our classrooms to be places that nurture wonder, we nurture in our students one of the faculties that is most human in them.

In our classrooms, we want our students to maintain a general sense of wonder about the things which there are to know. When children are 3, they ask us, “What is that?” and “Who are you?” and we want to ensure that when they’re 9 years old they’re still wondering and can ask, “Why is this cell we’re observing in the microscope created the way it is?” and when they’re 13 years old they’re still wondering and will ask, “Why does evil exist?” or “How can we be sure God exists?”, and when they’re 16 years old they ask, “Why do I exist?” or “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Ultimately, we want to foster in our classrooms ongoing inquiry, asking good questions about all of reality, and especially life’s greatest questions, which we know are answered best through the truth of Jesus Christ and an encounter with Him who gives meaning to our questions and meaning to our lives.

How do we do this?

In the younger grades, preschool through 5^th grade, our job is to protect the inquiry our students likely still have.

In the upper grades, 6^th-12^th grade, we want to model for our students, and engage them in, deep and rich and interesting questions.

We need to commit to protecting their inquiry. We must model asking interesting questions about things, so we ourselves must be active in the life of the mind. And this culture of wondering about the things there are to know must permeate our classrooms.

As Proverbs 25:2 tells us, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings to fathom a matter.”

• Observe in your classrooms. Spend 40 minutes in a classroom and write down every question students are being asked. What kinds of questions are these? Are they interesting? Necessary? Deep? Do they get to the meaning and purpose of things? Are they questions the teacher is asking that the students have not been drawn into asking themselves?

For now, as school pastors and principals, we can begin to observe what’s currently happening in our school in the above human pedagogical methods, and pray about where the Lord would like us to grow. Know of OMCE’s prayers for you!