TOUCHSTONES: Stories, thoughts and reflections on Catholic Education and the Christian vision
By Wayne Tinsey, David Lovell Publishing. RRP $22.50.
Reviewed by Br Brian Grenier CFC
GOOD teachers know not only what and who they are teaching but also why and to what end they are teaching.
Their sense of purpose commonly finds expression in a mission statement, publicly proclaimed and prominently displayed in their school or college.
If this statement is to become descriptive as well as programmatic, another document needs to accompany it – one that spells out the criteria for measuring the authenticity of the education that seeks to realise the goals of the mission statement and to embody its ideals in practice.
Mindful of this need and drawing on his 35 years as a journeyman teacher and educational administrator in Australia and overseas, Wayne Tinsey identifies four such criteria or ‘touchstones’ as he calls them.
As executive director of Edmund Rice Education Australia, he offers them in the first place to teachers in Catholic schools in the Edmund Rice tradition.
However, they are highly relevant for all involved in Catholic education, “as well as for all who crave deeper understanding of the heart of the Christian vision”.
The touchstones he proposes are as follows: 1. education for liberation and fullness of life, 2. education inspired by the Gospel and its priorities, 3. education in communities of inclusion, and 4. education promoting justice and solidarity.
Each of these suggests a question that could be the basis of a fruitful staff meeting or seminar. To his insightful delineation of these criteria, the author adds some thoughts for educators on leadership and witness and some practical and inspirational messages for the young.
Tinsey’s own pedagogical skills are evident in every page of this fine book.
He appreciates the teaching potential of good stories and apt quotations from the works of fellow educators and theologians and expresses his own thoughts in language that is readily understandable, engaging and gently challenging.
In his preface he writes: “I have been trying to make deeper sense of what is core to my chosen vocation in a changing context”.
Touchstones is the fruit of these “thoughts and musings”.
I would like to see it in the hands of every teacher in our Catholic schools.
It deserves a wider readership and could also be read with profit by the parents of the boys and girls they teach and by many of the older students themselves.
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