LUKE Critchley says the questions he hears from students about religion are different from when he first started teaching in the classroom 22 years ago.
Mr Critchley says students at Catholic schools today are coming from many backgrounds.
As the make-up of the classroom changes, he says he fields more questions from secular, culturally Catholic and even non-Christian perspectives.
“Addressing the challenging questions these students bring about faith and ethics requires a deepened understanding,” he said.
Mr Critchley said the Institute of Faith Education’s Foundations course helped to “fill in the gaps” in his knowledge and better equipped him to meet the changing needs of the classroom.
Mr Critchley, himself a Catholic, said the course also deepened his own understanding of the Church’s emphasis on “reason and conscience in the development of faith”.
The nationally accredited training course has four modules – scripture: the world of the bible; Church: ritual, liturgy and sacraments; worldview, ethics, and Catholic social teaching; and, teaching the Catholic tradition.
Each module involves structured learning that integrates private study with online or face-to-face workshops and tutorials.
Competencies are assessed through projects, presentations, written assessments and learning journals.
IFE director Dr Allie Ernst said the Foundations course had been taught in Brisbane archdiocese for 40 years.
She says over that time, IFE has refined the course to what it has become today – which had taken sound Catholic theology and made it accessible.
Mr Critchley said the course facilitators were “really helpful” in providing guidance on how to manage full-time teaching while completing the requirements of the course.
He said first-year teaching could be an “avalanche” for anyone but the Foundations course made meeting the professional development credits for teaching in Catholic schools manageable.
“The facilitators of the course were so willing to invest … (in) understanding the road you’re taking as a teacher and how what we’re learning might be difficult to teach,” he said.
He said there was a lot of empathy and a lot of good advice.
The course had an emphasis on real-world application, whether it was in chaplaincy or teaching.
“The units align beautifully with what we actually have to teach in the curriculum,” Mr Critchley said.
He said while all study has a cost, “bang for your buck, (Foundations) is the best way to get qualified to teach religion”.
“I’d be surprised if there was any Catholic school out there that wouldn’t encourage their staff to do something like this.”
To find out more about IFE’s Foundation’s course, visit: ife.qld.edu.au/k-course/foundations/
