New book: Reclaiming the Piazza

From the website of the St. Andrew's Foundation for Catholic Teacher Education 

We are delighted to announce the publication of 'Reclaiming the Piazza: Catholic Education as a Cultural Project' (Gracewing). Authored by Ronnie Convery, Leonardo Franchi, Raymond McCluskey and with an Afterword by Bob Davis, this volume takes a fresh look at the aims and purposes of Catholic education in a plural society. After a Foreword by Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow, Chapter One explores some contemporary challenges to Catholic education. Chapter Two discusses education as process of cultural renewal. Chapter Three looks at the relationship between education and the media. Chapter Four sets the topic within the context of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Italy's innovative 'cultural project'. Chapter Five proposes some ways in which Catholic schools can be understood as a 'cultural project'. The Afterword by Bob Davis explores issues arising for Catholicism's encounter with modernity. There are two appendices: the complete text of the Educating to Intercultural Dialogue in Catholic Schools: Living in Harmong for a Civilisation of Love (Congregation for Catholic Education, 2013) and an address by Pope Francis to the Congregation for Catholic Education (2014).

The authors are all members of the St. Andrew's Foundation for Catholic Teacher Education at the University of Glasgow. The book will launched on September 19 2014 at a conference on the New Evangelisation in Vatican City. 

Metrics in education

The march of metrics in education continues to propagate unnecessary confusion, justifiable anger and unwarranted pride. When too much importance is placed on such crude measurements of ‘quality’, there can be little doubt that genuine educational quality suffers. In recent weeks, the National Student Survey (UK) has published its latest set of data on student perceptions of courses in UK universities. It is astonishing to see how much value is afforded to this rather unsophisticated tool. Thankfully there are few teaching academics who place much value on it and it is increasingly seen as little more than another system to be ‘gamed’. More’s the pity!

Personal Enrichment through Reading

This is the time of year when school teachers inevitably turn their thoughts to the academic year ahead. Awaiting them is the cycle of lesson planning, reports, assessment work, school shows and meetings with parents. Obviously, much of this has to be planned well in advance. Alongside this necessary planning cycle, there must be some scope for a ‘personal enrichment cycle’: this is a modest but well-ordered ambition to support our teaching with some solid reading material consisting of both fiction and non-fiction texts. The literary classics can be complemented by some modern fiction – and let us not forget the need to become increasingly familiar with the history and philosophy of education and culture. This need not be onerous undertaking – a quarter of an hour per day would be sufficient. Try it and see what happens!