Catholic Schools Office

Diocese of Dallas

Developing Students in Christ
3725 Blackburn
Dallas, Texas 75219		 PHONE:
214-379-2830		 FAX:
214-522-1753
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 Curriculum

A school is only truly 'Catholic' when its primary focus is Jesus Christ. Christ becomes the foundation of its entire educational enterprise. Catholic schools foster the integration of faith and life and the integration of culture and faith. These aims underlie every activity of the Catholic school's life and curriculum. Catholic schools are to be, first and foremost, places of evangelization.

Documents of support and guidance from the National Council of Catholic Bishops, brain research, cognitive psychology, learning research, etc. have shown us the way. As a result, the curriculum of Catholic schools is concerned with students' integrated development as a Christian person or transformation - as responsible, inner-directed individuals of Catholic Christian virtue, capable of free choice and making value judgments, enlightened by informed Christian conscience. The Catholic educational tradition draws also from approaches to education that emphasizes the school community's need to share a common vision and outlook on life.  

We also must look to the many driving forces in the modern world that are reflected in our schools. Our students come to us today very different from the students just fifteen or twenty years ago. Some of these influences are positive and need to be fully recognized within our curriculum, while some have a negative influence. The tools to withstand these influences need to be addressed. In short, The Call to Transformational Catholic Education and society in the 21st Century compels educators to look differently at curriculum and interactions within the classroom and schools.

Therefore, we define our essential outcomes as:

  • Empathetic learners, having been immersed pre-K through 12th grade with their Catholic identity and values, who are able to view themselves and the world from perspectives other than their own, including perspectives of people from different cultural backgrounds, grounded in the
    social justice teachings of the Church.
  • Knowledgeable learners who acquire a substantial and organized body of knowledge which they can use fluently to make sense of the world, solve problems, reason effectively, and make effective decisions, while additionally evaluating the limitations of their knowledge and their perspectives on the world.
  • Self-determined learners who feel capable and continually strive to acquire and use the tools they need to learn.
  • Strategic learners who have a repertoire of thinking and learning strategies that they use with skill and purpose to think about and control their own learning and guide their learning as they meet with new content.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
 Toward  A Thinking Curriculum : Current Cognitive Research (1989) ASCD Publication

As we continue to focus on a high standard of academic excellence we note the many ways traditional curricula and content are taught in isolation. Processes and content are taught in artificial categories with little or no thought given to their authentic uses in the real world. Lower level thinking skills are stressed rather than higher order thinking skills especially for lower achieving students. Rarely are student attitudes and interests about subject matter addressed in the classroom. This thinking needs to shift as we strive toward a revised curriculum which,

  • evangelizes and transforms; integrates content and process;

  • stresses higher order thinking skills;

  • aims for rigor and relevance in activities;

  • utilizes assessment appropriately to make instructional decisions;

  • supports the use of these curricular strategies with focused and systematic professional development for teachers and administrators; and

  • strengthens the connection between curriculum, instruction, assessment (while we align both vertically from preschool to 12th grade graduation and horizontally assuring that all of our students receive the same content and processes with no gaps in learning opportunities),

enables us to continue the journey toward “teach(ing) as Jesus did”. 

The goal of the Diocese of Dallas (DOD) curriculum is an in-depth knowledge that is not simply a collection of facts, figures, formulas and definitions, although these are critical and form the foundation for more sophisticated and complex learning. Built on this critical base, stressed in preschool through 2nd grade, are the key concepts and tools for utilizing knowledge in a particular field of study which are developed in ever increasingly complex ways from 3rd grade through high school graduation.  

In the Information Age, it is a matter of developing a sense of what is important and valid, how to organize that information, and how to access the information when it is needed, i.e. a tool chest for making meaning, reasoning, solving problems, thinking critically, and making effective decisions similar to strategies used by experts in their work activities. Students may be asked to use mathematics to model real-world systems; build scale-models of real-world sites; answer questions about natural phenomena; and write to and for real audiences, grapple with compelling real-world issues of poverty or immigration in age-appropriate ways. Tasks are complex and holistic rather than simple and fragmented, and frequently cross curricular boundaries.

In our Catholic system the meaning, problem solving, critical thinking, and effective decisions must be grounded in the discernment provided through the gifts of the Holy Spirit brought to each individual, student and teacher, through participation in his / her faith formation or journey

 

 

 

©  2008 Catholic Schools Office, Diocese of Dallas