Posted by The WORD in other words (2018) by Fr Dionisio Miranda SVD – University of San Carlos, Cebu City
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time – B
As the educational reform gains traction we are learning more about learning, We realize how much of early childhood learning is intuitive, distinct from the logical and progressive reasoning of adults; kids tinkering with cellphones deploy more features faster than their grandparents can read instruction manuals to learn which symbols stand for which functions.
Educational goals are up for debate. Traditional high school segued seamlessly to college, eventually sorting out the blue-collar employees from the white-collar professionals. Today Senior High proposes terminal goals like initial employment or business. Aspirants to college must first pass scholastic aptitude tests, and their competencies will be assessed along eight Qualification levels.
Many parents are unconvinced that mother-tongue-based multilingual education works. Older faculty find the transition from disciplinal teaching to spiral progression too messy or confusing. Those educated in the banking mode where the expert provides input, mostly by lecturing, must now grapple with interactive outcomes-based education.
Paradigms of teaching and learning are evolving. Teachers are being weaned away from an older system where the main actor was the teacher, to whose standards every student had to adjust. In the new system the focus is on the learner, sensitivity to multiple intelligences, learning styles, competency preferences, and customized pedagogies. The expert teacher must evolve into a“learning facilitator,” offering more formative and less summative assessments.
Against such a background of general education and professional training we are astounded by the genius of Jesus the Master Teacher, his pedagogy via parables, his systematic training of select apostles, and his mentoring through focus discussions. Conflicts became teachable moments; crises turned into openings to assess whether lessons had been assimilated. He trusted that ultimately the validation of the gospel would not be primarily intellectual, but attitudinal, and that the testing would not be constructed but existential.
Faith-education cannot be less reflective and methodical; it cannot be limited to pure catechesis. Catholic educators will have to reflect more on how building up of the Kingdom can be taught in outcomes-based methods, what specific skills are needed by master-trainers in religion, what level of moral mentorship is effective, what spiritual guidance is relevant to the digital age, why ministry formation has not produced the leadership the church needs, and so on.
For today Jesus merely reminds the faith-educator about an indispensable lesson: teachers only sow seeds; it is the believer-learner who actually grows the personal knowledge of God as Father and of Jesus as Savior. Faith has its own dynamic, and only the Holy Spirit is in full control of it through grace. All any apostle can do is to bring someone in contact with Jesus so God can do the rest.
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