The problem has been for decades now that we have unrealistic expectations regarding students. We are told we HAVE to make it so they WANT to learn.
we’re finding this out in just about every single aspect of society as the generations taught between 1960 and today have grown and entered into the work force–this group of people who have, by and large, the most affluent society, and greatest amount of opportunity for education in the largest possible number of ways in the whole history of history–in many cases simply refuse to bother to learn anything at all.
That’s the problem. We have tried to make ‘tailor made’ education for each individual, because individualism is the god of the American people. So you walk into a classroom of 40 students and the teacher is supposed to make the lesson of the day something that every single student finds relevant and fun so that the student will want to learn it. Right. In that class of 40 in some schools half or more of the kids haven’t eaten that day. The majority haven’t had 8 hours of sleep, some through choice, some not. Some are visual learners, some are oral, some are kinesthetic. Many have learning disabilities. Many have allergies or other health conditions. Many come from ‘broken families’, some from ‘affluenza’. Some are minorities, some are not.
And above all. . .some wish to learn EVERYTHING. Some wish to learn some specific things based upon their desires. . .which may, or may not, be realistic or achievable. Some wish to just ‘drift’ through life. Many self-medicate with booze, pills, or sex.
And this is with the ‘compulsory education’.
You’re asking that an ‘extra’ (Catholic education) offered often at a time which interferes with the student’s ‘life’ (based on the student’s perspective) and which is often mocked and insulted by the student’s family, peers, teachers, and society, somehow magically achieve something which the public schools haven’t been able to instill. . . a desire for learning. . .because they’re working backward.
People sneer at ‘rote learning’. The point of the ‘old style’ of education though wasn’t to END with ‘rote learning’, it was to BEGIN with it.
Ever learned a musical instrument? You have to know your notes by HEART before you can move forward into anything. Same with language --you need to know your alphabet by heart before you can form words. You need a ‘basement foundation’ before you start all the freeform ‘fun’ of furnishing your house. All the frills and the fun can only come about when you have your foundation, your rooms laid out, your roof on top, etc. And if you start to put in a jacuzzi when you don’t even have the pipes or the flooring established, you wind up with a wreck.
So yes, get the student grounded with all the ‘rote stuff’ to START and use that to BUILD with’.
Jesus did it that way. He addressed the crowds with things like, “You have heard it said. . .but I say.” He doesn’t go around, “Oh hai, people, I’d like to know your thoughts on X. What does it mean to you? oh, is everybody comfy here, hey Simon, put up the projector, let’s do a mindfulness minute here,” when He taught!!
) but go back to something like the Baltimore Catechism. My mother still remembers at 77 years of age nearly all of the lines she was taught from it. I, on the other hand, grew up in the post-VII church, went through 12 years of Catholic schooling, and didn’t know until I was well into adulthood that receiving the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin is itself a mortal sin. Couldn’t tell you anything from my catechism experiences if my life depended on it.