International Explorations Of Contemplative Leadership In Catholic Education

This book highlights the model of contemplative Catholic school leadership as an influence on faith-formation cultures within the Catholic school, and it demonstrates the impact of cultural factors on Catholic identity formation. By integrating reflection and Catholic values with a leader’s decision-making process, the model described in this volume seeks coherence between the leader’s faith beliefs and their behaviors. Including five unique, international case studies, this research emphasizes the character of the school leader—including faith identity—as the principal architect of the school’s culture.

This book highlights the model of contemplative Catholic school leadership as an influence on faith-formation cultures within the Catholic school, and it demonstrates the impact of cultural factors on Catholic identity formation. By integrating reflection and Catholic values with a leader’s decision-making process, the model described in this volume seeks coherence between the leader’s faith beliefs and their behaviors. Including five unique, international case studies, this research emphasizes the character of the school leader—including faith identity—as the principal architect of the school’s culture.

James D. Kirylo gives a personal and reflective account of what it means to be a Catholic teacher, drawing on the rich history of the Church and its inclusive nature through ecumenical, interfaith, and interreligious dialogue, along with the Church's social teachings and its link to liberation theology and a critical pedagogy in the light of faith. Recognizing teaching as a sacred vocation, Kirylo covers how faith should inform the practical matters of teaching and how these intersect with broader debates outside the classroom, including the COVID-19 pandemic, gun control, the sanctity of life, and climate change. The Catholic Teacher: Teaching for Social Justice with Faith, Hope, and Love is a book that underscores the dialectical interweaving of faith and action in the effort to foster a more just, loving, and right world.

Leadership in religious schools is a complex and often misunderstood subject. Educational leaders must perform the dual task of encouraging religious identities while relating them to wider issues of citizenship. Religious identity needs to be made relevant to the whole school community - parents, staff, students - and leaders need to take care to expand how human identity is conceived and manifested. Given these challenges, learning and leadership take on a special importance in faith-based and religious schools. This unique volume brings together leading international scholars in the field to explore the many dimensions of leadership: religious, faith, spiritual, ministerial, educational, and curriculum leadership. The contributors demonstrate, through case studies and grounded theory, that these schools require leaders who are conversant with a very wide range of styles and issues. Other issues discussed include styles of leadership, relationships with stakeholders, motivation, satisfaction and stress, school culture, and ethos and charisma. This is an insightful collection of essays that will be of great use to all those studying and researching school leadership.

This book presents a range of perspectives on the current state of Catholic education in the opening decades of the twenty-first century. All of the chapters have their origin in an International Conference on Catholic Education, held at Heythrop College (University of London) in September 2016. The book brings together many leading scholars to present a survey of the latest research on Catholic education in areas such as the aims of Catholic education, Catholic schools and Catholic identity, leadership issues in Catholic schools and fresh thinking about the place of Religious Education (RE) in Catholic Education. This book demonstrates how the field of Catholic Education Studies has firmly come of age. Rather than being a subfield of educational or theological discourse, it is now an established field of research and study. As such, the book invites readers to engage with much of the new thinking on Catholic education that has grown rapidly in recent years. It offers a broad range of contemporary perspectives on research in Catholic Education and rich insights into current thinking about Catholic Education.

Its easy to learn and then apply secular leadership models into the pastoral and ministry sector. But is it the best alternative to form Church leaders? What is missing when business models are used in ministry? This book is about creating more sensitivity on how some of the secular models can unintentionally limit pastoral and ministry effectiveness. It suggests a competency approach to address leadership influences that are missing yet essential to ministry and the faith-based sector. In many ways, this book is a guide for securing and developing a more engaging ministry ;leadership, one that emerges from the intersection of the leadership and pastoral theology disciplines. Its guiding principle is “Leadership is a Spiritual Practice.” This book is a “must have” for leadership training programs and anyone engaged in forming for ministry leadership roles.

This monograph describes a process to transform the routine managerial aspects of the Catholic school principalship into a vibrant and prayerful ministry. It opens with a portrayal of a fictitious Catholic school principal, and the contemplative skills that are used as a method of reflective practice and leadership. The focus is on how to integrate educational-leadership practice with Catholic educational-leadership practice. The book summarizes key theoretical concepts related to contemplative practices. It discusses research that focuses on reflective practice and action research, and describes ways that preservice teachers can analyze their field experiences. The text also offers three levels of reflection to delineate the differences in behavior between educators who choose to act exclusively as technicians, and those who operate from a reflective framework. It elaborates six problem-solving frameworks to help Catholic educational leaders sort through the administrative problems they contend with, and to present the benefits of using multiple strategies for managing problems. It also explores the critical level of reflective practice by considering the substantive element overlooked in conventional reflective practice literature. The last chapter summarizes the importance of contemplative practice by positing a direct connection between the elements of character and the elements of leadership. (Contains 102 references.) (RJM)