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Marquette Summer Institute

In Christian Doctrine

for

Catholic Elementary School

Teachers 


Marquette is grateful to the Koch Foundation of Gainesville, Florida, for a grant which has funded this Institute


 

DESCRIPTION OF THE SUMMER INSTITUTE

 

The Marquette Institute in Christian Doctrine aims to provide Catholic elementary school teachers an opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the Catholic tradition and to discuss with fellow teachers better ways and means for communicating the Catholic faith to the children they teach.

 

The two-week Summer Institute will be conducted by one of Marquette's theologians. It will consist of brief introductory lectures on the cultural and religious circumstances of contemporary American society, on the role of Catholicism and Catholic schools in that environment, and on basic Christian doctrines (God, creation, sin, Christ, salvation, church, sacraments, the resurrection) and their meaning in contemporary culture.

 

The Institute will be conducted in seminar fashion. Such a format will allow the participants time to interact with the instructor and with each other on religious and theological matters that are of concern to them. It will allow the participants to discuss not only the meaning of basic Christian doctrines, but also the ways in which they might be better communicated to a generation of students whose homes are often devoid of Christian practices and of visible reminders of the Christian tradition.


 

PARTICIPANTS

 

The Institute will be limited to twenty elementary school teachers to enable a seminar format.

 

Admittance to the institute will be by invitation only, Twenty teachers will be selected by consultation with pastors and principals. At the present, Marquette plans to invite one teacher from each of twenty different schools (selected at random). If the program proves successful we shall extend the invitation to other teachers and other schools in subsequent years until we have reached at least one teacher from every grade school in the diocese.


 

BENEFITS TO

PARTICIPANTS

 

The Institute will supply the participants with the books and reading materials needed for the seminar and provide a $400.00 stipend for their attendance.

 

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee supports this effort and the Office for Schools has agreed to grant BIAM Religious Education Certificate clock hours for the Institute (12 hrs. of Theology: Basic-Intermediate-Advanced; 6 hrs. Methods-psychology: Basic-Intermediate-Advanced).

 

The Institute will also provide each participant with a basic selected bibliography of reading materials on Christian doctrine, to provide participants with reading resources for their own intellectual and spiritual development.


 

EXPECTATIONS OF PARTICIPANTS

 

Those invited will be expected to be present throughout the two-week period. During the summer program, moreover, participants will be expected to share their experiences of teaching in the Catholic school system. Hopefully during the discussions the participants will identify some of the difficulties that teaching religion poses at the elementary level and will propose some ways of responding to those problems.

 

After the summer program is completed, the elementary school teachers will also be expected (1) to share the reading resources and their bibliographies with other teachers in their respective schools; (2) to prepare three or four insights they have obtained from the summer experience and present these to the faculty of their respective schools.


 

SCHEDULE

 

The Institute will take place during two weeks in June, after the end of the school year.

 

Classes will meet once in the morning three days a week (Tuesday, Wednesdays, and Thursdays), from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., with a half-hour break at 10:00 a.m.


 

For further information,

please call or email:

Dr. Patrick Carey

Theology Department

Marquette University

(414) 288-7170


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©2000 Marquette University - Theology Department (Last updated: March 01, 2001 )