ICLE experience proving fruitful

For perspective teachers, a public university education provides necessary skills. Yet for perspective Catholic school teachers, there can be a need for more.

And the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education is designed to fill that need.

Jessie Sneed, a fourth-grade teacher at Saint Charles Borromeo Catholic School in Oklahoma City said public colleges prepare future teachers for the nuts and bolts of the profession, while the ICLE program “is teaching a deeper meaning to why we teach those things and where they came from and why they’re important, not only to graduate and move on but also to have a deeper faith meaning.”

ICLE draws on the Church’s tradition of education, aimed at the pursuit of faith, wisdom and virtue.

“On the whole, it’s a very rich and deep, thorough process,” said James Fraser, who teaches math and science to fifth and sixth graders at Saint Joseph Catholic School in Enid. “It can be overwhelming if you don’t have a strong personal faith background yourself.

“Being a father of four, it can easily transition to understanding the importance of raising a child in the search for truth and techniques to find truth.”

One-third of the way through their coursework, 34 teachers from the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Tulsa Diocese enrolled in ICLE say the program designed to help them bring more Catholicity into their classrooms is paying dividends.

The teachers engaged in a January ICLE seminar provided by the Catholic Pastoral Center, with much of the classwork online.  The cohort is enrolled in ICLE’s Catholic Education Formation and Credential Program, which runs through December.

The program is paid for by gifts from benefactors in both dioceses. A second cohort is scheduled to begin this summer. Information about ICLE is available at catholicliberaleducation.org.

Ashton Smith, theology teacher at Cristo Rey OKC Catholic High School in Oklahoma City, said the first six months have been “super helpful.”

“Not only because I deeply care about the Catholic faith, but also to form me more deeply as an educator, helping our students encounter goodness and truth and beauty in practical ways,” Smith said.



Photo: Teachers and staff listen to Kari Carr, Ph.D., a faculty consultant for the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, during the cohort’s recent workshop at the Catholic Pastoral Center. Photo provided.