As schools founded and sponsored by women’s religious orders, all-‐girls’ Catholic schools play an important role in this educational mission of the Church. As the needs of the young women that they were educating changed over time, women religious were able to adjust the ways that they thought about their mission. This resiliency enabled the schools that survive into the twenty-‐first century to continue to meet their mission of preparing young women for whatever lives they chose to take up. In the formation of empowered, confident, and well-‐educated young women, today’s all-‐girls’ Catholic schools are living into their fullest potential as Catholic schools and are providing girls with an educational space that resists reproducing the sexism of the Catholic Church and the dominant culture.
One way to think about the mission of all-‐girls’ Catholic schools is to think about the mission of Catholic schools as described above and to read that through the lens of the history of the all-‐girls’ context. In addition, the mission statements of all-‐girls’ Catholic schools can reveal the significant core values of these schools.109
109 There is significant literature showing that school mission statements can be effectively assessed and
used to identify core values of a school. For a study using these techniques to look at the mission statements of Catholic colleges, see Sandra M. Estanek, Michael J. James, and Daniel A. Norton, “Assessing Catholic Identity: A Study of Mission Statements of Catholic Colleges and Universities,” Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice 10, no. 2 (December 2006): 199-217. For a larger study of public schools in ten states, see Steven E. Stemler, Damian Bebell, and Lauren Ann Sonnabend, “Using School Mission Statements for Reflection and Research,” Educational Administration Quarterly 47, no. 2 (November 2010): 391.
By looking at some of the key words and phrases that are used by all-‐girls’ Catholic schools in their descriptions of themselves, it should be possible to discern three of the ways in which the mission is taken up by the schools: they are concerned for the education of the whole person, they are committed to the human ability to think rationally, critically, and creatively, and they are called to be places of justice.110
First, Catholic schools in general are committed to the education of the whole person; they are concerned not just about the learning of knowledge and skills that would equip students to take up further study and to be successful in the career of their choice. Catholic schools are concerned about the moral formation of students, their emotional needs, and the spiritual and religious identity of the school
community. This emphasis necessitates a focus on what Thomas Groome calls the “being” of students – on who they are and who they will become. “Catholic
education intends to inform and form the very ‘being’ of its students, to mold their identity and agency – who they are and how they live.”111 Groome notes that this
ontological concern means that the Church is approaching Catholic education from a very different standpoint than other schooling systems. By valuing who students are and who they will become more than the knowledge and skills they will be learning, Catholic schools are, in fact, counter-‐cultural.112 Because of this ontological
110 See Appendix B for a collection of mission statements from approximately 70 all-girls’ Catholic
schools. While it is not possible to look at the mission statements of every all-girls’ Catholic school, there are enough recurring ideas to give a sense of the common themes present across the various schools.
111 Groome, “What Makes a School Catholic?” 121. Groome also makes this argument in more detail:
Thomas H. Groome, Educating for Life: A Spiritual Vision for Every Teacher and Parent (Allen TX: Thomas More, 1998).
112 It is important to note that Groome is not arguing that Catholic schools don’t teach knowledge or skills,
rather that these are placed into a larger philosophical and theological framework that honors each student’s being. In their landmark study of Catholic schools, Bryk, Lee, and Holland echo this when they point to three characteristics of Catholic schools that set them apart from other schools: “an unwavering
concern, Catholic schools embrace a theological anthropology that recognizes the essential goodness of each student: “it recognizes our capacity and ‘proneness’ for sin, but insists that we are essentially more good than evil. Though ‘fallen’, our divine image and likeness was never totally lost through original sin. Rather we retain our innate capacity for good and for God.”113 For Catholic schools, students
are not fundamentally broken, sinful, or defective; they are and must always be viewed as good, as whole, and as holy.
All-‐girls’ Catholic schools live out this commitment to the education of the whole person. In the past, this concern was reflected in the balancing of the
religious and educational goals of the schools. Girls were steeped in a Catholic ethos that was intended to form them as faithful Catholics prepared to transmit the faith to the next generation. Along side of this spiritual and religious formation, girls were provided with a challenging and thorough academic preparation that was, oftentimes, combined with training in the “ornamental” skills that women of each era needed – needlework, dancing, and painting in the early days; household management and secretarial skills in the early twentieth century.
Today, all-‐girls’ Catholic schools continue this commitment to the whole person. Not only are these schools committed to the religious formation of students – usually articulated as educating girls to be faithful Christians shaped by the
particular charism of the sponsoring religious order, they also explicitly commit
academic organization designed to promote this aim; a pervasive sense, shared by both teachers and students, of the school as a caring environment and a social organization deliberately structured to advance this; and an inspirational ideology that directs institutional action toward social justice in an ecumenical and multicultural world.” Anthony S. Bryk, Valerie E. Lee, and Peter B. Holland, Catholic Schools and the Common Good (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 10.
themselves to preparing students for success in college and career and for making a difference in the world. Demonstrating this commitment to the education of the whole person, the mission statements use phrases like: “the dignity of each person;” “values the uniqueness of each individual;” “respects individual differences;”
“individuality, talent, and aspirations;” “educating the whole person for life.” Mission statements signal the schools’ commitment to preparing young women to successfully take up whatever they want to do is indicated by phrases like: “become a competent and compassionate Christian woman;” “discover her unique place in the world;” “live lives of consequence;” “prepared to challenge, shape, and change the world;” “women who believe that life has a purpose.” And they indicate that an education at an all-‐girls’ school is broader than simply acquiring knowledge and skills: “preparing her to live fully and wisely;” “empowered intellectually, spiritually, and morally;” “able to make informed and values-‐driven decisions;” “spiritual
formation and academic excellence;” “women of courage, compassion, and scholarship.”
Second, Catholic schools are committed to providing students with an appreciation of the depth and breadth of human knowledge and of the necessary connections between faith and culture. This means that Catholic schools are
committed to the importance of rationality and the human ability to think rationally, critically, and creatively.114 Catholic schools do not reject the knowledge and skills
that humans have developed over the millennia; rather, students are encouraged to
114 As Groome notes, “Striking a path between fideism (blind faith) and rationalism (sufficiency of reason),
Catholicism has been convinced that understanding and faith, reason and revelation, need and enhance each other” (Groome, “What Makes a School Catholic?” 119).
engage those knowledge and skills and to make informed decisions about what they think. They trust students to think for themselves, to weigh the evidence from all branches of human knowledge, and to discern how they can best use this knowledge for making better their lives and the lives of others.115 In addition, Catholic schools
recognize that knowledge and skills by themselves are insufficient for success in college or career; rather education also means the ability to evaluate knowledge and skills and to understand them in the context of the moral complexities of the wider world. Brazilian educator Paulo Friere named this as conscientization – the need for an education that does not simply deposit information into students, but teaches them to evaluate it, to reflect critically on their own lives, and to commit to working to end oppression and for the common good.116
For the all-‐girls’ Catholic school, this commitment to the depth and breadth of human knowledge is reflected in their commitment to academic excellence. Historically, all-‐girls’ Catholic academies were among the only schools where young women could get a rigorous education – where they could get as thorough an
education as their brothers did. Even when all-‐girls’ Catholic schools saw
themselves as preparing young women for marriage and childrearing, they provided their students with as comprehensive an education as possible. And, because many of the teaching sisters who staffed these schools were also graduates of the schools, they took seriously the need to prepare the next generation of teachers. By the mid-‐
115 Groome, “What Makes a School Catholic?” 121.
116 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Continuum, 1989),
33; Oldinski, Liberation Theology and Critical Pedagogy, 88-93. Oldinski notes that Freire’s pedagogy is both shaped by and shapes Roman Catholic liberation theology. He notes, in particular, these points of overlap: both “(1) begin with a concern for the poor and the oppressed, (2) encourage solidarity with the poor and oppressed in developing a humane and just community, (3) offer hope, (4) offer change in how I see myself and my world, and (5) perpetuate themselves even as they achieve change” (93).
twentieth century, all-‐girls’ Catholic schools were preparing young women for career (mostly careers as teachers, nurses, and office workers) and for college (particularly at an all-‐women’s Catholic college). While not often describing their work as the process of liberation, all-‐girls’ Catholic schools were schools that attended to the needs of a marginalized population. In times when women’s voices were not valued, when women’s ambitions were seen as limited to the home or the cloister, when women were expected to conform to societal expectations of
meekness and self-‐abasement, the all-‐girls’ Catholic school provided girls with a women-‐centered community that was led by competent women and was intended to form competent women.
Today, all-‐girls’ Catholic schools demonstrate this commitment to academic excellence by emphasizing the critical thinking skills that are necessary for success in the twenty-‐first century. And, while they still do not tend to use the language of liberation, these schools definitely position themselves as preparing young women to be leaders in the world, prepared to make a real difference in striving to make the world better for all those who are marginalized. To draw attention to the
development of critical thinking skills, schools use statements such as: “excellence in scholarship;” “intellectual inquiry;” “academic and real-‐life experiences;” “critical thinking and problem solving;” “embrace challenges;” “to question, to reflect, and to challenge.” To emphasize that these critical thinking skills are oriented towards liberation and justice – that the skills are about conscientization, schools claim: “to seek faith, knowledge, and truth;” “wise freedom;” “learning linked to faith, family, and community;” “students who think critically, embrace knowledge, respond with
moral and ethical integrity, and make responsible choices;” “the belief that educated, caring, empowered young women are essential to our world;” “critical thinking and courageous action;” “to make a difference; independence of judgment, personal freedom, and strength of character.”
And, finally, Catholic schools are called to be places of justice. They are not only called to act out a preferential option for the poor by providing an education for those who are excluded by society and to participate in the kind of education that engages students in critical reflection on their own lives and on the oppression and marginalization that they see in their world. Catholic schools are also called to educate students to become committed and passionate participants in the struggle for justice.117 Documents since the Second Vatican Council have consistently
asserted that the climate and culture of the Catholic school is to be one where justice is integral to the school’s identity. The pursuit of justice for their own students and by students for others, then, is to be a constitutive part of the identity of the
school.118
Historically, all-‐girls’ Catholic academies were themselves a work of justice. By opting for the education of girls, women religious were providing an excluded
117 Joseph M. O’Keefe, “Catholic Schools as Communities of Service: The US Experience,” in
Reimagining the Catholic School, ed. Ned Prendergast and Luke Monahan (Dublin, Ireland: Veritas, 2003). O’Keefe frames this call within the Church’s commitment to the preferential option for the poor: “Wealth and privilege often render the poor invisible. It is the challenge of prophetic leadership to see the needs within and beyond the school and to have the courage to act accordingly. Catholic schools should also raise the consciousness of students to the glaring and widening discrepancies of wealth between developed and developing countries” (97).
118 Harold A. Beutow, The Catholic School: Its Roots, Identity, and Future (New York: Crossroads, 1988),
84. Beutow puts it this way: “Catholic schools face a risk in presenting justice as a goal. If they accept a role as a carrier of messages for justice, an agent of change in society, they risk offending the rich and powerful, some of whom support Catholic institutions. But the risk must be taken, because the result of justice and love will be the peace on earth which all people seek.”
and marginalized group with access to education.119 In addition, these women
religious saw the education of girls as an effort that crossed race and class distinctions; from the beginning, women religious educated white students and students of color, girls from wealthy and from poor families. When the sisters used their academies to fund schools for poor girls, they were living out a commitment to educating the marginalized girls of their communities.
Today, all-‐girls’ Catholic schools continue to see themselves as providing an education for a marginalized population and as educating students who will work for justice. Despite the fact that women have achieved significant levels of equality in the United States, many of these achievements are partial and fragile. Further, the intersection of gender with race and class means that female students of color and from poor families still do not have access to the same educational opportunities that wealthy, white girls do. All-‐girls’ Catholic schools demonstrate their
commitment to providing an education to marginalized populations with phrases like: “girls from diverse backgrounds;” “a culturally diverse and safe learning environment;” “without regard to ability to pay or immediate preparedness;” “multicultural education.” Schools can signal their focus on the preferential option for the poor with descriptions such as: “love for the poor;” “global community;” “promote human dignity;” “global justice;” “unshakable commitment to the common good;” “respect for human rights and respect for the goods of the earth.” And they can indicate their focus on helping students act for justice and liberation in their
119 Mary Darmanin, “Empowering Women: The Contribution of Contemporary Catholic Schools,”
International Studies in Catholic Education 1, no. 1 (March, 2009): 87. Darmanin points to the papal document, Consecrated Persons and Their Mission in Schools, which argues that the education of girls is a work of justice.
own lives with phrases like: “educated to the needs of society;” “social awareness that impels to action;” “change the world;” “prepared to challenge, shape, and change the world;” “social responsibility on behalf of global justice;” “make a profound impact on the world.”