The Catholic School Leaders Podcast

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Welcome to the Catholic School Leaders Podcast. My name is John Mahalu, your host. I'm so happy that you're here. This podcast exists to connect our Catholic school leaders from around the world to create a community where we can share ideas, your strategies, and inspiration to strengthen our Catholic schools and fulfill their mission.

So whether you're a principal, teacher, administrator, advancement director, enrollment director, or just somebody who is passionate about Catholic education, This space is for you, and I'm so grateful that you've taken the time to join us today. Well, today I'm honored to welcome Brett Sockold to the podcast.

Brett's a passionate educator and a theologian with a wealth of knowledge about integrating faith into every aspect of Catholic education. We're going to explore practical ways to ensure that every classroom reflects Catholic identity And the mission of our schools. It's an important topic. I'm excited for you to hear about Brett's insights, and I know you're gonna really enjoy it.

Before we jump into our conversation, let's start, as we always do, [00:01:00] by centering ourselves in prayer. So if you would just take a moment to pause and join me for prayer. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to come together today as your children to talk about making every classroom Catholic.

Please bless my guest today, Brett Sockold, and his work, so that together we may give your name honor, praise, and glory. We pray our work will bring your light, love, and mission to our listeners and to the world. We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Now before I introduce my guest today, I just want to take a moment to remind you that if you are enjoying this podcast, please take a minute to subscribe. To give it a quick like, subscribe, and if you have just 30 seconds to leave a review, I would so appreciate it. And please, feel free to share it with other Catholic school leaders in your network, because your support helps this community grow, and ensure that these conversations can reach more educators who share your passion for [00:02:00] Catholic education.

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Know you'll benefit from it and we'll really, really find the information in there to be helpful to you in your role as a Catholic school leader. And of course, a big thank you to our sponsor, elementaryadvancement. com, Elementary Advancement Solutions, they make this podcast possible. If you are looking for a partner to help you grow your enrollment, strengthen your advancement work, And build a thriving school community.

Visit elementaryadvancement. com. Their tailored solutions are helping schools just like yours succeed in their mission. So let's dive into today's episode. It's my privilege today to welcome Brett Sockold to the podcast. Dr. Brett Sockold is an [00:03:00] archdiocesan theologian from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Regina and the founder of Making Every Class Catholic.

Brett has worked with Catholic educators across North America in a variety of educational and professional development settings for almost two decades. He is the author of several books, including most recently Educating for Eternity, A Teacher's Companion for Making Every Class Catholic, and I can tell you it's a fantastic book.

Really encourage you to check that out. His work has been featured on Church Life Journal, Word on Fire, Crux, Busted Halo, and many more. Brett's weekly podcast, Thinking Faith, with Deegan Eric Garosh, has been produced every Tuesday for over five years. And it's available wherever you get your podcasts.

His monthly column, Two Wings, is available through our Sunday visitor. And you can follow Brett on LinkedIn, Substack, Twitter, at Brett Sockeld, pronounced, or his last name is spelled S A L K E L D, [00:04:00] to join, and join the Making Every Class Catholic Facebook group for more resources. In his spare time, Brett sings in the Catholic cover band, said Contra.

Brett was baptized in St. SLOs Parish in Gerald, Saskatchewan where he grew up. He and his wife Flannery, lived with their seven children in vagina. she did not let him name any of them SLOs according to him. So

Welcome Brett. It's great to see you again. How you doing, man?

I'm doing well. How are you, John?

Oh, I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Well, I know you have been just. Traveling all over the place over the last few weeks, and uh, so I'm so grateful for you making time to sit down with me, and I know your travels got you back in late last night, if I'm correct,

Yeah, I got in from Orange County after midnight here in Regina, but it was my first trip ever to California. I worked with a couple high schools Marin Catholic in Marin County, and then J. Sarah in Orange County and it was great. Yeah, I've been doing a lot of that this fall, traveling around, working with schools and dioceses.

all [00:05:00] over and lots of good stuff happening there, and we'll talk a little bit more about some of that here just a little bit later on I think people are going to really enjoy what it is that you're doing, so tell us a little bit about yourself, I mean, I kind of read a little bio from you there, but, Tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of what called you to this line of work.

Right, so I'm the theologian for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Regina. I live here with my family. I grew up in small town Saskatchewan, a couple hours east of here, and my mom was a teacher, and when I was in high school, I figured I'd go study education, so I did an ed degree here in Regina, and then did a history degree, and then went on to do graduate work in theology and became a theologian, but started working with teachers.

Well, I was still in grad school and recently wrote this book Educating for Eternity, a Teacher's Companion for Making Every Class Catholic, to help Catholic teachers have a more authentically Catholic approach to all their subject areas in the classroom. So, yeah, and I've been on the road a lot since [00:06:00] I, I wrote that book, working with Catholic teachers across North America.

Yeah.

And I know that we're going to talk about the book here. You've got your book, you've got your work that you're doing with your MakeEveryClassCatholic. com website. We can talk a little bit more about that. A lot of great online resources, a lot of things that if you are a Catholic school teacher, you are going to want to check out.

So, settle in, get your cup of coffee or cup of tea, and you're going to learn a lot today from Brett about how you can make your classroom authentically Catholic. And so, Brett, I guess first and foremost, tell us a little bit about this book and what led you to write this book. Because it's a really great great read.

So tell us a little bit about it for our readers. Tease them a little bit as to why they should get on Amazon right now and get a copy of this.

Or you can buy it from our Sunday Visitors,

There you go.

Home page, osvbookstore. com or your local Catholic bookstore if you got one, but so I was teaching a course for aspiring Catholic teachers at a local Catholic college here, Campion College, and uh, had [00:07:00] a meeting with the local school board, Catholic school board, and asked them what they would like Potential hires to have studied if they were taking a class in Catholic education, and they said curriculum permeation.

And I had an ed degree from the U of R, and I had a doctorate in theology, and I had never heard these words before in combination. So I asked about that, and they said, well, you know, a Catholic school isn't just a public school with religion, class, and a crucifix on the wall but your approach to math, or health, or social studies should be informed by your Catholic faith, and I said, well that, that's a fascinating idea you know, what kind of resources are out there, are there any books I might use as a textbook for the class and the answer was like, yeah, not really.

There's a few little things online but there's no textbooks or anything, and so I had to kind of figure this out on the fly with my students and then the year after I taught that course did a series of talks for some local teachers, a group calling themselves the Catholic Teachers Guild.

And they said, look, our employer is asking us to do this, but none of us have any training. Like, our secular [00:08:00] education degrees don't teach us how to do this. And so, the first half of the book, which is kind of foundational, grew mostly out of the course I taught. And the second half of the book, which is a walk through specific subject areas, right?

What does it mean in math class? What does it mean in health class? There's eight different subject areas we treat in the book. That developed out of these talks I gave for teachers the following year. So, those two kind of experiences here locally in Regina were the foundations of the book and and then it came out in February 2023 and it's really kept me hopping since.

Yeah, no doubt about it. And I love the fact that you spend the early part really talking about the character, virtue things of that nature, because there's a whole lot more to it than just subjects than just, you know, there is that academic piece of things, but I think people that are choosing a Catholic education for their kids Want the whole picture.

They want that moral, spiritual faith [00:09:00] based component of things in addition to a great education. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Again, you can have both. And so, talk a little bit about that piece of things in terms of the early part of the book.

Yeah, the foundation I thought was necessary before I got into the specific subjects because You have to frame like what's actually your goal? What are we doing? It's why should kids go to school, you know, and if we think well It's important for them to have skills and knowledge for a job market.

That's true That actually is important But if that's the only reason you send kids to school You're gonna end up with a very particular kind of education that You brackets out a lot of the more important questions that make human life interesting and worth living. And in fact, like, you're always gonna give some impression about what's valuable and what's not, even by leaving it out.

You know, that's not neutral, that says something. And so at the beginning I say, look, Our goal is not just jobs and skills and information, but the formation [00:10:00] of people for this life and for the next, and if we frame, if that's our big framework, then we can think about, and we'll get to math probably, you know, down the road, math not as like arbitrary sort of word problems with some Catholic content, but math as like a framework.

Having a particular role in human life and flourishing and in the human vocation and so I thought it was really important to start with some really key things about the Catholic worldview as they apply to education. And so, I start by asking what are people for, right? We're not just for jobs but we're for, Finally, we're for God and for heaven, but that implies that we're for relationships and we're for service and all these other things that make this life good as well.

And then I talk about joy and virtue, right? So, the development of character that leads to a good life and a happy life. Not superficial happiness. And not like satisfaction of immediate desires but something much richer and deeper than that. We talk about faith and reason which is really important for [00:11:00] thinking about any subject how faith and reason complement one another how they're involved in anything we know, rather than, you know, That there's sort of two separate operations, one of which applies to some kinds of knowledge, and one of which applies to other.

And we talk about truth and freedom that, you know, our culture is really invested in freedom, but sometimes its relationship with truth can get pretty obscured, and in a Catholic worldview genuine freedom cannot ever be opposed to truth, and so the way we teach for truth is also teaching for freedom.

Whereas in a lot of how we think in contemporary culture, those two things are in a kind of a zero sum game. And so you have to like dial back your truth claims if you want to give people freedom and vice versa. And in a Catholic world that's just not the case, right? Jesus says you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

So we have to explore how those things are related. And then the last which is kind of a hinge chapter, I call it Catholicism, makes everything interesting. And it's kind of a look at the doctrine of creation, like [00:12:00] what we think about God and God's relationship with creation. And how that's expressed in scripture and in the theological tradition of the church.

That actually starts to inform the way we think about things like science or history or literature. So that's kind of a launch into the second half of the book, which is really a chapter on language arts, a chapter on math, a chapter on health, that kind of thing.

And what I really enjoy, if you think about this, There are so many things that our Catholic schools are trying to do, and I hate to say that sometimes we work harder instead of smarter when we do it. But when you look at, okay, we want to have a great character education program in our school, and we go all this way and spend all this money and put all this time and all these resources to reinvent the wheel, when we have the foundations of what makes a great character, Right in front of us.

And we don't take advantage of that to build, say, a great character education program upon our faith. Or we don't [00:13:00] take advantage of those things that are just right in front of us, and instead we try to reinvent the wheel. And redo it all over again.

There's a real danger in contemporary education. It partly has to do with its place in the market and consumer culture and everything else where, you know, a fad comes along, And we tack it on to the thing we're already doing. And then technology comes along, which was supposed to save us time, but actually introduced, you know, remember how email was supposed to save us

Oh, yes. Yeah. Supposed to. Allegedly.

Right. So, my mom was a teacher for 35 years, and she said the amount of work Asked of teachers at the end of that 35 years compared to the beginning was just insane And it was all these little things which seem innocuous of themselves and seem like they should be helpful But as you add them up and add them up and add them up you get this sort of Overwhelming pile of things to do and I think if you instead of saying here's a thing you should do and here's another Thing you should do and this thing is good and that thing is good If you kind of step back and say, like, what's the big goal and how do these [00:14:00] things fit?

Something like character or virtue is not an extra thing you should be doing. It should show up in the way you do all the things. But it takes a bit of an adjustment in our frame of mind. If the way we were taught about, you know, how to think about being a teacher, maybe in a secular, you know, state university or something, was that you're kind of an information delivery system and your job is to get, like, content into these little heads then all these other things feel like additions.

But if you say, hold on, actually, I'm a mentor I have some subject area specialization that is valuable and it's good to get that content across. I'm really someone who is mentoring a person in the art. And in the art of wisdom, and they grow, and I don't actually have to just concern myself with like, checking this box, checking that box, but I can sort of re conceptualize what I'm doing, then all these pieces, something like a Catholic worldview in math, or whatever, Subject you want shouldn't be a box you check it should [00:15:00] become natural now I know it's gonna take a little work to get from where we start to it being natural So I don't want to say there's no work involved.

But once you get it, it's not extra work It's the framing in which you do all the other work and it should as you say be part of working smarter Not harder and that's true. Whether it's Catholic worldview stuff, whether it's virtue stuff It's we need to sort of I think dial back and reconceptualize Conceptualized Teaching not as a whole bunch of boxes to check, but as a relationship with a kind of almost apprentice or group of apprentices, where you lead them in wisdom, where you ask good questions, where you propose a worldview in which all these other things, find their place and make sense.

And I know teachers who've wrapped their head around it. And when they get it they're much more relaxed. They still work hard but hard, hard work is actually not the problem. The thing that leads to burnout is not hard work. The thing that leads to burnout is busy work that you don't see the purpose of, right?

And people aren't scared of [00:16:00] hard work when they can see value and it makes sense of their lives. But just spinning your tires on work that feels like it's not contributing to the mission, that's what leads to burnout.

Well, and I think when teachers see something like this, they go, Oh boy, here we go. Here's one more thing I have to do. You mentioned before about the burnout. Okay, this is one more thing they're going to ask us to do. Or this is the fad for this year, that all we're going to do is talk about this. And then we're never going to talk about it again.

Versus if you just make it a point to do it now, you've got it for the next 30 years in your classrooms. Okay? It's not just one more thing. Actually, that one more thing is going to help you take 15 other things off your plate. If you do it right, I guess.

It, yeah, it really should. And it's, you know, one of the, one of the ways to give a really concrete example of how this should work, right? I call this zooming out. [00:17:00] Learn to ask big picture questions about your subjects and then to encourage that kind of reflection in your students.

Sometimes you're going to ask the question of your students, but you're also just going to create an open environment where students know those kinds of questions are welcome. So for example, a question like, why should I study math? What if you actually had a unit, a mini unit at the beginning of a high school math class that instead of diving straight into the math content, the role of math in human life and culture and what the human vocation before God is and how math fits within that, right?

And then you don't have to talk about God or the Bible or church teaching every day in math class. That can feel artificial. But if you framed it in a way that says, here's a way of conceptualizing the value of math in human life within a Catholic worldview. And then when kids have, you know, naturally their curiosity leads them to questions.

A teacher in Winnipeg told me, One day, a student was just overwhelmed by the fact that math worked. Like, just the simple fact that it worked. That's an interesting thing that [00:18:00] we often don't consider. Like, it's weird that math, that we live in a universe like this where math works. And she put up her hand and she said, Miss, who invented math?

And I thought, like, go to town, you know? I mean, you could answer that, but I think even before you answer it, you say, like, Wow, class, did you hear what Susie just asked? What do we think about that? And that's going to lead naturally to questions about God and questions about, you know, is this discovered or is it created or some combination thereof and how does this work?

And you could do it in very particular, like there's very particular historical cases. If you were studying, like, When we first conceptualized imaginary numbers, or something like that, there was this big debate, like, well, can you do that? Can you and what does it mean? And then, when you test it and it works, you're like, oh, there's something about reality that maps onto this thing that we thought was a construct, but in fact, is probably better articulated as a kind of discovery.

Anyway, like, all these kinds of things, I just [00:19:00] used that as one example, thinking what it means that we're doing what we do. Why do we study history? What value does it have for us? If we can start thinking about things like that. Framing our subjects in those terms. Sometimes we're gonna have conversations about God in class, and some days we're just gonna do quadratics, and we're gonna pursue truth through quadratics, and that's Catholic too.

But the bigger picture questions, they don't actually take away from the academic Achievement. They actually One of the big struggles for contemporary education with academic achievement is like boredom and anxiety, because we don't have any sense of purpose in our life and we don't know what we're doing, so why should I bother with this?

If we spend time on asking and answering big picture questions in all the subject areas, We're going to find more joy in our work. We're going to find more engagement with our students. We're going to find more obvious connections across the curriculum because we're not just dealing with you know, this isn't a silo where you learn these skills if you want to [00:20:00] work in this field, but rather every subject is a lens on reality which offers its own proper methodology and expertise, but it's showing us a picture of the same Reality that all the other subjects do and we believe truth is one and the pursuit of truth in any of these Disciplines is the pursuit of God and when you have that whole framework, lots of other pieces fall into place and it's not a box you have to check because you have to find a Bible verse that matches your subject area every Tuesday, you know,

well, and I think too that when you look at this, okay, and I remember I spoke with a couple of leaders down in Australia, Allison and Michael a few months ago, and one of the things that they pointed out was they said, you know, we notice our teachers left the building exhausted. And our students left the building full of energy, which meant that kind of like you were saying that they're just energy.

They're just trying to regurgitate information to the kids [00:21:00] to absorb and then test them on it and move on to the next thing. We're not actually asking the kids, Do you know what this is and can you apply it to what it is? And I think sometimes our teachers, especially maybe in when we're talking about the faith, maybe they're uncomfortable leading the faith, maybe they're unsure, maybe they don't feel like they have enough information.

To fully lead the faith. And I guess my comment to them would be start somewhere, like, like today is the day to start. Okay. The best time to do it was 20 years ago. The second best time is today, okay. So, so start today and be that leader in your classroom and it's okay. You don't have to have all the answers.

On that.

Yeah. I mean, of course, subject knowledge you know, It's great if you've got a science teacher who knows about faith and science and can be articulate on those points and we should all be constantly developing our expertise. If we're educators, we have to keep learning, of course, we know that, but we can't let that stop us from starting and the start is not that hard.

You don't [00:22:00] actually have to have the answers, as you said. You can learn to ask good questions. That's actually like the really basic, right? Let's say you've never thought of this question, who invented math? You don't have to have an answer to that. You just need to give students permission to ask big picture questions and explore it together.

And maybe something comes up that's really interesting and you want to go talk to a priest, you know, or someone in the theology faculty who might know a little bit more about this, or someone in administration. Okay, great. Like, Do that and you can follow up. You don't need to, because again, this is the model of like, you have to have the information so you can transfer it from your head to their head model.

Not necessarily, right? If you can model asking good questions and pursuing truth honestly together and framing the particular content within the larger questions about what human life is about and how does this relate to that. You're halfway there. And then when particular questions come up where you need to know something about theology, well, learn how to use your [00:23:00] catechism, learn how to check with a colleague who's spent a little more time thinking about this.

Over time, develop your own expertise. But that's, you don't need to go get a master's degree in theology before you start this. You need to just start thinking about things in a bigger frame.

And I think it's, it kinda goes back to what I always tell leaders, know what, you know, know what you don't know, and know who knows what you don't know and find them okay. And make them part of what it is that you do because, you know, and I think that's just such a great way of look.

I don't have to know everything. But I just need to know who knows this more than I do and engage them in the conversation that I wanna learn something about.

You take a good teacher and you throw them into a class that they've never taught before, and they don't need to go read six textbooks before they start. They'll say, class, we're going to learn this together. In fact, we have hours and hours stretched out before us in which we can do this. You don't have to kill yourself prepping the [00:24:00] night before.

You say like, hey, what are the questions? They are going to lead us closer to the truth in this thing, and let's start talking about them, and let's discover things, like, you can learn a lot that way but we've, I think we've sometimes misconceived education so that, that is not even in our imaginations, but I've seen it happen, you know, you get thrown in a class that you've never taught before, and you figure it out with the students, and that can be a very valuable learning experience, so, Why not conceive of a Catholic approach to chemistry the same way?

Hey, I don't know anything about a Catholic approach to chemistry, but let's think and figure it out

it out together. And if you start it today, imagine what it's gonna look like in five years from now. Imagine what it's gonna look like at the end of this year. Okay? What an amazing thing that will be. And I think I had a colleague tell me a few years ago, and I, forgive me for the person that said this, forgive me that I'm not giving you the credit for this, that you deserve, but they said.

You know, I ask the kids, what's one plus one? And every one of 'em knows it's two. And then I say, okay [00:25:00] why is it two? Okay? And well, just because we've memorized it, it's one plus one is two. We know it. Okay. But when we say, okay, well why is it? And we start to ask that, her point was to drill down into it more of, to get, look for the reason that we absolutely can get into knowing that's a hundred percent true.

So when you're talking about truth and you're talking about what it is that we're seeking, it's not just a memorization of facts and a regurgitation of facts. It's making sure that what it is that we are sure of is true. Right, right,

could even ask a question at the, like, you could frame it almost even cheekier. You could say, who cares? So 1 plus 1 is 2. Who cares? Right? What does that mean about your life? That 1 plus 1 is 2. Well, it might mean that you live in a kind of logical and predictable universe.

Where you can make decisions that, that follow from certain knowledge. That's handy. Right? That's different than living in, [00:26:00] in utter chaos. So you live in a beautiful ordered universe. Well, keep that in mind.

Well, I'm sure we're both, we're probably making a math teacher out there itch right now by saying, who cares what one plus one is, right? They're out there itching right now going, what? No.

Well, I hope that they, yeah, I hope that they I think a lot of math teachers would think that's interesting, like it's,

exactly. Because it's getting you out of your comfort zone. And I think that's the thing right there is we see so many times where you know, the joke would be we, if teachers who have taught one year, 29 times, okay you don't, not 30 years experience, you've taught one year, 29 times.

How are you getting outside of that, what you know and what you do each and every day to continue to make it more interesting for yourself in terms of growth? And I think that's something right there that as I kind of look through this is not just one more thing, but you talked about getting into like the specific subject matters.

And we've talked a lot about math. Okay, we've kind of teased the math piece of things, so let's dive into that just for [00:27:00] a second, but talk to me about or talk to the listeners a little bit about what it is, because if you ask a math teacher on a job interview, hey, how do you incorporate the faith into your math class?

The answer you might get is, well, I do equations with loaves of fishes, okay, kind of thing to try to, okay, but there's so much more to it than just that. So, talk through, like, maybe just in the math realm of things, where you see opportunities to incorporate the faith. And I know you touched on it a little bit earlier, but to see if there's an opportunity to

Yeah, so there's a really important distinction I make that really helps teachers conceptualize this, and it's between what I call content and context. We often think that math is really tricky in this regard because any content we might add feels kind of arbitrary and tacked on, whether it's loaves and fishes, you know, I heard when there was two nuns who were driving from Montana to Saskatchewan and the speed limit was 80 miles an hour in Montana and, 110 kilometers an hour.

You know, you could see this, how it would go, right? And, in [00:28:00] some subjects, like, art or music or literature, there's just Catholic content out the wazoo. Like, there's no shortage of Catholic content. It's easy to add, right? And so we think well then it's easy to do this in art and hard to do it in math because there's obvious Catholic content in one and not the other.

And I say content is good when you have it. We should know some of our Catholic artistic and literary heritage, for example. But what I'm really interested in is what I call context, which is what's the framework in which you approach this? How do you know why this is worth doing? What is its value?

What is its role in human life? And. You could do that in math, and then that can frame it as a Catholic math class, and we can talk specifics in just a second. But, what I want to say is, even in literature, when you could read Catholic poems and novels and essays and screenplays and whatever till the cows come home, you should still do the context part.

You should still ask the question, what kind of a thing is language, and who are humans that use language, and what is its role? In human culture and what is the Bible, and why does God [00:29:00] use language to speak to us, and like all these kinds of things, right? So in math you can ask things like What is this creature, human beings, that do math, and what are they doing when they do it?

Well, we're doing something like encountering material reality, and then abstracting from it, right? So like, a three is not something you could ever put in your pocket, but a four year old can conceptualize threeness and work with threeness in relation to two ness or four ness or whatever else that is, right?

That's a spiritual operation and we are the only creatures we know who in creation that do this and we can do it to such a degree That we can like postulate something like an imaginary number or any number of other things And then try them and then notice that they map on to reality And we can do such incredible operations that we can put a rover on Mars, right?

This should blow our minds that we're capable of [00:30:00] abstracting from material reality and working with things in a purely spiritual kind of realm, and then they find applicability back in the world, right? I mean, like, that, that should be amazing to us, but often we just think of like, well, I need this grade so I can pass this class so I can get to the, like, right?

So

too busy on one plus one equals two, rather

Right,

these kind of,

but who can but, you know, you little tiny person know that 1 plus 1 equals 2 and your dog doesn't. And so what kind of a thing are you and what are you going to do with your life with these capacities that God has given you that he hasn't given to anything else, right?

So I think that's like those big kind of picture ones. And then you can find other things in math that are really interesting. So when I talk to math teachers, They'll often start talking about concepts like zero and infinity, which are in a certain se like, if threeness is an abstraction [00:31:00] from material reality, because you can see three trees and know that's somehow different from five trees, zero and infinity require another step, right?

Because you can't actually encounter zero trees. Except in some weird sort of photo negative kind of way where you're like I could conceive of having one tree and since that's not here I guess there's zero trees, but it's not the same kind of thing and you also can encounter infinity trees So what is that?

And what is your mind that it can conceptualize these kinds of things and then find out that they actually work and then math teachers Will tell me that there's images of God's infinity Not just on a number line that goes from 1 and adds 1 and keeps adding 1 forever, but actually between the number 1 and the number 2, there are infinities. Right. And something like irrational numbers is a kind of infinity, right? And so you have all these images within math that tell you something about the kind of creation you live in, and therefore tell you something about the [00:32:00] creator that made that creation right? Math is both beautiful and orderly and also like really surprising and catches you off guard.

And sometimes things happen in there that are counterintuitive but. as counterintuitive as they might be, when you really get it, you see that it's right and logical. Which is, that's an image of God, which is, God is reasonable, but also you can't put him in a box, and he's gonna surprise you. And math is an image in creation of something about God, right?

So, so you could get into those kind of nuts and bolts to, and here's a really easy one you can always do. You can always look for values questions. Right, so you can always say, okay, we have this knowledge, right? Fair enough. Good. What's it for? How are we gonna use our knowledge? Well, and then you're in the realm of ethics, right?

And any subject you can explore through a question of like, how do we use this knowledge? Well, what does this mean for? You know, [00:33:00] in art, for example, one question I love in art is like, what's the difference between art and propaganda? Propaganda. That's a values question, but it's a really interesting one that has a lot of importance for our own encounter with all kinds of media that we're gonna see for the rest of our life and how we engage with it, right?

No, I, and I think that's, that, that hits the nail right in the head right there because there are some that you just look at it and when you look at certain subject, okay, that's really easy to tie that in. Okay. And others you go, okay, that's going to be more of a challenge to tie that in. But once you kind of peel back that onion, there's a lot of layers to it.

You go, Ooh, and I could do this and I could do this like this, but it just requires you starting somewhere. And it also just requires you making it a priority.

Right.

To be an authentically Catholic classroom,

I've seen this happen in real time. I do workshops with teachers, and very often they'll put their hand up and call me over to their group, and they'll throw something out at me, like, that's supposed to be [00:34:00] like the stump the professor kind of a thing, like, Hey doc, we're doing a grade 4 math lesson on fractions.

Obviously you can't do anything with that one, right? And I ask just a couple of questions, and all of a sudden you see their eyes get big. And So this is the one I did with fractions. I said, okay, let's take a couple of fraction problems. You got 2 7ths plus 5 7ths, or you have 4 7ths plus 5 7ths. Which one of those do you like better?

And they're like, well, the one that gets a whole number. And I was like, tell me why. And they're like, because it's a whole number. I was like, okay, I'm not gonna let you get away with that. Now, what kind of a thing are you, that even though both of them, you know the true answer, one answer isn't more true than the other, but you have a preference for one of them, not because it's more true or less true.

So what's that about? So then they start thinking, and they're like, Oh, like, an integer, right, a whole number, there's something about wholeness. that we strive [00:35:00] for naturally. It's in us to desire wholeness. And then we noticed that integer is like the same word as integrity. Well, that's interesting, right?

And like, and then we talk about the word fraction and fractious, meaning, meaning broken and sort of disordered, right? And all this kind of, and all of a sudden they were just off to the races. And it doesn't change the content of the math in the slightest. The math works the way it works, but they've just learned something about themselves.

That would be really interesting for a grade 4 to reflect on, right? And a grade 4 could see that they prefer integrity to brokenness. And why? What is that about the human spirit that desires that, even though the math is true in either case, right? And that's just one example where I, you know, it's kind of, it may be almost even a little, Well, it's not silly, but it's, like, it's not necessary.

You don't need to do that in every single class. But the point is that if you stop and think and ask big picture questions, like why do you prefer this to [00:36:00] that? And you learn how to do that, the connections that you thought would be arbitrary and sort of awkward impositions on your subject, you Start to come across as natural and integrated and authentic, right?

And I've just, I've seen it happen over and over again, where teachers move from this, like, oh you can't do it here, to like, hold on a second. Now that I have the questions to frame it, I can see this, you know,

and not only can I do it here, but I can do this and this and this and I'm going to guess out there somebody's listening to this and their light bulb moment just went on of like, whoa, the integrity versus the pri whoa, wait a minute there, there's the light bulb moment right there is taking place right there.

What do you see as, because obviously as you look at this and you work with. Teachers, you know, not only in all across the United States, but in different countries as well, worldwide. What do you see as the lowest hanging fruit for subject content of really integrating it that maybe people aren't taking advantage of?[00:37:00]

And then, contrary to that, what do you see as the biggest challenge that it says, okay, yeah, this one you gotta put a little more work into, but it's worth it in the long run?

Right. I think the lowest hanging fruit is probably the values questions, right? There's not a subject I can imagine where there's not values questions associated that could be approached from a Catholic point of view. So I think that's the lowest hanging fruit. I think the more challenging work is to Start conceptualizing the human vocation and the doctrine of creation and God's relationship with us and then saying what does my subject teach me about that?

What is the fact that human beings do art, say about humans and their relationship with like, we're the only things that do art, so what are we doing? What are we doing when we do art? Well, we're trying to share something of ourselves that we want to be seen and heard and received and [00:38:00] understood.

Well, you push that far enough and you get pretty close to the doctrine of the trinity actually. Right? Because in the Trinity we say God. God's expression, right? So in art, we talk about self expression, right? Well, in the Trinity, God's self expression is so perfect that it's another person.

Now, we have this story in our own, in our fiction, we have art that comes to life, right? Because, right, Pinocchio or something, right? If you think of Pinocchio as the real boy, right? Well, you have this puppeteer who makes something, but he, what he really wants He has this conception in his mind of a real boy, but it's not within his power to make a real boy.

He's not God, you know, but in art he's trying for that, right? So, so his self expression in Pinocchio is striving after God's self expression, which we call the second person of the Trinity, right? The word, which is, a word is an expression, we call it the word, you know? And then, what happens next? Well, between the [00:39:00] Father and the Son, there's this gift and reception that is this perfect communion that is so perfect that it's a person.

Well, we actually, that's what we want when we make art. We want to share something of ourselves with another so that they can see it and understand it and receive us, so that we enter into a kind of relationship with them. And we really wish, That relationship was perfect, right? But of course, our relationships are never perfect, just like, you know, our puppets, you know, generally don't turn into real boys.

But we're but you can see what we're striving for when we do art, right? And I think, like, yeah, you're probably not gonna, most people aren't gonna get to that on their own without a little, you know, formation in, in theology. But when I say that to They may not be able to put the Trinitarian spin on it on their own right away, but they know the truth of it.

They know what happens when a student shares something of themselves in a piece of art and finds themselves seen and known and understood. [00:40:00] Maybe it's a student who's struggling to feel seen and known and understood in their family or in their peer group or whatever and they find something in art.

So, so art teachers know I'm not blowing smoke. When I say But then I give them language to be able to put that within it. So, so I think the short answer to your question is, there's some questions that anybody can do. And then there's other questions that require a certain level of expertise. And that's good.

We should always be learning. But even it, even when it requires a certain amount of expertise, it's not a tack on that the theologian, it actually grows out of your own experience as an art teacher in the example that, that I shared. And even if you manage to see that and understand it and work with it without getting to the level of Trinitarian theology, even if you just knew that seeing and acknowledging someone's gifts in their art was life giving, then you've already done something really Catholic without having the [00:41:00] label for it.

And I can only imagine that when you're working with teachers, when you're working with you know, administrators, that when they start to put these pieces together we said before the light bulb's going off, I'm like, Oh, wait a minute. I am allowed to do this. I can do this. And not only is it going to make me a better science teacher or math teacher or language arts teacher.

More importantly, I'm going to be a better Catholic school math teacher. I'm going to become a better, and thus, when we do that, we're just going to grow as human beings and grow as Catholics.

So this is one of the things is, you know, we can see, what we conceive of what we're doing is transmitting the Catholic worldview to our students. But we're actually transmitting it to ourselves first, right? When we start thinking about these things, so I go to schools and I talk about how we can do this and it will help our students, but of course, at the same time, the teachers who are [00:42:00] by and large people of goodwill, but lots of them don't have much formation, are odd.

And they are nourished by thinking, Okay, I'm an art teacher, but I had never thought, my training never taught me to think about it as related to my faith. And I thought that was the religion teacher's job and the chaplain, but, you know, here I'm going to do what we do in the art class. And all of a sudden they can conceive of their role as an art teacher in light of their Catholic faith and their identity as a Catholic teacher.

Now they're more invested as a Catholic and as an art teacher. It's not in a zero sum game. Like, you get better at both. And I see those people come alive when they, cause it goes to the why question, right? Why am I teaching art? Hold on, when I teach art, when I engage with people in this way I'm engaging in part of the doctrine of creation and I'm, and we're participating in the Trinity.

We're participating in the life of the Trinity when we see and receive one another through the medium of art. What?

Yeah.

All of a sudden everything's at [00:43:00] a higher plane and the art doesn't suffer for that. In fact, it's enhanced.

gets better. Well, and there's something to it too, that if your science teacher knows that it's happening in art, and your art teacher knows that it's happening in ELA, and your ELA teacher knows it's happening in math, and your math teacher knows that And we as a community, we as a school, know that this is happening across the board, I think the comfort level gets greater.

And it tears down those walls of saying, listen, this is something we're all committed to. This is something that we're all in on, is not just to be a great school, but to be a great Catholic school. We're not a private school, we're a Catholic school.

When students have the experience of seeing the same sort of themes show up across the curriculum. First of all, the possibility for integrating the knowledge and making sense of where it fits in their life goes way up. But, you know, [00:44:00] if the only place you hear this stuff is in theology class.

and it seems divorced from the rest of life and from the other things that you yourself find interesting. Then it's like, well, theology is one subject that some people like and other people don't like. And that's just the way it is, you know, instead of like, we're actually proposing a worldview here and it shows up everywhere.

And there's a kind of consistency and coherence that is beautiful and compelling across the curriculum. I mean, your capacity to fulfill your mission of giving people preparing people for this life and the next, right? It is really amplified. And so I think that like whole staff approach is so compelling.

And it was one of the coolest things I've seen teachers do is, and it happens naturally, it's not in the book, because I didn't even conceive of it myself, but when I was writing, but when I talked to teachers over and over again, one of the things that shows up is, Cross curricular work teachers will naturally say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, the science and [00:45:00] history and theology teachers are going to do a joint unit on the Galileo affair or something like that, right?

Or we're going to do Catholic social teaching and this piece of literature or, you know, or whatever it is, right? And you start making those connections, and that's one of the most exciting things. And if students see their theology teachers show up in their science class, but also see their science teachers show up in their theology class, that's one of the best ways you can undercut this false narrative that these are two incompatible sort of forms of knowing, right?

Right?

and I think when you start to see that, your school is going to take off, and this is the thing that every principal out there that's in a Catholic school says they want to do, but I don't think they know where to start, or maybe it just seems like it's such an intimidating prospect if we're starting at square one of how to get there.

I know that's one of the things that just as you and I have gotten to know each other, one of the things that you're very passionate about, even beyond the book. I mean, this, the book is outstanding. Let me just say [00:46:00] this. If you're really, If you have enjoyed this conversation, get a copy of this because to dive into it and really hear a lot of these topics in a deeper conversation is there.

However, in your own work, you're even going beyond just a book. Okay, there's a lot more resources that you're doing. There's a lot more online content that you're doing for people. Talk a little bit more about that aspect of your work.

Yeah, right. Well, let me just affirm what you said at the beginning of this line of questioning, which was Principals out there wanting to do this and that's what I found when I wrote the book I didn't create a market for something That no one, like, everywhere I go, people are like, we've been thinking about this is what we want to do, but the question was one of resources.

And also one of another big question, and it's not my main area, but having education faculties at Catholic schools that form teachers. Catholic universities, I mean, that form teachers for this kind of work and that's a longer game But there is already movement on this and my [00:47:00] book is part of that But yeah, so I get the book out there.

I get this really enthusiastic response I hit the road I start speaking and teaching and it becomes clear to me Then I'm going to run up against my own limits here real fast in terms of how much ground I can cover with an airplane. And I'm, I got seven kids at home and whatever else. And after I work with people, you know, after I fly there, there's still work.

You want to support and follow up and engage even out. You don't want to fly in and then you're gone, you know. And so I started thinking, well, how can I continue to support people who I've already worked with? Support people who I haven't flown to see and also sort of leverage technology to help us all to do that.

So I've got two big things right now that I'm working on. One is an e-course that you could take as an individual or there's a staff version. You can, you could do it as a staff, as kind of professional development in your staff. The other one is an online community that I'm forming and I'm gonna be providing content in that community but [00:48:00] also it's gonna be a sort of a clearing house for other people to get together who are trying this stuff across North America and beyond.

To share their own experiences and their own ideas, and so I'm going to provide platforms for other people who are doing neat work, whether it's, you know, a school I met where they're doing really cool stuff in their athletics department and evangelization, or a school that's done an overhaul of their English curriculum, or whatever, right, all those different kind of things.

So, an opportunity for people to connect, for people to have access to me and to each other to ask questions a place I'm going to be developing you know, I talked about the workshops I do with teachers, we're going to do them live online, we call them masterminds. It's, I've got a dedicated podcast that we've started recording.

It's going to start coming out in December, the Making Every Class Catholic podcast. And all that stuff is kind of housed within that community. If your listeners are interested, they can go to makingeveryclasscatholic. com. You can get on waitlists right now. Well, depending when this comes out the [00:49:00] community should open December 1st, so maybe

Right around the same time.

waitlist phase by the time this comes out.

But there's waitlist for the e course, there's a waitlist for the community, or you might be able to just sign up by the time this comes out. And I'd love to, to meet people there and continue working on this together.

And I think too that one of the things that I always one of the biggest piece of advice I give leaders, and so I'll speak to classroom teachers as well in this. I have talked to leaders on this as well. I think so many times we feel like we have to go at things alone, and there is so much greater strength in numbers when you're involved and you're part of a community that can say, listen I'm teaching this or I'm trying to lead this or I'm trying to do this.

I don't know where to start with this. I guarantee you, you get into a format, a community of support, whatever it is. Somebody there's going to go, Yep, I've been there. And let me tell you what I did with that. Okay. And I think the great thing about, you know, COVID was a horrible couple of years there for [00:50:00] everybody.

But I think that one of the things that showed people was you don't have to sit in the same room with somebody to have a professional support group. Whether you're a classroom teacher or whether you're a principal or whether you're whatever. You and I are in different, not only in different parts of the world, we're in different countries as we're recording this, okay?

And yet I think that's something we might have overlooked 10 years ago, was the ability to jump on a call like this. And so I think that's one of the things I would say to people out there is, if you are passionate, and if you are, wanting to make your Catholic school and your classrooms authentically Catholic.

And this is a great place to, to look at. It's a great place to look into. I, you know, you and I have talked a lot offline, so I know the amazing stuff that you're doing. But to our listeners out there, trust me when I say this one, this will be worth your time to, to log on to making every class catholic.com and just the wealth of resources that, that Brett has to offer.

So, Brett, I can't say thank you enough for your time today and for all of your knowledge [00:51:00] and the work that you're doing in making every class Catholic across the world

I really appreciate the chance to chat with you here, John.

absolutely. Well be safe in your travels and we'll look forward to touching base again here real soon.

Absolutely. Thanks so much. God bless.

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