Many parents find Catholic schools to be a beneficial investment for their children to grow into successful, caring, thoughtful, faithful, and active people in society. While Catholic schools may differ from each other in some respects, this model of education, in general, usually offers various benefits for children such as healthy relationships with teachers and fellow students, loving environments, an emphasis on Christian values, and academic excellence. If you are planning to enroll your child in a Catholic school, here are some of the benefits of Catholic education.
Display Their Best Efforts
Catholic education encourages students to give their best effort in their everyday activities, such as their academic work, athletics and extracurricular activities, and relationships with their peers. Students are instilled with compassion, empathy, discipline, emotional resilience, and knowledge to shape them into the best versions of themselves. Catholic education helps students to discover the person God made them and how they can use their God-given talents for good.
Service-Oriented Education
One of the benefits of Catholic education is that it places an emphasis on service to others, which enables children to grow into helpful adults and responsible citizens. This is accomplished by providing students with opportunities for regular service to the school and local community. Through activities like food and clothing collections, students learn to recognize the needs of others, especially those less fortunate.
Focus on Concrete Goals
Many students, and often even parents, fall into the trap of setting either self-serving or empty goals. While secular, public education often focuses on high school, college and career readiness, Catholic education teaches students that receiving high grades in school and securing a comfortable lifestyle in their adult life are not the only, or necessarily even the most important, goals in life. While it is necessary to have practical goals in life, students are also guided to recognize that school is not merely a means to an end – it has inherent value in and of itself. Catholic schools seek to form life-long learners who also realize that they are all called to a higher end in life – heaven!
Emphasis on Discipline
Catholic education also places an emphasis on the virtue of discipline. Students are taught and are challenged to perform actions and make decisions that align with Christian values and virtues. The Catholic faith provides children with the basis for building strong ethical and moral foundations. Students are provided with excellent role models who live out their faith in a very open way. In this way, students can not only benefit from discipline imposed on them, but they can develop their self-discipline that will lead them to live lives of virtue long after they have completed their schooling.
According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), their annual survey of trends in the Catholic Church revealed that approximately 58,000 people were received into full communion with the Church in 2018. If you plan for your child to become part of the Catholic community in a fuller way, consider the many benefits of Catholic education. It's important to first do your research before deciding on a suitable school for your child. If you are looking for a school offering a solid Catholic education, contact us today.
