Do You Mean What We Mean?: A Catholic School Lexicon

P.J. Hammel is a professor of Education at the University of
Saskatchewan.

Vatican II model. These efforts culminated in 1981 with the adoption of a Mission Statement, ten statements describing the nature and role of the Catholic school. There followed annual Blueprints Conferences in which the definition, implications, and implementation of the Mission Statement were studied.

Visions of the Catholic School: Blueprints Reader Volume 1 1985 consists of six essays “presented by the self-styled Blueprints Reader Committee.” The pieces cover “material dealt with at Blueprints Conferences, and reworked by the original presenters or participants in the light of subsequent experience and reflection.” This work responds “to the original Blueprints objective regarding production of literature about the Alberta Catholic school” and it “invites succession.” The essays (Our History. Our Future; Christian Unity and Catholic Schools; Our Mission: What Do We Believe?; The Gospel-Centred School; Roles and Relationships in Catholic Schools; Whext Blueprints?) although extensive and thorough, are not so much prescriptive as questioning and exploratory, more discussion guide than exposition.

Do You Mean What We Mean? A Catholic School Lexicon is further subtitled “words which describe Christian education in Alberta’s Catholic schools.” It is a lexicon in that it presents some 30 terms — “prime examples of the Alberta Catholic school community’s evolving vocabulary” — in alphabetical order. Actually, these terms represent themes or concepts, each of which is dealt with in a short essay offering much more than mere definition. Each essay is packed with information, and often exhortation, which needs to be carefully studied and discussed in order to arrive at a common understanding and practice.

Special mention must be made of Hank Zyp’s cover designs and textual illustrations. They are particularly appealing and extremely effective in reflecting the Catholic and gospel (good news) tone of both works.

Together, these two volumes form a useful study package. The Mission Statement, which is included in each volume, is an effective starting point, suggesting goals for the Catholic school. The lexicon, which should be studied next, presents understandings and themes necessary to approach the longer, more complex issues in the Reader. Together these works show how Catholic educators in Alberta are working through a process, and a pilgrimage, of growth. Catholic schools and Catholic educators throughout the country would do well to study this process in reviewing their own goals and roles as gospel-centred schools.