Catholic education for ministry among Hispanics

• Main Author: Cervantes, Carmen Maria
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1987
• Subjects: Education
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/3196; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4171&context=uop_etds

PROBLEM: Programs to educate Hispanics for ministry require special training , knowledge of students' needs, appropriate curriculum, teaching methodology, and educational materials. PURPOSE: To identify the teachers' background and preparation, the students' general characteristics, and the characteristics and problems of the educational process. To draw recommendations for improving teacher training, curriculum planning, teaching methodology, and educational materials. PROCEDURE: Questionnaires were distributed among all teachers in Catholic Education for Ministry Among Hispanics (CEMH) in California. This study is based on 54 questionnaires that represent 67% of the population estimated. CONCLUSIONS: Most of the teachers were bilingual lay women born in Latin American countries. Their main goals were evangelization, integral education, education for ministry, and building the Kingdom of God. One third of the teachers had only undergraduate studies. Only one third had studies in education. A large proportion reported inadequate knowledge in theology, Church teachings and Church history, moral development, ethics, anthropology, sociology, economy, counseling, and teaching and planning techniques. The students were mainly women, Spanish monolingual, with elementary education, under 40 years of age. The courses usually had less than 30 students and more than 100 hours per year. Teachers reported students' interaction, exams and class presentations; and lectures among the most used and effective methods, and reading aloud and memorization as ineffective but also generally used. Few teachers used supervised practice. Pastoral differences with Anglo administrative personnel, lack of educational materials and time pressure were the most frequent problems. RECOMMENDATIONS: (a) to train teachers as educators, offering them courses on all the subjects needed and including supervised practice; (b) to form multicultural/multi-ministerial teaching teams and provide education for the cognitive, affective and motor domains, emphasizing the pastoral approach of the Second Vatican Council; (c) to formalize ministries through certification and a system of ongoing education; (d) to establish dialogue and collaboration between teachers in CEMH and Anglo administrative personnel; (e) to design specific materials for CEMH, to establish a clearinghouse for teachers' hand-made materials, and to elaborate an annotated bibliography of resources; (f) to replicate this study among English speaking, to develop studies on the types of programs existing, the role of Hispanic women in ministry, a comparison between Hispanic lay ministers and active and inactive Catholics, and a direct evaluation of the effectiveness of different teaching methods for CEMH.