Sir, - Joan Heelan (November 17th) asserted that Catholic-run schools merely teach "subjects". According to Ms Heelan, multi-denominational schools encourage the children "to want to learn, thereby nurturing an eagerness for knowledge which stands them in good stead in future years."
I am an 18-year-old sixth-year in a Jesuit school, which I have attended since the age of eight. Before that I was for four years in a parish-run primary school. Speaking as a product of the Catholic education system, I reject Ms Heelan's remarks.
My fellow-students and I, and our parents, are hugely grateful for the inestimable (and non-academics) benefits we have received in our education from a Catholic ethos which seeks to develop the whole person: body, mind and soul. Of course at every stage we have been "encouraged to want to learn". What school would not employ such an approach? Or is the implication that Catholic schools by definition would be too backward to realise this?
My school-day memories will not be just classroom ones but will cover the multitude of mentally, emotionally and spiritually formative experiences that my Catholic (and therefore "universal") schooling opened to me. Faith that does justice. Hope that gives meaning. Charity that gives direction: these gifts, ignored by Ms Heelan, are part of a good Catholic education alongside and sometimes through the "subjects". Her approval of "an eagerness for knowledge" is commendable. In an "information-age", perhaps some eagerness for wisdom as well might not go astray. - Yours, etc.,
Paul Brady,
Belmont Avenue, Dublin 4.