I don’t know if I’d send my kid to a Catholic school.
A Catholic college, on the other hand, absolutely.
The difference being…?
We moved around a lot. Mom always tried to send me to Catholic school if there was one close enough. At first, if there wasn’t one, she’d try sending me to a Lutheran school instead, but within a week or so I’d be a completely depressed emotional wreck from the way the teachers & other kids would treat me. After that she gave up sending me to non-Catholic parochial schools & I could attend public.
I think I preferred public schools up to about sixth grade. The teachers usually weren’t as mean & strict as the nuns at Catholic school. Basically, you could get away with more goofing off and you had to practically commit murder to get sent to the principle.
From seventh grade on though, I was glad to be in Catholic school. Public schools seemed to be actually kinda violent. Physical fights everyday, drug busts, etc. There was none of that in Catholic school. If you ever got into a physical fight the fight would be immediately broken up and the punishment you’d get would be worse than the fight was worth.
My seventh grade homeroom teacher was a total bitch though. Sister Arlene. I’ll never forget her name. Everyone in the school was afraid of her. Even the other teachers, I think. She was also the French teacher. It was a Franciscan school so we all had to learn French, and whenever we said prayers it was always in French. I actually thought that was cool though. It made saying prayers more interesting. Pretty much everything you said to her had to be in French. Wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve said “Bon matin ma soeur. Bonjour ma soeur. Oui ma soeur.”
I think we had mass once a week, but it was kinda fun. It got you out of class, and it was pretty much a student-only mass so of course we got up to whatever shenanigans we could during mass. We never broke anything, but I remember lots of spitballs flying around. You never wanted to get caught in possession of a straw, but you always had to be armed with one.
I don’t recall stations of the cross being a big deal. You just had to walk around from station to station and spend a minimum “respectful” amount of time in front of each one. Presumably you were praying during this time. Or at least that better be what Sister Arlene thought you were doing. If you did the stations too fast, Sister Arlene would give you a smack down. Or course, if you took too long she’d think you were up to something. There was never any pleasing Sister Arlene.
Sister Arlene was an equal opportunity mean person. No one escaped her wrath. There was this one girl who was basically perfect. Always paid attention, always did her homework well. She was attractive. Smart. Super polite. She wasn’t obnoxiously perfect. She was genuinely a very nice, polite smart girl. Pretty much always got the answers right, never got yelled at. Except one day. Sister Arlene thought she wasn’t paying attention. I still remember her slightly trembling voice “are, are we not on paragraph four on page 41, Sister Arlene?” “Don’t get smart, pay more attention!” I think Sister Arlene just figured everyone had to get yelled at, at least once. Kept us on our toes. I think she wanted to toughen this girl up.
Science class was great. I don’t recall God ever being mentioned in science class. God may have given us the universe, but everything starting with the big bang, was pure hard science. The nun who taught science was sooooo nice. She was the anti-Sister Arlene. I remember when we got sex ed. They showed us a film about how it works. It used one of those infrared/night vision type things but it was clearly two actual people copulating, right there in front of us. I couldn’t believe it. You could see the guy inserting his penis into the woman, pumping away and finally ejaculating. One of the kids, a guy who was always the cool smart ass guy, ran from the room to throw up and we all got a huge snicker out of it before the teacher shut us up and explained not all kids have learned about the birds and the bees by seventh grade. Hence the class.
Up until eighth grade, most of our teachers were nuns, with some men laymen teachers here and there. Our math, English and Social Studies teachers were men. They were strict, but they always had us laughing. The social studies teacher was possibly the best. He didn’t just sit behind his desk or stand in front of the chalkboard. He’d actually walk around the room and sometimes he’d let us arrange all the desks in a circle and he’d actually sit on his desk and talk to us casually. We’d discuss the most bizarro topics in his class. I really don’t think there were any topics that were off-limits, except gay topics. I don’t recall homosexuality being discussed other than maybe, homosexuals are humans too. But they live in big cities so who cares?
My high-school was an all-male Catholic high-school. Still Franciscan. It was pretty cool. Most of the nuns disappeared and were replaced by priests. Up until then, whenever you saw The Priest it was almost a little spooky. Everyone deferred to him and you just assumed he was there for some Really Important Reason. Now in high-school, we got to know the priests and they were great. We still had mandatory religion class, but calling it religion class was a bit of a stretch. We discussed all religions & beliefs & philosophies. We were free to question anything. We could freely question the existence of God if we wanted to.
Why would attending a Catholic school “screw them up spiritually for life”?
Catholic Colleges don’t have the emphasis on indoctrination that the grade schools and high schools do. If there is a theology requirement, it’s usually a philosophy department course in the core curriculum.
Pretty much. Catholic school was basically very rigid, big emphasis on following the Catholic line on everything.
Whereas in college, you still get that very high standard of education (especially with your Jesuits), but it’s more about critical thinking, and questioning things. Plus MY school was very diverse for a tiny liberal arts college. We had a huge international exchange program.
Our music teacher, who was the only nun to still wear the habit, bore a strong resemblance to Emperor Palpatine. And I don’t just mean physically.
