Students learn how to lead moral lives from classes, teachers

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
Jan. 24, 2008

The Catholic schools in the Diocese of Sioux City not only offer religion classes to students but classes that help students lead moral lifestyles.

"Theoretically, all of our classes should teach moral lifestyles," said Brendan Burchard, a theology teacher at Bishop Heelan High School in Sioux City.

Burchard teaches a class called Christian Lifestyles, a semester long class taken by seniors. The class learns about topics such as marriage, friendship and communication.

Throughout the semester, Burchard has speakers come talk to the seniors about what to expect when they graduate.

One of the speakers this semester talked to the students about his life and what types of experiences he has had in his life. Burchard wanted the students to hear about life from the perspective of an older person.

"The students are seniors and they are going to be out of here in a couple months," he said. "I try to base this class on what life will be like for them in the next few years, especially that first year of college."

The students will be out on their own, spiritually and physically. They will not have their parents there telling them to get out of bed on Sunday to go to church, he pointed out.

The speakers talk to the students about a range of topics. A financial planner comes in to talk to the students about the basics of financial planning - savings, credit cards, etc. - to make them aware. Other topics include fetal alcohol syndrome, shaken baby syndrome, sexually transmitted diseases, natural family planning, etc. The students might be aware of the topics, but not necessarily know many details.

"I hope it is a heads up for them," said Burchard. "To me this is our last chance at them - morally and spiritually. We hope we have covered as many bases as we can."

Heelan also offers class relating to the topics of morality, social justice and service.

At St. Mary High School in Storm Lake, each grade level has a different area of religion that they cover each year. Some of the classes are a semester long and others are the whole year.

Juniors at St. Mary's take a morality class for one semester taught by Ryan Berg. A main topic covered in the class is virtues - faith, hope, charity, temperance and fortitude.

"When I taught it for a semester, we used a book (The Book of Virtues for Young People by William Bennett) that talks about 10 specific virtues," said Berg, who mainly teaches English classes. "We looked at those 10 pretty closely. The book gives different stories - past and present - that show how those virtues come out."

He also had the students do a survey-based research project during the class. The students were given a moral dilemma and they had to go out and pose their question to at least 40 people.

The students had certain criteria of what people to ask to make sure they had a good range of people - males, females, teenagers, ages 20 to 30, ages 40 to 50, senior citizens and people of different religious backgrounds.

"They had to interpret their own results to see what kinds of trends they found based on the criteria," said Berg. "As teachers we are not only trying to give them information they need to use for college but the real world applications - knowing how to get along with other people and how to make good decisions that will help them advance in different parts of their life once they get out on their own. It is an important thing to progress in your life the right way rather than taking advantage of people along the way."

Other schools in the diocese also offer classes that point student in the right direction when it comes to ethics, respecting life, service, social justice, etc.