Essay: Catholic Social Teaching and Teacher Development Challenges

This essay critically analyzes the issue of inadequate support for the professional development of teachers, focusing on its implications for the common good, particularly within the framework of the 10 Catholic Social Teaching (CST) principles. The essay highlights the global nature of this challenge, emphasizing how insufficient training, infrastructure, and resources hinder teachers' ability to educate students effectively, thereby impacting the development of human resources and the fulfillment of shared responsibilities. The essay underscores the importance of human dignity, a foundational CST principle, and argues that inadequate support undermines teachers' dignified positions, consequently affecting economic justice, global solidarity, and other CST principles. It recommends actions for local, global, and professional authorities to identify training needs and provide resources to achieve common good. The author advocates for implementing various training programs and allocating resources to benefit all members of the community, especially the poor, to ensure the protection of human rights and the development of an economically stable and peaceful society. The essay concludes by emphasizing the crucial role of teachers in building human resources and the responsibility of authorities to support their development to fulfill the CST principles.

Running head: ESSAY
'Inadequate support for the professional development of teachers'
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1ESSAY
Common good refers to the principle of common benefits and welfare for all the
members of the society. As stated by Garvey (2012), common good is a principle in the
philosophy that includes the agenda of sharing and delivering benefit to almost all the members
of a community. It can also be defined as something that is achieved through collective action
and active participation by all the members of a society through public service or politics. The
public or social services are often aimed at achieving common good. In this regard, it can be said
that education is a social service and the teachers work for accomplishing common good for the
society. This essay will critically analyze the concept of common good in the social issue of
‘inadequate support for the professional development of teachers’, especially in the context of
the 10 Catholic Social Teaching (CST) principles, with a focus on the human dignity and will
provide recommendations to address this challenge.
Inadequate support for the professional development of teachers is a global issue, in
which the shared responsibility of common good is not being realized. As the economies and the
societies are getting developed quite rapidly, the education system is also evolving quite fast.
Hence, the teachers must be skilled and trained enough to prepare the next generation of students
to take on the challenges of life. Education is not only limited to the bookish knowledge but also
aids in learning various aspects of life, manners and attitudes, which helps an individual to live in
a society and contribute something for the benefit of all, which can be termed as the common
good, according to the 10 CST principles (Westheimer, 2015). The teachers are a great pillar in
the society in educating the youth about doing good for the neighbors and for the community by
going beyond their individual dimensions. However, the teachers need professional training and
development to be updated and in sync with the changes in the world and train and educate their
students accordingly. In many cases, the teachers do not get such support from the higher

2ESSAY
authorities and hence, lack the skills and knowledge about the latest trends and developments in
the modern world. There is also lack of infrastructures and modern equipment, funding, libraries,
and presence of rigid education systems, that cripples the liberty of the teachers to teach the
students in creative manner (Collopy, Bowman & Taylor, 2013). The consequences are faced by
the young generation of the society, who do not get the adequate education for contributing
something good in the society and hence, this results in the wastages of human resources. This
also does not fulfill the shared responsibility of common good.
Dignity of the humans is the foundation of all the Catholic social teaching. It believes
that an individual reflects the image of God and hence, dignity of an individual must be achieved
as a basic moral vision of the community (McKenna, 2013). The individuals must be served well
as God is served. As highlighted by Sison & Fontrodona (2013), the basis of common good lies
in the principle of providing human dignity. The teachers do a social service by providing dignity
to the youth of the society and fulfill the CST principles of rights and responsibilities and global
solidarity and development, and in return they also hold a dignified position. However, it can be
stated that if they cannot give proper education to the students due to lack of knowledge and
skills, then they lose their dignified positions. Thus, human dignity is hurt, followed by
nonfulfillment of the principles of common good, rights and responsibilities, economic justice
and global solidarity and development as the human resources of the communities are not
developed.
This issue is not only a local challenge, but also a global challenge, and measures must
be taken to address this. The lack of professional supports for the teachers is mostly prevalent in
the developing and poor economies, where there is lack of adequate capital to support the
educational infrastructure (McGrath, 2012). Hence, economic condition, especially equality of

3ESSAY
income significantly influences the shared responsibility of the principles of economic justice
and common good. However, measures can be taken to improve the support to the teachers for
their development and to achieve common good. The 10 CST principles can be applied while
designing the measures to address the challenge locally, globally and in professional
communities. The 10 principles are: i) human dignity, ii) common good and community, iii)
option for the poor, iv) rights and responsibilities, v) role of government and subsidiary, vi)
economic justice, vii) stewardship of God’s creation, viii) promotion of peace and disarmament,
ix) participation and x) global solidarity and development (Massaro, 2015). All these principles
are focused on overall development of the world by addressing different aspects of the society.
In the given challenge, the local and central governments of all the regions can play a
significant role in supporting the development of education and training programs for the
teachers. The regional and central government and professional authorities must identify the
training needs of the teachers and launch the training and development programs accordingly.
That includes subject oriented practical training, vocational training, soft skill training, technical
training, behavioral training, mental counselling training, career counselling training, education
and training to handle special children and disabled students, and many other types of training as
required (Rhonheimer, 2013). Since, it is believed that all the goods are gifts from God and are
meant for the benefit of everyone, hence, resources must be allocated in a manner so that not
only the teachers but also every member is benefitted. While planning for the training and
adequate support programs, the governments or the professional communities must take into
account the options for the poor, as they are the most vulnerable members of the society
(Massaro, 2015). To achieve the common good, the poorer section of the society must also be
taken care of. By providing necessary training to the teachers, the human rights are protected as

4ESSAY
that makes them prepared in fulfilling the social responsibilities of educating the next generation.
For example, treating the special children and disabled students is also a part of the common
good, which needs to be taken into consideration (Dorr, 2012). Education also helps in
developing economic stable community, achieving peace and participation in social programs
and also accomplishing international solidarity and a global development. Thus, providing
adequate support to the teachers in all the countries and all the communities through various
types of training programs and capital resources is extremely beneficial in achieving the common
good.
The common good is an inclusive concept, which focuses on the social and economic
benefits of all the sections of the community irrespective of the developed or developing
economies. The teachers hold one of most important positions in the society, who fulfill the
responsibility to build the human resources of a community through adequate education. These
teachers often lack the adequate support in terms of infrastructure, capital, knowledge,
equipment, and training facilities, which results in poor quality of education in the society. This
creates an obstacle in the path of achieving common good. Thus, it is the responsibility of the
local, global and professional authorities to identify the needs of the teachers and provide them
adequate support so that the principles of catholic social teaching can be fulfilled.

5ESSAY
References
Collopy, R., Bowman, C., & Taylor, D. A. (2013). The educational achievement gap as a social
justice issue for teacher educators. Journal of Catholic Education, 16(1), 4-25.
Dorr, D. (2012). Option for the Poor and for the Earth: Catholic Social Teaching. Orbis Books.
Garvey, G. E. (2012). The theory of the firm, managerial responsibility, and catholic social
teaching. Journal of Markets & Morality, 6(2).
Massaro, T. (2015). Living justice: Catholic social teaching in action. Rowman & Littlefield.
McGrath, S. (2012). Vocational education and training for development: A policy in need of a
theory?. International Journal of Educational Development, 32(5), 623-631.
McKenna, K. E. (2013). A concise guide to Catholic social teaching. Ave Maria Press.
Rhonheimer, M. (2013). The common good of constitutional democracy: essays in political
philosophy and on Catholic social teaching. CUA Press.
Sison, A. J. G., & Fontrodona, J. (2013). Participating in the common good of the firm. Journal
of Business Ethics, 113(4), 611-625.
Westheimer, J. (2015). What kind of citizen?: Educating our children for the common good.
Teachers College Press.

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