Joe Fleming

In one way or another I have been in classrooms since 1957 when I attended St John’s Primary School in the western district town of Dennington [Victoria]. I took a familiar route: school, university and teaching. With twists and turns my teaching career took me from school to school, to the Catholic Education Office Melbourne and the final twist has led me to Australian Catholic University.

Growing up in rural Victoria in the 50’s and 60’s was a most formative experience - religious practice, simplicity of life style and an emphasis on the importance of family were key elements. One of the usual features of our life was to be christened with one name but eventually being called another. Consequently, while Gerard was the name I was given at baptism, friends and family call me Joe.

When in the late sixties I moved to Melbourne to join the Christian Brothers and attend Melbourne University profound changes were happening in society, the church and in my personal life. Filled with ‘camelot’ zeal and reciting the mantra “make love not war” I joined others in the challenge of creating a new world. Eventually my idealism and reality couldn’t be reconciled and I left religious life taking with me a knowledge and love of scripture, theology and a firm commitment to the value of religious education that have remained.

Apart from working in Catholic secondary schools during the 1980’s I became involved in some small part time writing for DOVE Communications with the religious education magazine “Ten:Ten”, and teacher support material for “Introduction to the Gospels”. More recently [1999] I co-authored a teacher resource book: Sabbath of Sabbaths. This investigates images of God in the Christian Gospels as a background to the Year of Jubilee. In addition I have contributed a chapter in the series “Living Faith Fully”. Teaching religion in schools is a demanding activity and the materials that are produced have been an attempt to provide good theology, good methodology and ease of use.

One of the most rewarding educational opportunities I have had was working for 4 years as at the Catholic Education Office Melbourne. This provided an insight into the breadth of Catholic schooling and the work of primary and secondary schools that I had not previously experienced. What emerged from this contact was the need that staff expressed for a time to develop and sustain a vibrant spirituality and the value they obtained from days that schools set aside for such development. Much of my work within schools was in the provision of spirituality experiences for staff. This lead me in 1998 to attend a Religious Education Symposium organised by ACU when I presented a paper: “Religious Education: Making Spaces for the Sacred.” Among other things I argued that this exploration of spirituality among students impacts on how we describe the activity of religious education, the purpose of it and the methodology.

Since January 1999 I have been a full time academic at Australian Catholic University in the School of Religious Education. The work involves the preparation of young women and men for teaching in primary and secondary schools. In addition there is teaching and supervision of post-graduate students in Graduate and Masters courses in religious education. Currently I am undertaking a PhD in Religious Education investigating the role of Religious Education Coordinators in Catholic Secondary Schools.

Mr. G.P.[Joe] Fleming
Lecturer in Religious Education
Australian Catholic University