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At the risk of alienating some folks, I have to admit that I have never much gotten into the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day as it is celebrated in the United States. Perhaps it’s because I’m Polish and the day really celebrates all things Irish, not the saint per se. But that’s not even the case. The day doesn’t really celebrate all things Irish—it often tends to celebrate a caricature of what it means to […]
Recently, I received an e-mail from a fourth-grade catechist, Gail, who hails from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. In it, she shared a very nice idea for making Paschal candles in preparation for the Easter Vigil. Here is how she goes about doing this easy project. Hello Joe, Celebrating the Light of Christ and the Easter Vigil: I have used Pringles (potato chips) cans for my students to make their own version of the Paschal candle. I used […]
This year I am teaching the second-year of Confirmation prep at my parish. My students are working-class Hispanic, while I am of white European descent from a typical American middle-class family. In this room, I am the stranger in a strange land. These young people are first- and second-generation immigrants, and they bring cultural diversity into my classroom. The very real differences between their lives and mine occasionally catch me by surprise. While discussing Christmas […]
This school year, our third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students all received their own copy of a children’s Bible. This has been a great experience. In the past, each classroom only had a few copies of the Bible, and the students had to share them. But with their own Bibles, students have ready access to look up verses on their own, which is something that they really enjoy. With this added flexibility, I decided that we […]
About this time of year, we catechists might be feeling great about how the year is going or frustrated that things aren’t going as expected—probably a mix of both. We find ourselves in the middle of Lent, wondering whether our efforts will bear fruit. This is an excellent time to pause and reevaluate the year’s plan and make adjustments where appropriate. I am in a program that allows the catechists the flexibility to arrange the […]
Any liturgist will tell you that the best way to teach about liturgy is to celebrate richly and robustly. The Triduum, which is only weeks away, is without a doubt the most robust sacramental celebration in our life of worship and, as such, provides an extraordinary opportunity for quality adult faith formation simply by inviting people to play a role in the celebrations. Here are some ideas for how to make that happen. Holy Thursday Evening […]
One of the challenges we face as catechists is never having enough time in our classes. We want to do so many creative and meaningful things, especially related to prayer experiences, but we have barely enough time to cover the basic doctrine. One approach that is gaining traction in faith formation is the “flipped-classroom.” This concept comes from the world of education and boils down to “flipping” the approach to teaching. Typically, content is delivered in […]
Talk of the New Evangelization is sweeping parishes and dioceses around the globe. We know it is necessary, but we can be confused about what it actually is, what it is not, and how to do it. There is often some confusion between evangelization and catechesis. Most people seem to respond to the “how” of evangelization by providing information about the faith and/or increasing opportunities to teach the faith. These are good practices, but they […]
Joking with my students one day I said, “Jesus didn’t gather his apostles around him and say, ‘Lets do a service project!’” Jesus gave us an example of how to serve one another, and I like to encourage a culture of service in my classroom. Teaching service as a way of life can be challenging with younger children. Our students are very empathetic, and I find that having many service projects throughout the year uses […]
Children typically really enjoy Lent. It is a season of the Church when they can set practical goals to give up, give away, and pray more. But sometimes we forget to teach our kids the “why” of Lent. What is it that we are trying to achieve with our Lenten observations? What is the goal of Lent? When I explain Lent to children, I always explain that we are preparing our hearts to meet the […]
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