After a tough night last night with my 8th graders, just 5 days before their Confirmation, I felt very much in need of some words of encouragement this morning. Thankfully, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI offered the following words a few days ago speaking to parents, teachers, priests, and catechists about the importance of education: VATICAN CITY, FEB. 25, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Although it is difficult to educate the children and youth of today in goodness, […]
Last night, we took our classes to church for the Lenten Sacrament of Reconciliation. For the most part, they behaved very well and it was a very nice service (it includes individual confessions which means the kids need to behave for a long stretch of time). My aide, Kris, and I were talking afterwards about how funny the kids can be. While some of the behavior can be a bit maddening, most of it makes […]
One of the most frustrating things that I experience as a catechist is young people who are fully capable of reading but are reluctant to read. I’m not talking about reading aloud…I understand that some people don’t like to read aloud in front of others. I’m just talking about following along in the book as someone else reads aloud. I especially notice this in the boys. As we read, some of them will just stare […]
Oops…I almost titled today’s post Making Reading More Fun but then I realized that I had previously ranted about the obsession we catechists often have with making sure everything is fun!!! The key is to make learning more engaging (which makes it more fun anyway!) All that to say that last night’s activity made the reading of the textbook much more engaging. We sat around a long table with the Church history timeline spread out […]
Last night, as part of our meditation, I showed the young people a number of different images of Jesus from around the world and over many centuries. Included in the images were depictions of Jesus as an Oriental, as Native American, as Black, and other dark-skinned peoples. When we were finished, one young man came up to me and asked, “Not to be racist or anything, but how come some of those pictures showed Jesus […]
I promised I would update on how things went this past week with one of my young people after needing to discipline him firmly the week before. That occurred toward the latter part of class and, at the time, he responded by being very quiet. I was curious as to how he would behave the following week. I’d have to say I saw progress tempered by the fact that this young person is who he […]
The Powerpoint presentation I did last night on Church history went very nicely. First, I would say that the kids were intrigued at the notion of a “high-tech” religion class. They got a very clear message that “something was up” for that night’s class. It’s always good to communicate the message, as they arrrive, that “there is most definitely a plan for this session and I need YOU to fit into that plan ASAP!” Second, providing […]
As I look forward to Monday’s session, I see that our next unit moves us into a look at Church history. The challenge is to make history relevant. Kids in general react to the notion of history as something that is boring. It’s already a challenge to make sure that they seen religion as relevant and not boring so I’m facing a double whammy! Personally, I love history and I look forward to helping the […]
I had a great evening in Naperville, IL, yesterday, with 150 catechists at St. Raphael Parish! We talked about the tools that catechists need to be more effective and the DRE, Jane Ehrlich, had copies of my book, The Catechist’s Toolbox available for sale. She also went out of her way to prepare a focal point that featured a couple of tookboxes, including a giant multi-drawer toolbox! To top it all off, she also placed tools on […]
Last night was a night of ups and downs. We began by reviewing how to pray the Rosary and then we moved into our reflective prayer and prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, connecting this to our last class when we learned about the Cross of Jesus. A couple of the young people were pretty hyper and couldn’t sit still. I even had to pause at one point to ask one of them to […]
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