I was thinking this morning about how to explain the Catholic faith to someone in such a way that it can be grasped in simple terms (no easy task for a faith that is actually quite complex). It occurred to me that the Church already provides a simple structure for talking about our faith through the “4 pillars” of The Catechism of the Catholic Church: Creed, Sacraments, Morality, and Prayer. Even so, I was looking […]
I look forward to a couple of opportunities to work as a team with the other 8th grade catechists. First, this Monday, we will show the Church History timeline Powerpoint to the other 3 classes that have not seen it. My class will be run by Kris, my aide, and the other 3 classes will gather together in one room for the presentation. We will divide up the periods of church history so that each […]
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 […]
Here’s my plan for this evening’s session: We will complete the church history Powerpoint that we began last week (we have 2 more time periods to go through). Throughout the Powerpoint, the young people have been filling in a note-taking sheet with pertinent names and dates. When we are finished, we’ll review the info on the note-taking sheets and then I’ll arrange them into 5 small groups (2 or 3 in each group) and assign […]
I’m sure that by now you’ve seen the Verizon commercials with the message “It’s the Network,” showing people on Verizon wireless phones backed up by a huge crowd of Verizon workers who represent their support network. The message is clear: wherever you go, the network is there with you. It occurred to me as I was talking with a group of catechists last night at a faith formation session, that we can think of Catholic Tradition […]
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 […]
One of the challenges we have faced with our 8th grade schedule is combining the general curriculum/textbook with the Confirmation preparation curriculum/textbook while doing justice to both of them. This year, we’re trying something new. Typically our classes are 75 minutes long. Of course, it never feels like we have enough time. And, as our DRE can attest to, it’s simply not that easy to increase times across the board. So, instead, we are trying […]
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 […]
I’m going to try something different tonight. I’ve put together a Powerpoint presentation on Church history. It’s the first time I’ll be using this technology in this particular setting (a weekly religious education session). If you don’t know what a Powerpoint presentation is, here is a brief explanation: PowerPoint is a graphics program by Microsoft that allows you to produce a professional-looking presentation made up of a series of “slides.” The slide presentation, which can […]
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 […]
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