In case you missed the free Webinar I conducted on April 27, it is now available as a recording. You can watch it at your convenience and perhaps get together with a few other catechists to watch it together and discuss as you go along, pausing the recording as you wish. You can download the pdfs of the Catechist’s Self-Evaluation as well. Enjoy!
You may recall from some of my previous posts, that this year, I began each religious education class by inviting the 8th graders to stand and respond “Let us rejoice and be glad!” to my invocation of “This is the day the Lord has made.” This became a very joyful part of our class and the kids routinely responded with great enthusiasm and vigor. Lo and behold, at our end-of-the-year Mass on Monday evening, the […]
During last evening’s Webinar (for which a recording will be available soon right here on my blog), I asked catechists to choose one word that summarizes their year as a catechist. Here’s a sample of some of the words that came up most: enlightening exhausting uplifting rewarding growth serving whirlwind exciting different busy comprehensive love adjustment challenging hectic powerful loving connected learning eventful struggle exposure effortful fulfilling surprising changing compromise special enjoyable enriching […]
As promised, here are the PDFs of the self-evaluation that we used in tonight’s Webinar. GROWING AS A CATECHIST Self Evaluation I encourage you to share this evaluation with another catechist, a group of catechists, or with your DRE. It’s always good for us to reflect on our experience to see how the Holy Spirit is calling us to grow in our ministry.
There’s been an article buzzing around on Facebook that deals with the “digital technology divide” in education. The article presents the fact that, since this generation (digital “natives”) is the first to grow up completely surrounded by digital technology, they think and process information differently than us digital “immigrants” do. In particular, the article states that “Educators must relinquish the idea of being all-knowing and replace that concept with an attitude of being a facilitator, knowing that […]
I had a marvelous time at the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership (NCCL) in Las Vegas this week! Not because it was in Vegas (although that was fun) but because the NCCL is like a huge family reunion! I got to see so many good friends who are DREs, Diocesan directors and staff, publishers, and catechists and made MANY new friends, including a number of folks who visit my blog regularly…how nice to meet you […]
I haven’t had much Internet access for a couple of days, but I wanted to say hi and let you all know that I am having a fantastic time at the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership in Vegas. I’ll have pics and some thoughts by Thursday when I get home. Also, I’m happy to share that my brother Tom has been named the Bishop of Springfield, Il, which is about 3 hours from Chicago! http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=36235 […]
While at NCCL this week, I am doing a poster presentation about how to conduct a parent-child session on introducing Catholics to the Bible. The poster indicates that you can get a pdf of the outline for the session on my blog. That said, here ’tis! Joe P. NCCL Poster Presentation
Many, many thanks to all the good folks who came out in San Diego over the past couple of days to talk about catechizing junior high kids! I had a great time and I hope you did too! Thanks to Mary Jo Waggoner and Enedina Saucedo for their hospitality and for arranging for this experience to take place. Thanks especially to mis amigos Miguel Arias and Luis Ramirez for all their hard work and for […]
No that’s not a basketball score! They are the temperatures in these respective cities! It just so happens that I am in San Diego right now and while it is a beautiful sunny day here, I can’t believe that Chicago is 15 degrees warmer! Anyway, I’m not complaining. It’s my first time in San Diego and it is beautiful! I’m looking forward to speaking to a group of junior high catechists and youth ministers tonight […]
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