At my recent workshop in Dallas, I asked the crowd of catechists to think of one word that describes how they feel about the upcoming catechetical year. As expected, the responses ran the gamut. Here’s a small sampling: excited privilege challenge anxious called scared opportunity growth curious faith What one word best describes how YOU feel about the upcoming catechetical year?
One of my favorite cartoons shows a professorial-looking catechist or Sunday school teacher in a classroom full of pre-school children and saying to them, “I’m new to teaching your age group. How much do you know about systematic theology?” The truth is, if we’re not familiar with the developmental characteristics (emotional, psychological, spiritual, physical, mental) of the age group we teach, we can find ourselves facing some real challenges. Here are links to some very […]
As catechists, one of the most effective tools we have is asking questions. Jesus was, of course, a master at this skill. Often in the Gospels, we find Jesus utilizing questions to challenge his followers and stimulate their thinking: “But who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29) “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” (Matthew 22:20) “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49) “Which is easier, […]
This is an activity that I like to do with older participants (especially adults) who have a little more knowledge of the Church’s repertoire of hymns. I call it “If I Were a Church Hymn” and it basically invites participants to think of which Church hymn they would choose as either: their theme song the hymn that best captures the state of their spiritual life at this moment their all time favorite hymn The activity […]
I came across the following recording of a webinar that looks interesting. I haven’t had the time to participate in it myself but I intend to. In the meantime, let me know what you think. Catechizing Digital Natives from Jonathan Sullivan on Vimeo.
I spent a very enjoyable and productive day today with about 45 DREs in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, NY, talking about caring for our catechists. We looked specifically at how we can offer them formation in the areas of being, knowing, and doing, as outlined in the General Directory for Catechesis. In the course of our day, the folks offered lots of thoughts and comments. Here is a summary of just a few thoughts […]
I found the following article to be very interesting. Basically, it is saying that kids who grow up surrounded by lots of books grow up smarter! http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/06/02/summer_book_giveaway/ As always, I think of the ramifications for religious education. I wonder what we could do to expose our students to more age-appropriate books about the Catholic faith to help them be smarter Catholics. For example, wouldn’t it be cool if we catechists had access to a box […]
Last night, we had our end-of-the-year grade level meeting with Arlene, our DRE, and we talked about how things went this year and what we can do better next year. One of the main issues that came up was our concern over the kids’ behavior in church when we go over for prayer services or Mass. Each year, we go to the church probably five or six times: opening prayer for the year, Advent Reconciliation, […]
Most of us catechists are appreciative to have excellent catechetical textbooks from which we can draw forth the content of our rich Catholic heritage. That’s a fancy way of saying that in our lessons, we plan to have students read from the textbook. The problem is, that can become very routine and boring. Fear not! There are ways we can break up the routine while still reading from the textbook. I covered some of these […]
Most of us catechists are appreciative to have excellent catechetical textbooks from which we can draw forth the content of our rich Catholic heritage. That’s a fancy way of saying that in our lessons, we plan to have students read from the textbook. The problem is, that can become very routine and boring. Fear not! There are ways we can break up the routine while still reading from the textbook. I covered some of these […]
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