When I was a student at St. Ignatius College Prep, there was one room that I never explored: the teachers’ lounge. The teachers’ lounge was like a fortress or a sanctuary that no student was ever to enter (and rightly so). Several years later, when I returned to St. Ignatius to do my student teaching, I walked into the hallowed teachers’ lounge for the first time. There, to my astonishment, was my former Latin teacher, […]
While I have served as a parish DRE and catechist over the years and have dedicated a great deal of my efforts to supporting parish catechists, I am, myself, a product of Catholic schools, having attended St. Casimir grade school, St. Ignatius College Prep, and then Loyola University of Chicago. My wife Joanne attended the same grade school, the parish high school for girls at St. Casimir, and St. Xavier College (now University), and she […]
When I was a little girl, my big brothers teased me when I told them what I wanted to be when I grew up: “First I want to be an artist,” I had told them, “then a teacher, then a mommy, then a ballet dancer, and then a nun!” I guess I wanted it all. Now that I am older, I know that a job and a vocation are different, and part of my job […]
I love the way we celebrate Advent at my school. Every Monday the entire school—all 515 students and their teachers—gather in the auditorium to pray and sing traditional Advent carols. Our tradition is simple and beautiful. In the center of the auditorium is a table, upon which sits an Advent wreath with a purple bow. The wreath cradles four pillar candles—three purple and one pink. A group of cantors stand off to one side, and […]
The last Sunday in January always begins a special week that Catholic school teachers find both exhilarating and exhausting: Catholic Schools Week. This week is sponsored by the National Catholic Educational Association, and this year Catholic Schools Week will be celebrated from Sunday, January 31 to February 6. As a teacher who has spent her entire career teaching in Catholic schools, I know how much we can celebrate! Catholic Schools Week is unlike any other […]
I recently did a presentation on Catholic identity for the Catholic school teachers of the Diocese of Worcester, MA. Realizing that a portion of my audience was made up of teachers who do not teach religion class, I focused on ways that teachers in any subject area can reinforce Catholic identity in their learning environment in the Catholic school. Here are 10 such ways: Begin your class each day with a ritual greeting such as, “This […]
To help celebrate the 5th anniversary of my blog, The Catechist’s Journey, I’ve invited a number of people to be guest bloggers here over the next week! We start with one of the first people I “met” online when I began blogging, Gilles Côté, a Canadian living in Ottawa, who is the webmaster of 4CatholicEducators.com and of its sister site Resources for Catholic Educators. Gilles taught grades 7 through 12 for 23 years in Catholic […]
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