Archive for November, 2007
I’ve heard a lot lately about a movie coming out on Dec. 7 titled The Golden Compass. Apparently there is some controversey swirling around this movie which is based on a novel (part of a trilogy) by Phillip Pullman titled His Dark Materials. It would seem that the controversey is not so much about the movie but about the books of the trilogy and Pullman’s atheism and alleged hostility toward Christianity.
I confess to knowing NOTHING about these books or the movie other than what I just wrote above. For that reason, I am not siding with any efforts to either condemn or to promote the movie. I am encouraging Catholics to be informed and to talk about the issue rather than just to have a knee-jerk reaction of condemnation. I took the same approach to the Da Vinci Code and The Secret. If you’re going to condemn something, know why you are doing so and know what you are promoting in its place.
With that in mind, I recommend you begin by reading the thoughts of Sr. Rose Pacatte, FSP, who is the director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies in Culver City and the author of the Lights, Camera, Faith film lectionary series published by Pauline Books and Media. Sr. Rose is one of the leading Catholic experts in the area of media and faith.
Catechists may be asked about the movie and the books and I thought it would be good to bring the issue to your attention should you wish to learn more about it. Thanks to my friend and colleague Michelle for alerting me to Sr. Rose’s article.
Like many (most?) catechists, I share a learning space - a classroom - with a Catholic school teacher. I realize the tensions that can arise from one group using a room that “belongs” to another group. I was a Catholic school teacher for 9 years and recall my room being used by numerous groups for after-school activities, so I know this experience from both sides of the fence. I’d like to offer a few thoughts.
First, catechists and Catholic school teachers, along with all of their students, must realize that the room belongs to the parish, not to any one group, teacher, or catechist. We are all stewards of that room for various periods of time. This means that we are to care for and preserve that room while occupying it, so that it can be used by the entire community (present and future) in whatever way best serves the Gospel.
I know that during my years of teaching in a Catholic school, I took pride in “my” classroom, decorated it, and kept it neat. I also realized that from year to year, I could be (and was) moved from one room to another depending on scheduling. This reminded me that no one space “belonged” to me.
We catechists must realize, at the same time, that there is indeed personal property in these rooms. Catholic school teachers have materials and resources on their desks and on shelves that belong to them. Students have belongings tucked away in their desks. While we have every right to use the learning space, we need to pay particular attention to and respect the personal belongings in these spaces.
Given that reality, however, Catholic school teachers should give serious thought to what they do leave out. Space in many parishes is at a premium. Extra-curriculars, parish groups, adult faith formation, and religious education classes are all in need of gathering space at the parish and in many cases, classrooms are the only available spaces. Common sense dictates that personal belongings should be kept in secure spaces. Many high power executives leave their offices each day with absolutely NOTHING left on their desks for security reasons. (i remember once seeing Cardinal Bernardin’s desk after he had left for the day…nothing but mahogany and a desk blotter!) There is no reason that Catholic school teachers couldn’t also secure their possessions and papers in storage containers next to their desks at the end of the day to keep them from being moved or tampered with by various groups that will be using that space after school.
We all need to realize that the days of the “publics” being a minority in the Catholic environment are long gone. Statistics reveal that there are currently approximately 1.6 million students in Catholic elementary schools and approximately 3.4 million public school elementary students receiving religious education in Catholic parishes. In other words, there are twice as many public school students using Catholic properties for religious education than there are Catholic school students.
Granted, the Catholic school students and teachers spend their entire school day there 5 days a week while the public school students come in once a week. However, the public school students, as baptized members of the faith community, have equal stewardship of that space. What does or should that mean in practical terms? It means that there is no reason that catechists should not have designated storage space in their assigned rooms. Some parishes already do this, designating certain shelves or cabinets as RE storage space.
In many parishes, catechists are foreced to trapse up and down the corridors and stairs of school buildings each week carrying their “bins” of supplies and resources (often weighing well over 25 pounds if carrying textbooks) to and from their assigned rooms. At the end of their sessions, these bins are collected and stored by the DRE in the RE office. I see no reason why, as equal stewards of the learning space, catechists cannot store these bins in the classroom, clearly marked as property of the RE program.
As catechists, we need to be sure that desks, tables, and chairs are returned to their original positions and that chalkboards are wiped clean. By the same token, Catholic school teachers should wipe chalk boards (or at least sections of the boards) clean at the end of their day so that they can be used by catechists and others who use the room.
From my own personal experience this year, I’ve been guilty on several occasions of not getting the desk configuration right when I tried to put the room back together after my sessions. The school teacher was justifiably irritated by this and notified the DRE who then notified me. I left a note of apology along with my phone number and e-mail on the teacher’s desk so that she could notify me directly if there were problems instead of burdening the DRE. By the same token, however, I have not once in 3 months been able to use the chalkboards in the room because they are filled with information (and one of the boards is innaccessible because of a table full of supplies and resources in front of it). I think it would be proper for the chalkboards to be cleaned at the end of each school day so that catechists (I’m not the only catechist who needs to use that room) can have full access to the parish learning space.
The bottom line is that we all, catechists, Catholic school teachers, and students (RE and Catholic school), need to enter and leave our learning spaces with a proper sense of stewardship which teaches us that we own nothing but are given responsibility to care for the resources God gives us so that all people may benefit from them.
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 (about 8 feet long) in our midst. Each young person had 3 small cards, each representing an event in Church history (all of them from the Powerpoint we used the previous few weeks).
As we read through several chapters of the Church history unit in our Finding God textbook, the young people called “TIME OUT!” whenever the text mentioned an event that was on one of their cards. We then placed the card along the timeline, described the event, and continued on with reading the text.
Several times, the young people missed an event mentioned by the text at which point I called “TIME OUT!” When we found out who had the card but missed its reference in the text, that young person had to stand until the next time out. They got a kick out of this little “punishment” and focused even closer attention to the reading to avoid further ignominy!
In all, we read from the text for almost 45 minutes (including all the pauses for the above) covering about 800 years of the timeline. However, the time went by very quickly because it was more engaging than just a straight reading of the text. Normally, the idea of reading from the text for that length of time would sound dreadfully boring. However, given the level of engagement, the reading of the text was transformed into an active learning experience.
And, yes, we had fun!
Next week, we’ll finish the remaining 1200 years of Church history, wrapping up this unit and then we’ll get the kids ready for the Sacrament of Reconciliation which takes place Dec. 10 as part of their Advent experience.
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend! Mine was very nice…relaxing and enjoyable. Waking up early this morning to go back to work was not easy!
Tonight is our 4th session on Church history. I came up with another activity that reinforces the Church history timeline powerpoint that I used the 1st two weeks of the unit. Here’s the scoop:
- I printed out the “slides” from the Powerpoint (37 in all) and fixed each one with cardoard backing (index cards) and “laminated” them (I do home-made laminating using clear packing tape!). I did this so that I can re-use the cards and the timeline for a number of years (hopefully).
- Each slide card is about the size of a business card with the information from the Powerpoint: title of an event in Church history, the year of the event, a short description, and a picture.
- I bought a roll of white paper (about 27 in. by 5 yds) and measured out a segment about 8 feet long and used this to create an actual timeline.
- I used blue painter’s tape (1 in. wide) to represent the timeline across the length of the roll of paper.
- I printed out 5 slides from the Powerpoint that represent the 5 periods of Church history and pasted those along the timeline.
- I velcroed the 37 slide cards along the timeline (just above the blue tape) illustrating the events from church history that we have been focusing on.
- With the velcro now in place, I removed the 37 slide cards and am now ready to do the following activity:
- Tonight, we will meet around a long table on which I will lay out the timeline.
- I will mix up the slide cards and distribute them at random…about 3 per student.
- We will then go through the chapters of the Church history unit of the Finding God textbook, reading aloud the articles that describe the events of Church history.
- I will instruct the young people to call out “TIME OUT!” whenever we come to a part of the article that refers to an event on one of the slide cards they are holding.
- The student who calls “TIME OUT!” will then place the corresponding card on the timeline (remember, the cards are velcroed to keep them in place) in chronological order.
My hope is that, having visualized the timeline for the first few weeks via the Powerpoint presentation, the young people will have a context within which we will now read the material in the textbook. Likewise, they will have another visual (the paper timeline) to reinforce the Powerpoint visual from previous weeks. Finally, they will be actively involved in the reading of the articles, paying attention to the events being described and matching them with the slide cards they each possess, placing them on the timeline as we chronologically read through Church history.
Next week, I hope to do one final activity with the same paper timeline. I plan to create small cards depicting saints from each of the 5 periods of Church history with short descriptions of their lives that make connections to the various events referred to on the timeline. The activity will challenge the young people to connect these famous people with events on the timeline (velcroing them beneath the blue timeline) so that we will complete the unit with a sense of not only events, but people living lives of holiness along the way.
NOW, IF ALL OF THE ABOVE SOUNDS VERY COMPLICATED….
…I’d like to suggest how you can use the main idea as a simple active-learning activity.
- If you’re going to be reading a chapter in the text book (or a section of a chapter), read it over ahead of time, and select a number of key terms and/or key people that you want the kids to focus on.
- Take some small index cards and write these key terms/people on them.
- Try to come up with enough cards so that each child has at least one, possibly two or three.
- Mix them up and distribute them randomly.
- Use a poster board to create a Reading Summary Board or Chart. For example, if the chapter is about the Seven Sacraments, the poster can be arranged in such a way that the names of the sacraments and their signs, symbols, and related gestures are to be listed. These would be the terms listed on the index cards.
- As you read the chapter aloud with your class, have the students call “TIME OUT!” whenever they recognize a term that is on one of their cards.
- They can then come forward and, using a glue stick, afix the card on the Reading Summary Board in the space you’ve designated.
- This simply allows you to turn the reading of the textbook into a more active-learning activity that involves visuals and manipulatives.
- When you’re done reading the chapter, you now have a visual summary to review with the class.
I hope you get back into the swing of things quickly this week…Advent is right around the corner!
In our book, Living the Mass: How One Hour a Week Can Change Your Life, Fr. Dom Grassi and I include a feature in every chapter called The Other Six Days of the Week in which we strive to show the connection between what we do at Mass and how we live the Mass the other six days of the week.
Now, there is a website titled www.other6.com that encourages people to “find God” not only on Sundays at Mass, but on the other six days of the week as well. Take a look at it…I think you’ll enjoy it.
Interestingly enough, a few weeks ago, Sen. Rick Santorum (a Catholic) said this of Islam and Christianity:
“Islam, unlike Christianity, is an all-encompassing ideology. It is not just something you do on Sunday…. We (as Americans) don’t get that.”
The part he really doesn’t get is that Christianity is all-encompassing…not just something we do on Sunday!!! St. Ignatius of Loyola summed up the all-encompassing nature of Christianity in his prayer, the Suscipe:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace.
That is enough for me.
As a Eucharistic people, giving thanks is what we do best! Of course, the word eucharist means thanksgiving. So, for us Catholics, thanksgiving is not a once-a-year holiday…it is what we do each and every time we gather for the Sacred Liturgy. We recognize that all good gifts come for our good and gracious God and that “it is right to give him thanks and praise!”
And so, as we approach this Thanksgiving holiday, we lift up our hearts. I thank you, Lord, for the wonderful celebration of my 25th wedding anniversary this weekend and for the precious gift of my wife and family. I thank you, Lord, for my home, my job, my friends, my family, my health, my service as a catechist, and the young people I teach.
It is right to give you thanks and praise!!!
Happy Thanksgiving, all!
Permit me a few days off from blogging as my wife and I celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary this weekend!
Thank you, Lord God, for the blessings of these past 25 years! Thank you for the blessing on my wife and children. May the Spirit guide us into the next 25 years and beyond!
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 for some way of fleshing those out in simple terms, i.e. a way to explain the significance of these 4 pillars without venturing into deep theological language. I came up with the following:
When it comes to our faith, Catholics have H.E.L.P.
- H = We HOLD on to our faith - a faith that is revealed to us through Scripture and Tradition (and summarized in our Creed). Paradoxically, we hold onto our faith by sharing - professing - it.
- E = We EXPRESS our faith sacramentally. We use outward signs, symbols, and rituals (primarily the seven sacraments) to express and celebrate our encounters with Jesus.
- L = We LIVE our faith. We live in a way that reflects our belief in the dignity of all human beings.
- P = We PRAY our faith. We seek to be in constant communion with God - always aware of and responding to his presence in all things, in all people, and in all situations.
This should be easy to remember because when you get down to it, we all need a little HELP!
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 of the 4 catechists present will have an opportunity to teach to the large group. It will be a great opportunity to see other catechists in action.
Second, we are preparing for our first Confirmation Intensive in December when the kids will be with us for 2 hours. We have planned a series of mini-sessions that night meaning that the kids will rotate through all 4 catechists for 20-minute sessions on some aspect of Confirmation. It’ll be great for the kids to encounter 4 adult witnesses in one evening and it should make the 2 hours fly by!
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 as Black? I don’t get it. What color was Jesus?”
I explained to him that people have always imaged Jesus according to their own culture. In fact, most images of Jesus that we Americans are accustomed to depict Jesus as Anglo, which of course, he was not. Jesus was a Jew. Some Jews are light-skinned and others are darker-skinned. The important thing for us to remember is that, while the historical Jesus was a Jew, the Risen Christ transcends race and nationality. This is why people of all cultures can depict Jesus as “one of their own.”
This further reinforces the notion that all people are created in the image and likeness of God and it is evidence of the inculturation of the Gospel…the Gospel taking root within specific cultures and speaking to that culture from within.
