A Challenging Class

Let’s just say keeping kids attention and focus can be challenging. I knew that this would be one of my struggles and I’m not too surprised that I’ve already encountered some problems this quickly. The book we follow suggests most of the class time be spent on lecture and discussion, which I don’t think is especially interesting to the kids. After separating some of the kids and writing their names on the board I think they started to take it a little more seriously for the rest of the class. I wasn’t sure if the kids were grasping any of the concepts I was going through in the lesson so I gave them a small quiz that I later graded at home to see if they had learned the key points. Most of them got an 80% or higher so I felt that even though a few of them had a hard time keeping focus, they are learning!

Last week we talked about how God reveals Himself through His son. We discussed how Jesus was sent to teach us about God and we also talked about eternal life and our faith. This week’s lesson we’ll be talking about scripture, which is such an important part of faith. We grow in our faith by reading scripture and by living life according to its teachings. Recently, Adam and I have gotten back in to reading our devotional book which highlights a few verses in the Bible and allows us to reflect and consider how it applies to our lives. I feel that this is almost a “how to” guide on living your life in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. I think it’s important to share what scripture means to us with the kids and I hope this will get them interested in reading scripture and making it a part of their daily life.

Finding the Right Teaching Style

This week has flown by and been so busy that I haven’t had an opportunity to sit and write until now. On Monday I was able to go to dinner with my friend Jenny (the one who used to live in Naperville and now lives in Texas) because she was visiting family and competed in a marathon with her mom! It was a fun visit and we got to catch up on work, life, etc. The rest of the week was really busy with work, trying to fit in exercise and planning this week’s lesson. There is actually a lot of material to cover tomorrow morning, so planning the lesson took about 1 – 2 hours. It is definitely a time commitment but I’ve been enjoying planning out the lesson and coming up with fun hands-on activities for the kids to do. I know it can be a challenge for children to keep their attention focused for long periods of time on one activity so I’m trying to incorporate meditation, group projects and worksheets, quizzes and tests to be sure they are learning the material.

As a kid I hated tests. Now on the other side of the podium I see how not only it is important for the kids, but also that the teacher evaluate their teaching style. In one of the books I read prior to starting of the school year (The Catechist’s Toolbox by Joe Paprocki), the author talks about how you have to consider the age and maturity level of your group. You can pick activities that involve speaking (lectures, large-group discussions), to dramatization (role-playing, storytelling), drawing and art (collages, holy cards, portraits) and writing (crossword puzzles, quizzes and reports). Since it’s my first year back into teaching religious classes, I think I will learn what the right teaching style is as I go along, and to help me do so, I plan to use several of these teaching styles in each class. I hope that God will provide me the patience and guide me in the right path. It is a commitment of both time and energy, but if I bring just one child closer in their relationship with God I will consider it a success.

A Foundation of Prayer

Yesterday Adam and I had our first class teaching the 4^th graders and we had a great class! We will have seven students total, but only five were there for the first session. Last week I spent two nights planning out and going over the lesson, but wasn’t sure if I had enough material to cover the hour and half allotted time. Apparently I forgot how many questions kids have! It was great to see their interest in the history of the church and the stories about Jesus. I was so thankful to have Adam there helping me keep the class on track and also answering their questions. There were a lot of history and geography questions that I didn’t have the answers to and Adam knows a great deal about those topics.

What made me really excited to be there working with the children is their enthusiasm to learn about Jesus and grow in their relationship with him and God. Our first lesson was about the different types of prayer and meditation, the rosary and the sacraments. The children already are very familiar with a lot of the prayers, so we said some of them together. Most of the class was lecture, but I had many kids in the class who volunteered to read, so I was happy to get them involved in the class. Once we covered all the written material, we had them start a craft project which was constructing their own rosary. Adam and I had purchased some string, beads and cross charms at Michael’s on Friday night after we found this project online. The kids didn’t have enough time to finish up the project, but we will continue it next week and I hope it is something they can keep and use at home and possibly even bring it to Mass.

One of the goals established by Bob (our director of religious education) was to get the kids to church each week. In our class we are asking the students if they attended church the Sunday prior to our class and noting that down on attendance. Unfortunately, only one out of the five students said they went to church, so I am hoping that by tracking this we will encourage them and their families to attend. I sincerely hope the parents want to continue their promise they made when they had their child baptized in the church—that they will aide in the development of their child and their relationship with Jesus Christ. Part of that promise is attending weekly Mass, to give them that opportunity to spend quiet time in the Lord’s presence. I really hope the parents want to play an active role in this part of their child’s life and show them by example on how to truly live a life for God.

Counting My Many Blessings

Over the past several weeks I have felt had the feeling of being so blessed. Not that I haven’t felt this before, but in my prayers and throughout by day to day activities I have been realizing how truly blessed I am. I have a wonderful husband who has been my friend for more than 13 years and has been there for me as a friend and husband for the past two and half years. I have amazing parents who have taught me really important life lessons—love, patience, work ethic and how to live a faithful life for God. I am happy to say that I have a great relationship with them which has evolved into a friendship as I have grown into adulthood. I am also happy to call my brother my friend. Growing up I remember some friends thinking it was odd because as brother and sister we always got along. We looked out for each other and always had fun playing together. Although we don’t get to see each other often, we have a great friendship and enjoy the times we do get to spend together.

Because we have moved so much over the years, I have friends from different points in my life. During my young childhood days in St. Louis, Missouri, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, my middle school and beginning of high school years in Aurora/Naperville, the rest of my high school years in Champaign, college in Charleston, my first job at a newspaper in Ottawa and finally here in Elk Grove Village. I have not kept in touch with all my friends in each of those areas, but I do have some friends from each part of my 28 years. It is so great to reconnect with friends and I believe you know you have a good friend when you can pick up where you left off.

Let’s take for example my friends Chrissy and Laura from Ft. Wayne. After we moved away, I lost touch with many of my Ft. Wayne friends, but Chrissy and I had kept in touch through mail, AIM and email. I was so excited to be invited to her wedding a few years ago. Before her wedding, we hadn’t seen each other in over 10 years. At her wedding, it was like no time had passed and we just picked up where we had left off. It was at Chrissy’s wedding that I reconnected with Laura and we started talking again via email. A few years later I got to see them and spend a little time with them at my wedding (I wish I was able to spend more time with them, but the day was a little busy!) and then this summer in June we all were able to visit again at Laura’s wedding. Two weeks ago, Laura and her husband, Tyler, were able to visit and we had a great time! We had a pretty low-key weekend but it was a blast because we just got to visit and catch up on everything! Chrissy and Adam weren’t able to make it but I’m hoping all six of us (the three girls plus husbands) can get together again soon. They are truly great friends and I know we will be friends throughout life because they know what matters—it’s not the amount of time you spend together, but the quality of that time.

I have found this to be true with many other friends as well. My friend Jenny who I knew from Naperville now is in Texas and we have phone dates where we nearly talk for 3 hours! I keep in touch with my friend Erika from St. Louis via email and love catching up with her when I have the chance. I am lucky that I live close to my friends Mindy, Katie and Michelle so we try to get together often. I also made some great friends from my time working at the newspaper in Ottawa and really enjoy the times I can get together with them.

I’m not sure why exactly I have felt particularly blessed at this point in my life. Obviously there have been plenty other times that I have had joy and have felt love. I think I really have realized what a great season of life I’m currently in and have so much to be thankful for. I’m going to continue to thank God for all the wonderful people and blessings He has given me and try my best to continue live a life for Him.

The Power of Healing Prayer

At the beginning of August, I attended a retreat for all catechists. It wasn’t required, but was highly recommended that we attend, and I felt I could use all the training I could get so I was happy to attend. During our time there we heard from our priest and the adult formation director on what it means to be a disciple (there are three levels of discipleship in case you didn’t know—seeker, disciple and apostle) and what a disciple looks like. Although I enjoyed these sessions, the most beneficial time at the retreat was my time in healing prayer.

The adult formation director, Keith, was offering three time slots for healing prayer. I had thought about signing up for one but I was nervous because I had no idea what it would involve. During one of the breaks he mentioned to me that there was still some space available and asked if I would be interested. I felt like there was a reason he brought it up to me and that maybe God felt I needed to do it, so I decided to sign up.

Keith began the session by explaining what healing prayer is—it is prayer led by someone to help bring you closer to the Lord by giving up anything you are going through in life up to Him. Keith led the prayer and I was able to pray silently about anything I wanted to bring to the Lord. Keith asked me questions about things that are weighing on me or that I have struggled with my life. Without getting into too much personal detail, I will say that I had some things that I have held inside and tried to deal with on my own instead of praying about them and asking God to help me get through them. I think the most beneficial part of healing prayer was when I did an exercise that symbolized giving my worries and anxieties up to the Lord. Keith had me stretch out my arm and have my hand palm up and hold my other hand over my heart. He then asked me to physically take each concern from my heart with my hand and put it in my other hand. Once I had put all my worries in my outstretched hand, it felt weighed down and very heavy. He then had me lift up my hand and ask the Lord to take them away. I instantly felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders! It was such a freeing feeling to not have these always wearing me down and stressing me out. During another part of the session, Keith put holy water in my hands in the sign of the cross and also on my forehead. I lifted up my hands and had some quiet prayer time and all of the sudden my hands and head were really warm! I have always prayed to the Lord and felt a connection to Him, but this was the first time that I felt like I truly felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, as if I was being surrounded. I felt like I was just filled with the love of the Holy Spirit and knew that I was safe and everything would be OK. After the session was over, I was amazed at the feeling I had of being light and free of any worry and I physically couldn’t stop smiling! I was truly so happy, the happiest I had felt in a while and I knew then that there was a deeper reason I signed up to be a catechist—not only to bring children closer to God but also a want to deepen my relationship with Him.

I’ve wanted to write about this experience since I came back from the retreat, but it has taken me a while to process and put into words the wonderful experience I had. I don’t know if my words will fully describe what I felt, but I hope that sharing what it was like for me might encourage others to try it as well.

The Journey Begins…

Last night I attended the last session of the training required to become a catechist for the upcoming school year. The religious education director, Bob, led the training on how to develop lessons, dealing with behavior problems, creating classroom rules and other important information. We discussed ways to set up an environment conducive to learning and also to making the children feel comfortable with praying to the Lord during the class. He suggested having some time each class to have the children focus on prayer and this can be done by having a Bible out on a table and a candle lit. There were some really great ideas that I hope I can incorporate into my lessons this year.

We also received a schedule of the lessons for our grade and at first I was a little overwhelmed with planning out the lessons each week, but I know I will just need to take it one week at a time. Right now there are only six students signed up for my class which I think is a good number because with a smaller class size, I will get to know each student.

There are also other events for catechists to attend throughout the year, which I am very excited about! I think it is great for the other catechists to get to know each other and talk about any concerns they have in the classroom. I am hoping to learn a lot from the other experienced catechists!

There has been a lot of training and paperwork going into becoming a catechist, but to me it has been worth it! It is essential to have the training and work on the skills necessary to be an effective teacher. I am sure I will learn more through experience, so I am glad to get the year started and see what God has in store for me and my class. My goals for the year are to help my students develop a closer relationship with God and know how much they are loved. I also hope to pass on the values and morals that I have been taught through the years in my religious education classes as a student, from my parents and other role models throughout my 28 years.