I like to teach about the lives of saints, but I always run into one small hitch: Real life is R-rated. Teaching my own children is fairly easy. I know the child’s maturity level, I know what will and will not be disturbing . . . as a parent, I can delve into tough topics at a fairly young age. I also have the luxury of time — there’s always another chance to share more details, or answer more questions.
But in the classroom, my job’s a lot tougher. I need to hone in on the essentials, and avoid watering down the faith, but still keep my material suitable for all-audiences. Here’s how I do it.
Pick a Saint. Most saints are suitable for a g-rated classroom . . . but not all. There are tricks for toning down sensitive topics, for example by glossing over a gory death with a simple, “she died for her faith.” But as much as I love St. Maria Goretti, there’s no getting around the pivotal moment of her life — she died from injuries received while resisting rape. Not a topic suitable for pre-teen classrooms, and one that needs to be handled carefully even in high school.
Do your own research. If you are using the saint suggested in your textbook, teacher’s manual, or VBS curriculum, there may be a kid-friendly saints bio in your book. It’s worth the time to do some research of your own. My two favorite sources are Butler’s Lives of Saints and Wikipedia. Don’t laugh! They tend to provide concrete, action-based biographies — whereas more devotional-style works often skip over the story to focus on a deeper message. Children learn concretely. Not “Saint Martin de Porres was kind to animals,” but “St. Martin de Porres took care of injured cats and dogs.” As you research, look for those little details that will interest your students.
Look for a theme. Try to tie your talk into the wider topic for your class. For some saints, you’ll have way too much information. Focusing on just one aspect of your saint’s life can help pare down your talk to a manageable size. At the other extreme, if there is a scarcity of information about your saint, you can flesh out the lesson by taking the one or two available details, and tying them to a broader discussion of Christian virtue.
Write up your talk. You won’t want to read this aloud to the class, but write it down in complete sentences anyway. Why bother? You need to know in advance what words you’ll use. Is there new vocabulary you’ll need to teach? Is there a sensitive topic, such as a gruesome martyrdom, or a dispute over divorce and remarriage, that you’ll need to put into nightmare-resistant, child-friendly terms? Pick your wording in advance, so you aren’t caught trying to improvise. Ask your DRE, pastor, or another catechist if you are struggling for ways to share something delicately.
–> For Vacation Bible School, give a copy of your Saint-of-the-Day talking points to the other volunteers. That way other leaders can reinforce throughout the day what students have learned at your VBS station.
Anticipate difficult questions. In teaching St. Joan of Arc to a mixed-age group (1st grade and up) last summer, I intentionally glossed over the fact that St. Joan was condemned in an ecclesiastical court. It sufficed to explain that her enemy had tried her unfairly, and that Joan had stood firmly for the truth even if it meant her own death. But I’m glad I prepared an answer to the thornier question, because one of the parents asked it! Plan to either answer the tough question in a child-friendly way, or to politely demure. When a student asked me about the details of St. Josephine Bakhita’s early life, my answer was, “That is too disturbing to share in class, but your parents can research it and let you know what they find.”
How about you? Have you ever run into saintly disaster? Or have a success story you’d like to share? I’d love to hear from you.
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Jennifer,
I really enjoyed your post and your user friendly suggestions! Thanks!
Great job as always, Jennifer! As a teacher, I find I have to skimp over some details of the lives of the Saints, true. However, many kids are far more resilient than we give them credit for. We can still, for example, talk about Maria Goretti, but use the word ‘Assault’ rather than ‘rape’ when need be.
Ultimately, more important than the details of their trials is the details of their triumphs; why they were Saints to begin with, such as resisting temptation, achieving great things, converting vast swarms of heretics…whatever it may be. 🙂
What was the “thornier” question asked by one of the parents?
Debb, she asked about whether Joan of Arc had in fact been condemned in a Church court. (She was). I observed that this was the case, but that it was important not to try to find “the Church” as a distinct actor in Joan’s life — Joan herself, both the French and the English, everyone was Catholic. Joan’s trial is, all the same, an example of a Church institution being misused for an evil purpose, and that’s certainly something to guard against.
Not something I would have pointed out to the first-graders, but since it came up, I did attempt to answer in what I hope was both satisfying for the parent and understandable for the students. (The ones who were listening — there were foam swords in the room, so some no doubt had tuned out the adult-talk.)
My 6th grader are ok with non-marital sex (David & Bathsheba) being “married love with someone you aren’t married to.” I tell any smarties to ask their parents about plumbing details. After all, the parents made the kids, so they should know.
Rape…never came up. I suppose I’d say “he tried to force her to have married love with him and she didn’t want him to.”
Only started this last year with the 1st graders, so no disaster stories (yet). I choose a saint for them, based on their name or favorite activities* or what-they-wannabe-when-they-grow-up, find a suitable and colorful picture (fine art, stained glass, manuscript, even St. Michael as action hero!), add a few lines about what they did to show the love of God (comforted prisoners, led people on pilgrimages, brought food to the poor, built hospitals or schools…). “Died for his faith” or “was killed for his faith” is all they get for gory endings, if that much; I dwell more on what the saint did alive.
Mostly, I am trying to introduce them to the idea of a friend in heaven, someone who prays with them. And they love the idea of someone that is ‘specifically theirs’.
This year I am going to try to get candid shots of each student and put all of them – saints and students – on a ‘Communion of Saints’ board.
*Is there a patron saint of Wii players?
Wendy – that sounds perfect. Connecting to the lives of the kids is so important.
Christian and John,
In middle school you can get away with that, sure. I like that approach to Maria Goretti in particular, John. I do something similar with my kids at home, and that works great.
But for 5th grade and under, I try to keep anything bedroom out of the classroom. A problem I run into with younger kids is that some are very innocent, some know way too much, and some know the street vocabulary but not the real meaning of the words. It creates a situation where kids may ask questions that are disturbing to other students. We do discuss family life, marriage in terms of love, commitment, and openness to children — everything that lays the foundation for the details to be put into context later.
Jennifer: I like what you wrote about preparing ahead of time, anticipating the thornier questions, not just from the children but also from the parents. Last school year, I took it upon myself to feature a saint at the end of class, alternating between male and female. I ran into a little problem after telling the 3rd graders that St. Valentine was beheaded because one boy’s mother said he had nightmares after that. I was thinking since they’d already been exposed to violent Wii games there wouldn’t be a problem. My mistake!
My success story is that a grandfather came to me after Mass with misty eyes to thank me for featuring saints, because he’d been struggling with getting his granddaughter interested in someone other than Miranda Cosgrove from iCarly. The saint I had featured that week was Teresa of Avila. It seemed that this girl identified with the fact that Teresa had once been a social butterfly, but then beame a visionary and a serious writer although she suffered from heart problems and headaches. Other saints that were a hit were Therese of Lisieux, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Bernadette Soubirous, St. Thomas (we did a little re-enactment of his disbelief in Jesus’ resurrection) and Michael the Archangel. If it seems as though I focused mostly on women, it’s because I had mostly girls in the class.
My research came from Catholic Online and from a binder set called Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives, which is from International Masters Publishers.
I also want to mention that Lighthouse Catholic Media has a new CD for children called Glory Stories that features the lives of St. Joan of Arc and Blessed Jose Sanchez. They also have CDs about saints Philomena, Augustine and Margaret of Corona.