Amazing Catechists

Teaching and learning the faith together

Jumping Back into the Teaching Saddle

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It all started in high school, I suppose. I was inspired by a teacher who went above and beyond, and I was at the point when I needed to choose a college and a major, so agricultural education it was, at our state’s land grant university.

Fast forward three years, to my student teaching. It can be summarized this way: I was convinced not to teach.

After a few years in industry, I became an active, practicing Catholic, and when our DRE approached me about teaching, I couldn’t say no.

I wanted to, mind you. What did I know about teaching third graders (my training was with high schoolers), and how could I possible know enough about my new Catholic faith (the one I had been so reluctant about) to teach anyone else?

I ended up having a wonderful three years of teaching third grade religious education for our parish, but then the demands of being a new wife and mom made an evening commitment like that more than I could handle.

This summer, I had the opportunity to teach for the first time in almost eight years. It was a group of Confirmation students for our annual Confirmation boot camp. I was excited and a bit nervous.

I had such a good time, I couldn’t keep myself from offering, for a variety of “reasons,” to teach 5th grade this year. I walked into the first class flying high on a cocktail of delight and anxiety.

What if I was no good? What if this wouldn’t work for my family? What if…what if…what if?

Well, as I’ve struggled to straddle the ole teaching saddle again, I’ve found two things to be true and often forgotten in my own approach to catechesis:

1. It’s not about me.

and

2. The Holy Spirit has it all under control.

As catechists, we are all woefully under-prepared, no matter how ready we think we are. Nothing gets you ready for a group of young people (or, for that matter, older people either). You will never have it all under control, because, among other things, that’s just not in your capacity. Only God can have things completely under control.

Being a catechist is an ongoing lesson in trusting God, and for that I’m grateful.

(And terrified.)

image credit: Study Abroad Domain

The Beatitudes, Marriage, and the Moral Floor

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When I’m talking with older kids about morality, I try to emphasize the difference between the Commandments and the Beatitudes.

I observed a terrific lesson about this in a class at St. Joseph’s High School in Greenville, SC, several years ago – I just wish I could remember what texts they were using. I think maybe the Dominican Series from Priory Press. Anyway, the teacher explained to the class that the Ten Commandments are the “moral floor” that we have to stay above, while the Beatitudes are like the “moral ceiling” we should try to reach.

That's quite a ceiling

I talk about this in terms of marriage – if I really love my husband, how am I going to nurture our relationship? What does it take to live out my vocation?

Well, to start with, I’m not going to cheat on him, steal from him, lie about him, be jealous of him – lots of “shalt nots” included in the Recommended Daily Allowance for our marriage. But that’s not what makes a good marriage – just the absence of doing bad things to my husband. Same with being a mom – although I certainly have days when “kept children alive” is all that’s crossed off on my checklist. I really show my love through the things I do that go above and beyond not-sinning-against-them. That’s what the Beatitudes are akin to – how we really grow in holiness; how we really cultivate a relationship with God.

I find that kids just “get it” if I keep coming back to this idea. Plus, it gives me the chance to talk realistically about marriage as a vocation, which I think kids need to hear about; so many of them either feel like marriage is BS because they’ve seen so many marriages fall apart, or have this very unrealistic “marriage is for soulmates” idea that real love means never having to suffer because you’re so happy all the time.

The Getty Guide to Imagery Series: a Goldmine for Educators

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We’re so fortunate to have a 2,000-year treasury of Christian art, and it would be a shame not to share it with our students, wouldn’t it? Art can point us towards a deeper understanding of Scripture or the life stories of the saints; it can move us emotionally in a way that words sometimes do not. You can pique kids’ curiosity and draw them into the story by sharing images with them.

Online, there are some terrific databases of images you can use in your class. Three of my favorites are:

  • Biblical Art on the WWW – searchable by topic, person, etc. Really cool set of images and links to images elsewhere
  • Olga’s Gallery – very comprehensive collection of images, often with annotation that can be helpful if you’re not familiar with the work or the artist
  • Web Gallery of Art – another very comprehensive collection, with links to the sites where the images are hosted.

While online sources are fabulous when you’re looking for a specific work of art, having books to flip through can give you a broader view of the life of a given saint or figure as portrayed in art. That’s why I absolutely love the Getty’s Guide to Imagery Series. I’ve reviewed two volumes of the series so far for Tiber River – Old Testament Figures in Art and Saints in Art. From the reviews:

Old Testament Figures in ArtWith its many notes as to recurring themes and connections to the New Testament, this would be terrific to have on hand for a Scripture class at any level, as it provides beautiful art to supplement a lecture or to examine in its own right. Each image is reproduced in full color and is grouped with similar pieces based on their correspondence to a particular event or figure in the Old Testament. Significant events in salvation history are presented in approximate chronological order, with notes as to the geographic location, relative time of their occurrence, Scriptural references, and the region where a particular image or event was most popular.

For example, the story of Abraham’s encounter with the king and priest Melchizedek is represented by two paintings, each with notes about the event prefiguring the Last Supper. The section on this event includes an explanation of the circumstances leading up to Abraham’s meeting Melchizedek, and points out that Salem is the ancient name for the city of Jerusalem. Each painting has multiple notes that point out significant figures and techniques used by the artist to create the work.
Read more about Old Testament Figures in Art at Tiber River

and

Saints in ArtThe images collected in Saints in Art are not intended to act as a hall of fame for the most widely venerated saints throughout the world, but rather serve to show us the symbols and stories associated with various aspects of Christian history. Each image is shown in full and vivid color, with notes around its perimeter that identify significant parts of the scene. We learn to look more closely at these works of art and to understand that there is meaning to every small detail, and to enjoy “decoding” similar images.

For religious educators, this book would be a great resource for discovering new and unusual facts about saints, and for sharing with students to help them remember what made each saint unique. Some graphic scenes of martyrdom and occasional nudity would mean that this isn’t a book you’d leave around for kids to page through, but there are many, many images that could be appreciated by even the youngest art aficionado. I think it’s great to use visuals like these in teaching and learning about our faith, because we can come to better appreciate beauty as well as having another way to remember important events in the life of a saint we’re studying.
Read more about Saints in Art at Tiber River.

It seems like they’re always coming out with new volumes in this series, and I can’t wait to add some of the other titles to my collection. I highly recommend that you check them out, too.

I wrote these reviews of Old Testament Figures in Art and Saints in Art for the Tiber River Blogger Review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods. For more information and to purchase, please visit Aquinas and More Catholic Goods, your source for Baptism Gifts and First Communion Gifts. Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site, started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases. I receive free product samples as compensation for writing reviews for Tiber River.

3 Tips for Dealing with Classroom Discipline

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Lisa Mladinich has an excerpt from her book up today at Patheos, and it deals with the number-one concern that many beginning teachers and catechists face: classroom discipline. She gives some terrific suggestions and I encourage you to read the column in its entirety. I’m having trouble posting a comment there, so I’m just going to throw out three things to keep in mind when dealing with behavior issues and teenagers.

1. Let them save face. Especially if you’re only seeing them once a week, building relationships with your students is of paramount importance. If at all possible, try to avoid dealing with one child’s behavior in front of the whole class. It puts you in the spotlight when you’re nervous about maintaining order in your class, and it usually means you’re going to alienate that kid in a way that will be very difficult to fix.

Try: moving around the room while you’re talking, slipping the student a note while you’ve got the class at work on another activity, moving the child’s seat – although I think it works best if you don’t do this in the middle of class but wait until next time around and rearrange several kids’ seats.

You don’t want it to appear that you are “out to get” the child who disrupted class. If you need to, pull the student outside while your aide monitors your class – but, to be honest, I haven’t had a lot of success with this when we’re talking about a once-a-week CCD class.  It’s okay to send a kid to the office, and if you think you’re going to need to do so, do it early in the year rather than waiting.

2. A good lesson plan prevents many a discipline problem. Oh, how I hate to be told that, but it’s often true. If you’ve come up with a lesson plan that involves a variety of activities (15 minutes of lecture/notetaking, 20-30 minutes of small group work, a quick quiz or review game, prayer session), you are more likely to maintain the flow of the class without discipline problems.

Try: Write the plan up on the board at the beginning of class so they know what’s coming. It’s okay to say, “hey, guys, hang in there for about five more minutes of me talking, you’re doing great.”

3. It’s (usually) not (just) about you. Look, a lot of times, our kids are worn out when they come to class.  You don’t know what sort of day they’ve had, what issues are going on at home, what someone said to them as they were walking from the car to your classroom. Try not to take it personally.

Try: Ask the child to stick around for a couple of minutes after class. “Hey, I just want to make sure I haven’t said something to upset you, because I feel like we keep having discipline issues and I’m concerned.” Teenagers want to be treated like adults. Now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t alert their parents if there are repeated or extreme disciplinary problems going on with that kid, but approaching them in a way that shows you respect their maturity (the maturity that may lie deep, deep down below the surface) can go a long way towards reversing a behavior issue.

Oh, I’m going to add one more. Do. not. stand in the hallway after class complaining about a kid to the teacher who had them last year. It can feel like such a relief to learn that you’re not the only one who had a difficult time getting young Percival to stop scratching his fingers on his slate during your lecture. But…don’t. Take it to prayer, or talk to your DRE and say, “can you tell me some more about what’s going on with Percival? He simply won’t stop calling Eustace a ninny.”

So – what’s worked for you? How do you keep your cool when dealing with misbehavior?

Catechist Chat: From Aide to Apprentice

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Do your students know your aide’s name?

When you have to miss class, does the DRE scramble to come up with activities for your kids to do?

If you’re cringing with self-recognition, you’re not alone. I am your leader in the March of Ignoring Your Classroom Aide. And I should know better.

My first year of teaching, I had 42 kids in a class. I couldn’t send a student to the office until I had documented nine steps I’d taken in the disciplinary process beforehand, including a visit to the student’s home. I would have given anything to have an extra adult in the room to help me out.

So why is it so hard for me now to find ways to incorporate my aide into my class? We get along great, and she helps me “debrief” after class to talk about what worked and what didn’t. Still, I’m afraid the primary responsibilities I’ve given her are taking attendance and being the extra adult in the room with Safe Environment Training. I’d like for her role to become more of an apprentice, to the extent that she wants to become more involved.

Now, I am well aware that one of the benefits of being an aide versus the primary teacher in the room is that you can just show up and not have to plan ahead of time. So what I want is to find ways for her to have a greater leadership role in the classroom without placing an additional burden on her time outside of class. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

1. Aides can administer quizzes and tests. There’s no reason why I have to be the person saying, “Okay, do the best that you can, and remember what we talked about” while she is relegated to paper passer-outer. And, since I frequently have the kids grade their own quizzes, all my aide needs is an answer key and for me to be ready to clarify answers that the kids aren’t sure about. (I keep a class set of red pens and pass them out at the end of the quiz for the kids to grade with).

2. Aides can be the game show host or “Vanna” when it’s time for review. Games like Jeopardy or Challenger, especially once they’ve been played once with the kids, sort of run themselves. Kids seem to get more into it when there’s a comedy routine between the host and the scorekeeper as they’re playing. Again, all the aide needs is the answer key, and for me to be ready to jump in as needed.

3. Aides can be the primary teacher for a given topic. If she’s interested, I would love to have my aide be the lead teacher at times. It requires lots of advance notice, supplying her with the materials I’ve found useful in the past, and my own willingness to hand over the keys to the Mercedes that is my class.

There’s the real problem – I love teaching, love planning, and like the illusion of control. I’ve been a mentor teacher to student teachers in the past and enjoyed the process of helping new teachers hone their skills, but it was always hard to take myself out of the picture and let the student teacher shine. Yet treating our aides like apprentices is one of the best ways we can recruit new catechists. And, really, would you want to sit at the back of the room with the roll book and watch me blab away at teenagers for an hour every Wednesday?

Erm…don’t answer that. But do tell us – What’s your working relationship with your aide like? How involved is your aide, and how happy are you both with that arrangement?

Catechist Chat will be an ongoing series of posts for teachers in religious education programs. It is based on my personal experience and not on any statistical evidence of the effectiveness of my advice. Suscribe to my feed to follow along, and Caveat lector, which is Latin for “your mileage may vary.” 

Click here to read other entries in the series, and be sure to follow Catechist Chat on Facebook! You can also sign up for my email list, and I’ll send you resources, including non-PDF versions of the activities I post (which means you can edit them in Microsoft Word to customize them for your own students).

Catechist Chat: Classroom goals for 2011

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Sure, it’s the New Year’s Resolution time of the year, and I can’t resist a good self-improvement goal. But I’m posting this today because most of us are taking a little halfway-point break from our classrooms over the Christmas holidays, and it’s a great opportunity to regroup and come back fresh next week, or whenever your catechetical duties resume.

Here’s my challenge to you, then: Set one PERSONAL and one PROFESSIONAL goal for yourself as a catechist.

Kick it up a notch by using Jennifer’s Saint’s Name Generator to choose a saint to be your personal mentor for the next year of your vocation as catechist.

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
Lookin’ out for me in 2011

My goals:

PERSONAL: Resume structured prayer time at the beginning and end of the day. It’s the most important thing I can do each day, and yet I let it slip by the wayside – or, worse, see it as just another “good habit” I’m working on, along with exercising more, going through the mail each day, meal planning, etc. Making prayer my personal self-improvement project leads me to look around and evaluate the results – well, what percent more holy am I after these three works of daily Bible readings? How’s that working out?

And so, even as I’m talking about this in terms of a habit – spending time at the beginning and end of the day with my Magnificat magazine and assorted other spiritual reading – I’m not doing so with a specific goal (yell at children 1/3 less often) so much as recommitting to a relationship with Christ.

PROFESSIONAL: Focus on involving my aide in our class sessions in a more meaningful way than just taking attendance and walking around to monitor behavior. I’m going to follow up on this in a later post.

So, reader, how about you? What goals will you set for yourself as a catechist in the year to come?

Catechist Chat will be an ongoing series of posts for teachers in religious education programs. It is based on my personal experience and not on any statistical evidence of the effectiveness of my advice. Suscribe to my feed to follow along, and Caveat lector, which is Latin for “your mileage may vary.”

Click here to read other entries in the series, and be sure to follow Catechist Chat on Facebook! You can also sign up for my email list, and I’ll send you resources, including non-PDF versions of the activities I post (which means you can edit them in Microsoft Word to customize them for your own students).

Catechist Chat: Rubrics – Not Just for Mass Anymore

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I’m a big believer in rubrics. Both of the “Say the Black, Do the Red” variety, and in the classroom. What’s a rubric, you ask? Sit back as I explain how you can overcome your hesitation and finally build up the courage to cross the Rubric…con.

That seemed like it was building up to be an awesome pun, didn’t it? Sorry about that.

Okay, basically, a rubric is a terrific time-saver for teachers and a way for students to know your expectations very clearly before they begin an assignment. Rubrics are great for essay portions of tests, evaluating projects, rating students’ behavior or class participation – pretty much anything you can evaluate, you can evaluate via a rubric.

Rubrics4Teachers.com has tons of examples; I usually make my own, so that they’re tailored to the assignment. Decide how many aspects of an assignment you want to evaluate, come up with a “4-3-2-1” description in each category, and then give the rubric to the kids before they start the assignment, so that they know what they should be doing to complete it. Then, you just need to circle the box in each category that best fits the student’s performance.

Here are some sample rubrics you’re welcome to use and/or modify – click on the link to view them in PDF form.

Saints Essay Question: Choose four saints whose lives we have discussed in class and explain how they practiced the corporal and/or spiritual works of mercy.

Sacraments Essay Question: Choose four of the seven Sacraments. For each Sacrament, explain how it was instituted by Jesus, how it serves to provide us with grace, and how a person should prepare to receive the Sacrament.

Scripture Class – General Essay: Choose at least three Biblical figures whose lives we have discussed in class, and explain what people can learn from their example. You may include details about how each person either chose to do God’s will or disobeyed God, and what resulted from those decisions.

Hope these help! And hang in there – Christmas is right around the corner!

(AAAA! CHRISTMAS IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER!!!! AAAAA!!!!! MUST START BAKING!)

Catechist Chat will be an ongoing series of posts for teachers in religious education programs. It is based on my personal experience and not on any statistical evidence of the effectiveness of my advice. Suscribe to my feed to follow along, and Caveat lector, which is Latin for “your mileage may vary.” 

Click here to read other entries in the series, and be sure to follow Catechist Chat on Facebook! You can also sign up for my email list, and I’ll send you resources, including non-PDF versions of the activities I post (which means you can edit them in Microsoft Word to customize them for your own students).

Catechist Chat: Quick and Easy Bingo Review

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Well, I’ve been feeling a bit discouraged, because after various interruptions and special programs, I think I’ve had seven class sessions with my students for a Scripture course that’s supposed to be 14 weeks long. So it’s been a frenetic pace all the way through and I haven’t done as thorough a job as I would have liked to, but – it is what it is. Tonight was our last class, since the next two weeks will be replaced by Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and then our closing Advent Program. I needed to give them a “final exam” of sorts and I knew they weren’t ready. Enter…BINGO.

Love me some review-game bingo. It’s not the most thrilling activity in the world, but it’s better than a review sheet and more interactive. Best of all, it requires minimal effort, because you have the kids make their own cards.

Here’s a blank review sheet Bingo card. The way it works is – pick 8-10 terms for each column of the Bingo chart. You can put these on a separate review sheet (and use the Bingo as a complement) or stick the list right below the card itself, as I did in this Scripture class review Bingo. (WARNING: Looking at this example will show you what a shoddy job I did of covering the Old Testament. I mean, not a prophet to be found on the list. I did the best I could).

Anyway – then you tell the kids to pick words from each column and write them wherever they’d like on the corresponding column of the Bingo card. You’re Catholic, right? I don’t need to explain how Bingo works. I usually read aloud the “answers,” Jeopardy-style, to see if they can guess what I’m talking about, and then I go over it once more with them. You can even just make up a list on the spot and write it on the board – as long as you have at least five terms for each column (four for the “I” column, technically), they can make up a card. Much, much easier than trying to generate your own set up randomly-sorted bingo cards.

Speaking of Bingo, Loyola Press has a nice printable set of Advent Bingo cards, complete with leader’s guide.

Hope your class is making the transition to Advent nicely. (Code for: not totally losing it as Christmas break approaches).

Catechist Chat will be an ongoing series of posts for teachers in religious education programs. It is based on my personal experience and not on any statistical evidence of the effectiveness of my advice. Suscribe to my feed to follow along, and Caveat lector, which is Latin for “your mileage may vary.” 

Click here to read other entries in the series, and be sure to follow Catechist Chat on Facebook! You can also sign up for my email list, and I’ll send you resources, including non-PDF versions of the activities I post (which means you can edit them in Microsoft Word to customize them for your own students).

Catechist Chat: Challenger Game

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Here’s a printable version of the directions for how to use the Challenger Game to teach a lot of material in a short window of time. (a.k.a., this post, minus parenthetical snark).

Well, what would you like first? The clever and effective technique for passing along a lot of information in a short time, the educational gobbledygook, or the explanation of why this technique was an EPIC FAIL during Wednesday’s class?

Really? Start with the bad news? It’s like that, is it? Well, let me just say that sometimes,  “do as I say, not as I do” is actually pretty excellent advice. So, when I say we all should assign the students to groups instead of letting them pick their partners, or assess them only on what they should know, or set reasonable lesson planning goals, maybe I should myself follow some of these suggestions. At least one.

Having said that.

Okay, requisite edu-speak: “Do you remember what it’s called, the thing with the hierarchy…facts on the bottom, it’s a pyramid, then critical thinking…not Maslow.” (sound of Googling) BLOOM’S TAXONOMY!” (My husband loves these little chats we have).

They can’t really have effective conversations and think critically about a topic if they don’t have a good foundation in the facts. This game accomplishes that in a relatively short period of time, although not such a short period of time that you should attempt two rounds of it in one class session. On, say, Wednesday, November 18 of this year.

The game is called “Challenger.” It works best if you give the kids an overview of the subject matter and then use the game to reinforce and provide more details. I’m going to use the version of the game I created for my high school Scripture class, covering the periods from the Exodus through the conquest of Canaan. For simplicity’s sake and to plow through the material, I’d usually start by handing out a blank Study Question sheet with 20 questions, and a dry, fact-filled handout that provides the answers. You could do this game using the section review questions in a textbook just as easily. I think it works best if you focus initially on “just the facts” and then come back via another activity to say, “okay, what’s the significance of all this?”

So, here’s my Exodus Study Question handout and the accompanying Exodus through Conquest information sheet. (If you notice errors, let me know.) You could do this part a few ways – use the information sheet for your own reference as you deliver the answers to the Study Questions via lecture, let them work in teams to answer the questions – up to you. This part’s pretty boring. You could spice it up with lasers, but the point is to initially expose them to the information so that they can play the game.

Next, put them in mixed-ability groups of three. You can have a couple of pairs, but what you really want are groups of three. These are their Study Teams. Give each group a manila envelope that contains three things:
1. an answer key (Exodus-Conquest answer key – two to a page)
2. the study questions, cut into individual strips (one per strip), (Exodus-conquest example – two to a page), and
3. the Challenger rules

The purpose of the Study Teams is to teach/reinforce the material. Give the kids about 10-15 minutes in these groups. Their goal is to make sure that their fellow Study Team members really, really know the material. I like this part because you can walk around the room, answering questions, listening in on their conversations. Something about the tactile aspect of having the questions on individual strips instead of one big worksheet makes them participate more actively.

While they’re in their Study Teams, make up new Challenger Groups. A Challenger Group is composed of three people of similar ability from three different Study Teams. I find it’s easiest to write the kids’ names on the board while they’re in their study teams and then quickly make up the Challenger Groups – because, if I make them up ahead of time, it will turn out that several kids will be absent and I’ll have to redo them.  So, for example, if my study teams were:

Red Team: RedGenius, RedProdigy, and RedNovice
Blue Team: BlueGenius, BlueProdigy, and BlueNovice
Green Team: GreenGenius, GreenProdigy, and GreenNovice (Going for the nerdiest team names of all time, here).

Then the Challenger groups would be:
RedGenius versus BlueGenius versus GreenGenius
RedProdigy versus BlueProdigy versus GreenProdigy
RedNovice versus BlueNovice versus GreenNovice

See?

So, after the Study Teams have had 10-15 minutes to prepare, announce that it’s time to move to Challenger Teams.  Then, give the Challenger Teams 10-15 minutes to go through the questions. Here are the rules:

¨      There are three roles within the group.  Each player should choose one of the following to begin:
Ø      CONTESTANT:  This student draws a question from the envelope, reads it aloud to the group, and gives the answer he/she believes is correct.
Ø      CHECKER:  This student uses the answer booklet to check the answer and tell the group if it is correct.
Ø      CHALLENGER:  This student may answer the question if the “Contestant” responds incorrectly.
¨      The rules are as follows:  The Contestant keeps the strip of paper if he/she is correct.  If not, the Challenger may answer and keep the strip of paper.  If neither one is correct, the Checker reads aloud the correct answer and PUTS THE STRIP BACK IN THE ENVELOPE.  The question will be drawn again later in the game.
¨      After each question, students rotate roles in a clockwise direction.
¨      Keep track of the number of slips each student earns as the game progresses.

And that’s how it goes. At the end of the 10-15 minute game period, tally up how many points each individual student earned, and then announce which Study Team earned the most points (by adding up the members’ individual points). I then reward the top Study Team with something like getting to skip a question on a quiz or candy, whatever motivates them.

I’m going to write up a printable, more thorough explanation of the game with pictures. So – what questions should I address? Here’s a printable version of this post, minus sarcastic comments.

Oh – real fast. If you have kids in two-person Study Teams, you need to make it a fair competition against the three-person Study Teams. What I do is average the two students’ scores and multiply that by 3. Make sense?

Same if you have a two-person Challenger Group. They’ll go through the questions more quickly, making it easier for them to earn more points relative to kids in 3-person groups. So I multiply each person’s tally by 2/3.

Please, ask questions in the comments! The explanation was lengthy, but the only real prep work is setting up the questions and answers on strips and cutting them up. If you have a Teacher’s Edition and a Section Review, it’s even easier. I like to run these off on different colors of cardstock, so that if there’s a question strip found on the floor afterwards, I can easily know which envelope it came from – and the cardstock makes them more durable.

Catechist Chat will be an ongoing series of posts for teachers in religious education programs. It is based on my personal experience and not on any statistical evidence of the effectiveness of my advice. Suscribe to my feed to follow along, and Caveat lector, which is Latin for “your mileage may vary.” 

Click here to read other entries in the series, and be sure to follow Catechist Chat on Facebook! You can also sign up for my email list, and I’ll send you resources, including non-PDF versions of the activities I post (which means you can edit them in Microsoft Word to customize them for your own students).

Catechist Chat: Fair Assessment

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Now, this probably won’t apply to you. You’re so organized, and you’ve stuck perfectly to the lesson plans you made at the beginning of the year. Plus, your students never missed a class, and everything’s run like, well, clockwork. Yesss!

But JUST in case you feel like you’re a little behind and you’re running out of time to cover everything you need to…I feel your pain.

A confession: I’m behind. Actually, if you’ve ever met me (or had the misfortune to be my student), this is not news. I always seem to end up a few classes behind where I need to be. This year, we’ve also had a few interruptions that we don’t usually have – a class canceled because of a historic football game (which I actually was okay with), a few “family nights” where we all came together, and then I missed a class because I didn’t have a babysitter. That’s just the way it goes, but still – I’m a little behind.

So, with two classes left (our final class in December will be an Advent ceremony), I have three choices:

  • Spend the next class speeding through everything else in the Bible, and then give the kids the Mother Of All Tests at the last class, or

  • Go into Emergency Mode and ask myself: what do they ABSOLUTELY NEED to know from my class and try to cover it in the next two weeks, or

  • Continue with the original plan so that they’ll at least have learned SOME of this stuff fairly well, even if they didn’t learn as much as I’d liked.

    • For me, I’m probably going to go with choice 3, although choice 2 might actually be the better option. I just feel like, with a semester to teach Scripture, trying to stop right after Exodus and then have a class that’s “Okay, then stuff happened, and then Jesus came. Ten things to know about Jesus” will leave them with the impression that the rest of the Old Testament isn’t all that important. Plus, I think most of the kids (and most adults) are more unfamiliar with the Hebrew scriptures than with the New Testament. So I’m going to try to cover through the Royal Kingdom and give them a fifteen-minute “everything else up until Jesus’ time.” That’s just me.

    But when it’s time for us to assess the kids, the most important thing is to be honest with ourselves about what they should know after X number of weeks with us. The Test, if you’re winding up with a big test, is not a chance to ask about every minor detail of the past nine class sessions because they SHOULD know this stuff. Maybe you mentioned in passing back in September that the Flood prefigures the sacrament of Baptism; that doesn’t mean they remember it. The saying is, “If they didn’t learn it, I didn’t teach it.” Now, that’s a great way to stress yourself out if your students don’t do well on their quizzes, isn’t it?

    It’s not that you should give your eleventh graders a 10-question matching quiz that ends with “Jesus Loves You, Now Draw a Rainbow.” Making the class into pablum means it’s not worth their time to come each week, and they get a real sense of accomplishment out of having learned more about their faith. And, of course, our ultimate goal is to draw them into a deeper relationship with Christ, so we want to make sure we are reaching their minds as well as their hearts.

    I just mean – don’t decide at the last minute that Now is the time to show them all the stuff they should have learned if they’d been LISTENING, and it’s not YOUR fault if they don’t know it. Sit down and take some time to honestly assess the content of your class sessions before you come up with an assessment. Don’t just photocopy the last two section reviews from the textbook and tell yourself, “well, we read it in class, so they should be able to answer these.” If you know there’s something you haven’t gone over with them, don’t expect them to be know it anyway. Assess them based on what they should reasonably be expected to know.

    COMING SOON: More specific thoughts/suggestions on types of assessment. So, lay it on me in the comment box. Am I the only one in this boat – the boat of “WHAT? Only two classes left?”

    UPDATE: Jennifer Fitz of Riparians at the Gate has crafted a most excellent response to this post. So good, so detailed that I can’t just excerpt it. A snippet, though – one that made me feel better about being so behind…

    The second reason go-slow works, is that as I teach I’m naturally making lots of connections. Dorian, I’m going to bet your bible study class is doing the same thing. It’s impossible to teach a chapter in the bible without naturally referring to ten other scripture passages, three doctrines, a sacrament or four, and maybe a few good pious customs and a personal story about the love of God thrown in for good measure. The reason class goes slowly is because you are covering more than what is one the page. So you aren’t actually teaching less than planned. Just different than planned.

    See, look! I’m behind because I’m so good at what I do! Read the whole thing.

    Catechist Chat will be an ongoing series of posts for teachers in religious education programs. It is based on my personal experience and not on any statistical evidence of the effectiveness of my advice. Suscribe to my feed to follow along, and Caveat lector, which is Latin for “your mileage may vary.” 

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