Teaching can be a isolating profession, particularly if you’re the religion teacher. Even though you’re surrounded by people all day long, you hardly have a moment to collect  your thoughts, and your colleagues are just as overworked. It’s also very draining to balance the classroom time, preparations, staff meetings, conferences, chaperoning, sponsoring activities, etc. with something resembling spiritual growth.

That’s why I really like this slim volume of reflections from fellow Catholic educators from Ave Maria Press – 5 Minutes with Christ: Spiritual Nourishment for Busy Teachers. The format is easily digestible – short essays on various snippets from the Gospels, tied to the life of a catechist and the call to discipleship. Each chapter was contributed by a graduate or associate of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education program, which sounds like a terrific model for formation of teachers as disciples:

Because good teachers need excellent formation, ACE prepares its teachers in an innovative Master of Education program at Notre Dame, which brings them to campus for two summers of intensive training and then sends them out into classrooms during the school year…While teaching, they live in small Christian communities of four to seven members and together share the many challenges and rewards of beginning teaching…ACE teachers develop their professional skills and personal spirituality in the context of community, sharing with one another the journey of becoming committed Catholic school teachers.

What a fantastic way to prepare teachers in Catholic schools – but of course many of us come to the profession via a more circuitous route. (I myself went through a similar cohort-based program for teaching social studies, but my career as a religion teacher began after I applied for a job teaching history at a Catholic high school.) It could be that you’re teaching a section of religion on top of your primary job as a math teacher, or that you came to the classroom from another profession and are getting your formal training “on the job.”

This series of reflections by fellow teachers and administrators is a window into the experiences of your fellow religious educators, and it’s both inspiring and frank in addressing the challenges you may face.

Eighty-seven students.
Four classes to prep.
Thirty-two pages to read.
Forty-eight essays to grade.
Three parents to call.
Fourteen e-mails to reply to.

…Whether it is an issue of disrespect or someone cheating on a quiz by writing answers on the bottom of a shoe, Jesus’ call to forgive without number is a challenge. It is also a constant and often-needed reminder that students deserve forgiveness and a second chance. And, just as important on many days, it is a reminder that teachers do too.

- Beth Burau, “Forgiveness”

This is a book that could be given to all of the faculty at a Catholic school – would make a nice discussion-starter for talking about the Christian character of the school and how it relates to the day-to-day responsibilities of teachers. It’s like having a little cheering section to pick you up after a difficult day, and a spiritual director to help you focus on the deeper meaning of your relationships with your students and your role in their spiritual growth.

Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: Jared Dees, super-duper religious educator, sent me a copy of this book to preview.

Lisa Mladinich provides clear, helpful, and uplifting support for catechists, from beginners to those looking to learn more about how to reach out to their students. Be an Amazing Catechist: Sacramental Preparation is her follow-up to her first publication, Be An Amazing Catechist. It’s an equally useful resource tailored to religious educators who are working to prepare children and adults for reception of the sacraments of initiation.

I had the honor of speaking with Lisa as she compiled suggestions for this booklet, and I can attest that she is very focused on sharing concrete tools to help catechists meet the needs of a wide variety of students. Sacramental preparation can be an especially challenging task, given that many kids show up for religious education only when it’s time to receive another sacrament, and are there at the behest of a family member but don’t attend Mass or have a basic knowledge of our faith.

The booklet provides both practical suggestions – with proper respect given for tried-and-true techniques like memorization and rote learning – and advice for how to connect with reluctant learners and inspire them to form a relationship with Christ.

Lisa manages to be encouraging without glossing over the real challenges of preparing children and adults to receive sacraments they may not fully understand when they walk in the door for that first class. In particular, her chapter on the Sacrament of Reconciliation addresses the fears and apprehension that can accompany a penitent’s first (or…subsequent) reception of the sacrament. And her advice for working with teenagers in preparation for Confirmation is genuinely optimistic and inspiring without glossing over the challenges that young adults face in today’s world.

This booklet would be a great gift for DRE’s to bestow upon their teams of catechists, either as a kickoff for the year or as encouragement once the first few classes have gone by and the needs of a particular group of students have become apparent. Slim enough to be read through in one sitting, but packed with substantive advice, it would also make a great backbone for a diocesan workshop or professional development for Catholic school teachers (because, regardless of what subject you’re teaching, you are catechizing the students.)

I highly recommend this booklet and Lisa’s first volume as well, and look forward to more of her writing! To learn more about Lisa’s motivation for writing this booklet, check out this interview with Donna Marie Cooper O’Boyle in which she talks with Lisa about her background and her hopes for how her writing can motivate those working “in the fields.”

Disclaimer: I was sent a sample copy of this book by Our Sunday Visitor.

Word clouds – those artistic arrangements of words within a chunk of text – are a fun, visual way to capture the content of what you’re reading.

We see them on blogs as “tag clouds,” automatically generated displays of terms that highlight the most frequently used words. Sr. Caroline Cerveny of A Cyberpilgrim’s Blog shared a twist on the idea – creating Word Clouds from prayers:

Sr. Caroline provides several clever ways to integrate Word Clouds into classroom discussions – she is really one of the most tech-savvy people I know, in terms of actually coming up with ways to utilize digital tools.

One thing we both noticed is that the automatically-generated Word Clouds do not understand which words are the most “important” parts of the text, although I’m sure there are ways to tweak that – so the default result emphasizes words like “thy” which show up most frequently but are probably not most important.

A low-tech activity along these lines would be to have students create Word Clouds on a slightly older technology: posterboard. Here’s how I would go about doing so:

• Group the students in pairs or teams of 3.
• Give each team the chunk of text and a pair of scissors, or go ahead and print up several sets of cards with the words of the prayer/text on them. Here’s a sample set for the Our Father (click on the image to be taken to a printable PDF Our Father set of cards.)
• Give the teams about 10 minutes to arrange a “word cloud” on the floor, a desktop, etc. They should discuss which words should be featured most prominently in the Word Cloud and how they’ll do so.
• Have them spend another 15-20 minutes creating Word Cloud posters that emphasize those particular words via brighter colors, larger writing, etc.
• End by having each group present their Word Cloud to the class and explain how they decided which words to feature.

I really like having kids work with text that they can move around physically – it helps get the attention of those tactile-kinisthetic learners (translation: fidgety kids) and also gives them a concrete way to move things around and think about where they should go.

I like to do this, myself, when I am trying to put together an outline based on lots of different sources of text. Add the visual dimension of creating the Word Cloud and the discussion with their peers about which words should go where, and you have provided a rich opportunity to really tease apart the meaning of a prayer.

You could do this with any selection of text, really, but I would think a necessary prerequisite would be for the students to already be fairly familiar with the text.

And, needless to say, you’ll have to monitor the discussions to make sure you don’t end up with smarty-pants who decide to put “THE” front and center.

When I saw the review at Catholic Reads this morning, I have to admit: I rolled my eyes. Because I’m a bad person.

I mean, it seems like most of the negative comments about the YOUCAT have been what I’d categorize as “making the perfect the enemy of the good,” hoping for some amazing combination of radiant orthodoxy and international appeal to youth. Let’s be realistic, it’s much better than anything else out there, etc., etc

So – because I am a grouch, I thought, “well, I will double-check the parts the reviewer mentions as questionable, but I’m sure I will think they’re no big deal.” And I will say that some of her objections, like to the Peter Sellers quote about “the closest thing to a father confessor is probably a bartender,” I didn’t consider to be a deal-breaker. I mean, I don’t think kids are going to interpret that statement as “if you can’t make it to Confession, a bartender’s almost as good” – and I think it’s true that in our postmodern culture, the confessional urge is there regardless of one’s circumstances, which is why we have sites like Post Secret and couches like Oprah’s and, well, bartenders. (you know, like on Cheers!) Eh. I see his point.

But then she mentions this:

There is also a group picture where a young man is making a gesture with his hand, I don’t know what it is–is it a gang sign? An inside joke?Who knows? (pg. 168).

So I flipped to that page, saw the picture, and thought…oh, dear. I know what that gesture is.

No, guys, we can’t have that in the Youcat.

Just Google “hand sign fourth finger down” if you haven’t taught middle school. Or – here, as mentioned in the Wikipedia entry, this hand gesture got a professional athlete in a lot of trouble. Wait – no, I think this gesture is the pitchfork, which still – what is this photo doing in here? And, let’s assume a kid doesn’t know what that gesture means, does the aforementioned Google search – not going to end well.

Can’t have that in the Youcat. ARGH. And isn’t it pretty obvious, from looking at the photo, that some kid in the back of the picture thought he’d be cute and stick his hand into the picture with the smiley happy youth? Couldn’t they have found a better stock photo? Photoshopped that out?

And then there’s the matter of:

A Chinese policitian (identified as a philsopher in the catechism) who led an (objectively) sinful lifestyle and then committed suicide is quoted in support of the family (pg. 204)! Sure, he’s most likely unknown to the youth and most who would read the catechism would have no idea who he is or what sort of life he led or how he died… but that information is all readily accesible on the internet to those with an inclination to Google.

While I think there’s value in including quotations from a variety of thinkers across philosophical traditions – and can, in fact, serve as a testament to natural law – the Wikipedia entry on this particular person is not the kind of thing you’d want your students to stumble upon.

So now I’m not sure what to say about this book. My overall impression remains positive, but I am starting to feel like there’s an overall inattention to detail or failure to anticipate how young people will respond to a particular image or citation.