How to be a good Catholic teacher

[Monica4316]

Hello,

I graduated from teachers college and am now looking for a job. It’s hard to find a job but ultimately I hope to be a teacher in a Catholic school.

I am a convert so I am not very familiar with Catholic schools and how well they teach the faith… although I heard both good and bad stories. I came across this article, which is very informative, and it helped me to further understand the reality and how catechesis has really suffered in the past few decades. littlecatholicbubble.blogspot.com/p/i-was-robbed-my-journey-home-to_31.html

It would be my hope to avoid this in my own classroom and to teach students the truth, not the watered down version of it. I would also like them to understand, in addition to that, that God does love them and to be able to respond to His love. But this becomes meaningful and applicable if a person knows the Catholic teachings on sin, repentance, Sacraments, etc. I realize that it’s not my place to try and bring students to repentance, etc, since that is what God does, and with the help of His priests. But it’s my hope to just offer some information to the students in Religion class, that would help them to be more knowledgeable about the Church. I know that this is not always in the curriculum (the curriculum can be a bit watered down as well sadly) - but perhaps I can give them supplementary information or something. I don’t know the rules about this, lol, but I want to help God’s Kingdom as a teacher, and not harm any souls.

I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me… or if anyone here is a teacher… how can we help students understand the Catholic faith better? Also, what happens if you try to do this but are met with opposition from others?

I have a pretty traditional outlook and also try to be totally faithful to the Magisterium.

thank you God bless.

 

[PiousTemplar]

I thought you were looking at a vocation to be a nun? Did things change?

Good luck!

 

[Monica4316]

I thought you were looking at a vocation to be a nun? Did things change?

Good luck!

Thank you no I am still discerning, but before I can even consider becoming a nun, I need to pay off my loans. God answered my prayers before by allowing me to get into teachers college, so I wanted to use that for Him before my vocation becomes known to me

 

[PiousTemplar]

Thank you no I am still discerning, but before I can even consider becoming a nun, I need to pay off my loans. God answered my prayers before by allowing me to get into teachers college, so I wanted to use that for Him before my vocation becomes known to me

Wonderful! God Bless!

 

[puzzleannie]

I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me… or if anyone here is a teacher… how can we help students understand the Catholic faith better? Also, what happens if you try to do this but are met with opposition from others?

I have a pretty traditional outlook and also try to be totally faithful to the Magisterium.

thank you God bless.

If you are teaching religion, you teach the Catholic faith, you do not teach doubt. Your doubts and questions you keep to yourself, raise them with your priest, study more, read more, until they are resolved, but you never bother your students with them.

You are an example to every child with whom you come in contact of the Christian disciple and model the Christ centered way of living, speaking, moving and acting.

If wisdom’s ways you truly seek, 3 things observe with care
to whom you speak, of whom you speak, and how and why and where.

Allow no speech to come out of your mouth in any time or place, even when you think the children are not around, that you would not want them to hear.

 

[waterbrook]

Hello,

I graduated from teachers college and am now looking for a job. It’s hard to find a job but ultimately I hope to be a teacher in a Catholic school.

I am a convert so I am not very familiar with Catholic schools and how well they teach the faith… although I heard both good and bad stories. I came across this article, which is very informative, and it helped me to further understand the reality and how catechesis has really suffered in the past few decades. littlecatholicbubble.blogspot.com/p/i-was-robbed-my-journey-home-to_31.html

It would be my hope to avoid this in my own classroom and to teach students the truth, not the watered down version of it. I would also like them to understand, in addition to that, that God does love them and to be able to respond to His love. But this becomes meaningful and applicable if a person knows the Catholic teachings on sin, repentance, Sacraments, etc. I realize that it’s not my place to try and bring students to repentance, etc, since that is what God does, and with the help of His priests. But it’s my hope to just offer some information to the students in Religion class, that would help them to be more knowledgeable about the Church. I know that this is not always in the curriculum (the curriculum can be a bit watered down as well sadly) - but perhaps I can give them supplementary information or something. I don’t know the rules about this, lol, but I want to help God’s Kingdom as a teacher, and not harm any souls.

I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me… or if anyone here is a teacher… how can we help students understand the Catholic faith better? Also, what happens if you try to do this but are met with opposition from others?

I have a pretty traditional outlook and also try to be totally faithful to the Magisterium.

thank you God bless.

Ive skimmed through the article and firstly would point out that the writer seems very happy to blame her cathechetical experiences rather than taking responsibility for her own faith issues. She makes a number of points that I find troublesome. it seems that she finds a faith appealing where it stands as separate from the ordinary expereince of life. This runs contrary to faith in the incarnation IMO and following rules on there own does not IMO make for mature faith that involves trusting in God within the turbulance of life rather than escaping from from such realities of life.
I am not a catholic but studied religious studies and trained to be a teacher in a catholic university college and then taught Rel. Ed. in Anglican schools for many years. IMO far more important than teaching rules is teaching pupils the tools for moral decision making within the faith tradition and developing their faith…much more uselful in helping them to own their faith
and incoproating it into their personality.

 

[waterbrook]

There is always a place for straight forward teaching and giving of information but understanding is also important. I think that in a sense you are a bit ahead of yourself in your thinking. You are clearly quite young and working out your vocation can seem a huge thing at your stage of life. Teaching can be a great vocation and wanting to communicate your faith is admirable there are many avenues for doing this rememeber that as a teacher you have to do the job you are employed to do and this will involve following a curriculum the scope for being creative within the curriculum will depend on the context in which you work. I was Lucky as Head of RE in a c church of England school in the UK I had a pretty free reign in designing the curriculum and was involved in the developent of our diocesan syllubus.

 

[AntalKalnoky]

Hello,

I graduated from teachers college and am now looking for a job. It’s hard to find a job but ultimately I hope to be a teacher in a Catholic school.

I am a convert so I am not very familiar with Catholic schools and how well they teach the faith… although I heard both good and bad stories. I came across this article, which is very informative, and it helped me to further understand the reality and how catechesis has really suffered in the past few decades. littlecatholicbubble.blogspot.com/p/i-was-robbed-my-journey-home-to_31.html

It would be my hope to avoid this in my own classroom and to teach students the truth, not the watered down version of it. I would also like them to understand, in addition to that, that God does love them and to be able to respond to His love. But this becomes meaningful and applicable if a person knows the Catholic teachings on sin, repentance, Sacraments, etc. I realize that it’s not my place to try and bring students to repentance, etc, since that is what God does, and with the help of His priests. But it’s my hope to just offer some information to the students in Religion class, that would help them to be more knowledgeable about the Church. I know that this is not always in the curriculum (the curriculum can be a bit watered down as well sadly) - but perhaps I can give them supplementary information or something. I don’t know the rules about this, lol, but I want to help God’s Kingdom as a teacher, and not harm any souls.

I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me… or if anyone here is a teacher… how can we help students understand the Catholic faith better? Also, what happens if you try to do this but are met with opposition from others?

I have a pretty traditional outlook and also try to be totally faithful to the Magisterium.

thank you God bless.

Catholicism is Taught by a Priest or Deacon, or knowledgeable DRE type. Teachers at Catholic Schools teach core basic subjects, with sometimes a Catholic aside. If worried about the College Debt mainly, should talk to Religios Orders about how to handle that. Catholic Teaching Sisters are growing in numbers rapidly and most Important! I can never forget Sister Dionysius, Dominican, of 7th-8th combined grade. Vivat Jesu. Tony Welcome to Our Lord’s Church, which Lives Our Lord

The Very weak, confused Catechesis was in the 1970’s and 1980’s cause by confusion about Vatican II Intentions.

 

[perro_sarnoso]

Hello,

I graduated from teachers college and am now looking for a job. It’s hard to find a job but ultimately I hope to be a teacher in a Catholic school.

I am a convert so I am not very familiar with Catholic schools and how well they teach the faith… although I heard both good and bad stories. I came across this article, which is very informative, and it helped me to further understand the reality and how catechesis has really suffered in the past few decades. littlecatholicbubble.blogspot.com/p/i-was-robbed-my-journey-home-to_31.html

It would be my hope to avoid this in my own classroom and to teach students the truth, not the watered down version of it. I would also like them to understand, in addition to that, that God does love them and to be able to respond to His love. But this becomes meaningful and applicable if a person knows the Catholic teachings on sin, repentance, Sacraments, etc. I realize that it’s not my place to try and bring students to repentance, etc, since that is what God does, and with the help of His priests. But it’s my hope to just offer some information to the students in Religion class, that would help them to be more knowledgeable about the Church. I know that this is not always in the curriculum (the curriculum can be a bit watered down as well sadly) - but perhaps I can give them supplementary information or something. I don’t know the rules about this, lol, but I want to help God’s Kingdom as a teacher, and not harm any souls.

I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me… or if anyone here is a teacher… how can we help students understand the Catholic faith better? Also, what happens if you try to do this but are met with opposition from others?

I have a pretty traditional outlook and also try to be totally faithful to the Magisterium.

thank you God bless.

Believe!!!

Believe what you teach - with devotion; believe with revernce; believe with passion; believe with conviction.

Believe what you teach in this manner because the people that will come to be taught by you are searching - hungry and thirsty.

Don’t just regurgitate dogma after dogma and code after code. If you speak of the Rosary - tell them how the Rosary came to be: It was revealed to St. Dominic by the Blessed Virgin Mary on or about the year 1247.

They will see your convicition and passion and they willl want more. They will want to know about this supernatural religion called Catholicism.

Tell them about the Scapular and about St. Simon Stock and how the Virgin Mary appeared to him.

Passion!!! Conviction!!

Tell them how Jesus laid out the dogma of His true and real presence in the Eucharist when He todl the disciples that [they must eat His flesh and drink HIs blood].

Tell them about the Woman clothed with the sun; crown of twelve stars and her feet on the moon.

Revernce - Devotion - they will see it in you and they will learn - but most importantly - they will Believe!!!

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Be consistent. When you ask a child for an honest answer, do not scold him or allow others to make fun of him if you wanted the “right” answer instead of the truth.

I got in trouble with some of the nuns who ran my training camp grades 1-8. If a child asks, “what did I do wrong?” answer honestly or make an appointment after class to explain.

My psychiatrist agreed with me that if a child doesn’t a) know what he was doing is wrong – or should be expected to know, b) know what about what he did was wrong (this was a biggie for me), and c) know what he could have done in that circumstance to have avoided wrong, then to punish a child for Bad Behavior is not only pointless, but borderline abusive.

Those are just a few based on my own experience in Catholic school.

Oh, yeah. The Good News is that they are now teaching kids in grade and middle school actual church teachings, and they even use the Bible now and then – something we never did back in my grade school. (graduated 8th grade in 1973) My kids are going k-12 Catholic school, and they are well prepared academically. In high school they take church history, apologetics, and more. I’d like to see more about mystical theology, but I’ll take what we have now as a vast upgrade compared to the political propaganda and social issues trash they taught us as religion.

Alan

 

[PatriceA]

Catholicism is Taught by a Priest or Deacon, or knowledgeable DRE type. Teachers at Catholic Schools teach core basic subjects, with sometimes a Catholic aside. If worried about the College Debt mainly, should talk to Religios Orders about how to handle that. Catholic Teaching Sisters are growing in numbers rapidly and most Important! I can never forget Sister Dionysius, Dominican, of 7th-8th combined grade. Vivat Jesu. Tony Welcome to Our Lord’s Church, which Lives Our Lord

The Very weak, confused Catechesis was in the 1970’s and 1980’s cause by confusion about Vatican II Intentions.

One reason we pulled our daughter out of our parish school was because the faith was not being taught by a priest, or a deacon or even a knowledgeable DRE type. Every year, the faith portion of the school day was taught by the homeroom teacher, and it mainly consisted of coloring quietly while the teacher caught up on grading papers. Second grade and preparation for First Communion and Reconciliation was the exception because the classwork was coordinated with the DRE for the CCD program.

It would be nice to see the priests, deacons and even more teaching nuns in the Catholic schools, but it is rare these days in my area for any of them to be involved in an actual classroom setting. Fortunately for us, the CCD program our daughter is enrolled in now is taught be the retired nuns that live near the parish. She’s learned more in one year of CCD than she did in five years at the parish school.

As a parent, the advice I’d give the OP is to teach the faith but also live out the faith to the best of your abilities in and outside the classroom. Kids can spot a hypercrite a mile away. Make the faith be alive for kids. Kids love to ask questions, encourage their curiousity about the faith. But be genuine and sincere.

 

[AntalKalnoky]

One reason we pulled our daughter out of our parish school was because the faith was not being taught by a priest, or a deacon or even a knowledgeable DRE type. Every year, the faith portion of the school day was taught by the homeroom teacher, and it mainly consisted of coloring quietly while the teacher caught up on grading papers. Second grade and preparation for First Communion and Reconciliation was the exception because the classwork was coordinated with the DRE for the CCD program.

It would be nice to see the priests, deacons and even more teaching nuns in the Catholic schools, but it is rare these days in my area for any of them to be involved in an actual classroom setting. Fortunately for us, the CCD program our daughter is enrolled in now is taught be the retired nuns that live near the parish. She’s learned more in one year of CCD than she did in five years at the parish school.

As a parent, the advice I’d give the OP is to teach the faith but also live out the faith to the best of your abilities in and outside the classroom. Kids can spot a hypercrite a mile away. Make the faith be alive for kids. Kids love to ask questions, encourage their curiousity about the faith. But be genuine and sincere.

                                I  meant   RCIA;  Priests,    Deacons  have  little time to  Teach.   Catholic  Schools  are taught by  Sisters  or      qualified  Knowledgeable Teachers   of  various Subjects.      Catholic Schools  have always  been considered The  Best  grade  and   High  Schools. schools;  Local ones  have  been Blue   Ribbon  Presidential      award  Winners or Listing  honors.  I    can never forget  7th-8th grade  St  Thomas  School.                             Parish     CCD        Classes   for  grade,   high  school  students are  by  Pastor/DRE    qualified    Knowledgeable    Parishioners;  I  have several  friends  doing that  in my   Parish; the most knowledgeable,    qualified  Parish    teachers  of  Children,  under    Diocesan  guidelines.

Teaching Sisters are ever increasing in numbers and quality; Dedicated to quality Teaching.

 

[KCT]

Be sure you’re a person of prayer.

“You can’t speak of God unless you speak to God.” (Fulton Sheen, I think)