Resources for 8th Grade CCD

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donahuec81

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My husband and I went to see “Paul, Apostle of Christ” this past weekend. Good Movie, by the way. Our 8th grader asked how it was and as I described it, it occurred to me that he had no recognition of who Paul was. My 8th grader is about to complete CCD (except here in St. Louis they call it “PSR” for Parish School of Religion) and cannot identify St. Paul?!! That was alarming to me. and got me wondering if there was a good resource, maybe in the homeschool world, that could help us fill in the gaps left by PSR for 8 years. St. Louis confirms in the 8th grade so, yes, he has already been confirmed.
 
Why don’t you just take him to the movie?7

Catechetical materials don’t generally focus on one Saint in particular.
PSR / Faith Formation focuses on the general instruction, not necessarily biographies of the saints.
Enroll him in a Middle School youth group too.
 
donahuec81 said:
My 8th grader is about to complete CCD
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Do you mean for this year, or do high schoolers not attend any religious education at the parish?
donahuec81 said:
and cannot identify St. Paul?!!
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How frequently do you read the bible at home as a family? How frequently do you study the bible as a family? How frequently do you talk about the Saints as a family? Celebrate the feast days of Saints? Look at religious artwork and symbolism?

I’m wondering what you are teaching him as a family if you are just now discovering this?

Parents are the primary educators of their children in the faith.
donahuec81 said:
and got me wondering if there was a good resource
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The bible and catechism should be sufficient to get you going.
 
Thanks for the responses. I’m really looking for religious education resources, not criticism.
 
Based on experience, I would add recitation of the Rosary … to create the habit and to impart knowledge of the Mysteries and a little about how they were selected for inclusion.
 
donahuec81 said:
Thanks for the responses. I’m really looking for religious education resources, not criticism.
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Perhaps that did come across as criticism. And, in the moment I was probably being critical. So, let me apologize. But it came across as you being very critical of the religious education program without much in the way of facts.

BUT, let me also point out that religious ed is about 1 hour a week. In that one hour, you can’t expect teachers to teach everything or kids to absorb everything. And, just because your kid doesn’t know who St Paul is, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t taught about St Paul in religious ed. I can tell you from my own experience being a teacher for over 20 years in religious ed-- kids just don’t get it in the class. You HAVE to be parenting the faith 24/7 just like you parent in other areas.

For example, a group of kids I taught for 3 years-- I kept the same group from junior high into high school then handed them off to my husband who teaches confirmation-- answered “we never learned about that” to something my husband asked the kids. Um, excuse me-- I taught that every year for 3 years repeatedly, over and over. Virtue, Grace, Sacraments. It’s enough to make you want to slap them. These kids honestly could not remember from one year to the next what we’d gone over in class. I’ve seen this over and over. And, as an educator by trade-- it’s not just in religious ed. For whatever reason, kids today in general seem to lack knowledge about a lot of things.

So it’s not enough that they did a lesson on St Paul in 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grade, your 8th grader might still say he’s never heard of St Paul. You HAVE to be talking about the faith at home all the time, living it, breathing it, or these kids are just not going to get it.

As for resources, I suggest:
Footprints of God videos by Steve Ray.

The Great Adventure or T3 Timeline or Encounter (jr high) bible study by Ascension press (actually, all the teen bible studies by Ascension press).

These are video based and pricey. If you can afford to buy them, great. If you can’t contact your diocese and see if they have the videos in the lending library.
 
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I love archeology.

You learn so much from it.
 
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Formed.org has many movies, documentaries and audiobooks for all ages. Normally parishes have activation codes, its free, eduational and entertaining.
 
And if your parish does not offer it, the cost is the comparable Netflix or Hulu, affordable for so much content!
 
Personally I love the Faith & Life series. There’s also A Course in Religion for High School Youth by Fr. John Laux. That’s what we use with DSD.
 
I agree!!!

I have taught primary school children for 20 years. We went over a topic in the classroom and then sent the kids (8-year-olds) to run 2 laps around the school building (three classroom size) and when they came back in my co teacher asked them what we talked and worked with before they were running. Not a single one remembered anything but they all had understood when we worked with it. Repetition, repetition, repetition and then some more repetition.

Today children are taught where to find the information instead of learning facts and how to use them. If you don’t know what to search for then there will be some serious errors. Sometimes I have wondered if teenagers switch off their brains or just keep them in a “sleeping mode” and switch on when they are interested. “I can always look it up on the internet so I don’t have to remember it.” Connecting A with B and C and realise why D happens is also lacking. One typical example is “Why is Poland always mentioned with the wars in Europe when it was Germany and Russia that were fighting?” Had that teenager seen a map over Europe?
 
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F & L is good, however, catching up on all 8 years of F & L would last until the child is out of college!!
 
Thanks. This is actually what I’m looking for. Book recommendations.
 
Oh yes, one of my little darlings who claimed “we were never taught…” could name every Egyptian god in the pantheon and tell you all about Roman and Greek gods. Because he was interested in that from school.

BUT, ask him one fact about the Catholic faith-- nope, nothing. Crickets.
 
HeDa said:
Had that teenager seen a map over Europe?
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Map study is extremely useful.

Compare maps of the USA with maps of Europe … the sizes of the countries and how much further north the European countries are.

All of World War 2 in Europe would fit in New England.
 
Also the map of the middle east with today’s place names and the biblical place names … asia minor/turkey, etc.
 
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