I can’t speak to your overall ability and/or temperament because I haven’t read any of your posts except on this thread. However, I have the following general hints if you decide to teach.
- Don’t worry about your “knowledge”. Most RE students these days know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the faith. And to make matters worse, their parents know absolutely nothing as well.
- Our DRE told me once that “You don’t need the books in advance in order to prepare anything. I’ll give you the books 5 minutes before the first class. You just need to be one chapter ahead of the students.”
- Do not, do not, do not under any circumstances volunteer to teach grades 7-9. Younger students are OK. Older students (i.e. for Confirmation) may put their heads on the desks and sleep, but they probably won’t actively give you any trouble. On the other hand, if you teach any classes in grades 7-9, you will receive 10 years off in purgatory for every class hour (or something like that).
In my humble opinion, this is really bad advice that you received. People who are teaching the youth in our churches need to
- Have a thorough knowledge of church doctrine, theology, and scripture in order to answer any forseeable questions the youth may have.
- Have a heart for whoever they are teaching. If you do not have the passion for the age group or ANY age group - better to find another capacity to serve in.
Youth in many parishes suffer from deplorable instruction in the faith. If you are going to teach, you need to give it your all. Study, study, STUDY. You need to know your stuff inside out and backwards so you can teach these kids everything they need to arm themselves with the word of God! And lastly, if you are not an enthused teacher with a passion for your students and your subject matter…then find something that you ARE passionate about and do that instead. ^
^ If you don’t, you’ll not only be setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment, but you’ll be letting your students down in the ONE THING they should NEVER be let down in. ^^
Excuse me.
I have taught (and continue to teach) confirmation classes, RE for grades 7-9, bible study classes at 2 different parishes, adult education classes, young adult classes, RCIA, and others I don’t even recall. I am retired, and spend roughly 40 hours per week learning more about the faith, and putting it into practice as a volunteer at a Catholic School.
Certainly, to be a catechist, a thorough knowledge of the material is quite helpful, for the one in a thousand students who might ask one of those questions which fall into your "any foreseeable questions " category. But that doesn’t happen often.
You rightly deplore the fact that many our children are not well educated. I was teaching an adult class last week, and asked the class to give me examples of what we believe as Catholics. Out of 15 adults, 1 person had a possible answer “Jesus?” These folks don’t know the 10 commandments, they don’t know the creeds, they don’t know why they want their kids baptized or confirmed. You don’t need a degree in theology in order to teach them those essential basics.
Let me give you a hint. The best way to learn something is to try to teach it. If you wait until you are an expert in “church doctrine, theology, and scripture” then believe me, you will never teach anything.
And in terms of being passionate about it, before doing it - Don’t wait for the passion to find you. We are told that in order to follow Jesus we must carry our crosses. If you can be passionate about that, then that’s terrific. If not, then do it anyway. Maybe the passion will grow.
As a practical matter, I continue to recommend that you do not start out with grades 7-9. Experienced teachers have a great deal of difficulty with that age group (and it has nothing to do with lack of theological knowledge, or lack of passion).
If your parish has dozens of unassigned experienced, theologically expert volunteers standing in line waiting for classes to be assigned to them, OK, go study some more, go find some passion and come back. But if you are one chapter ahead of the students, you will be a better teacher than “no teacher available.” No Teacher Available would certainly be letting them down.
