Yes, it is YOUR Homework, Too

I have a great religion class this year!  There are 6 students in my 4th grade; each is a very interesting person, and each is interested in the class.  Today we discussed posture at Mass (and viewed the very fun That Catholic Show video Sit, Stand, and Kneel).  The students know what posture is appropriate for each part of the Mass, so that was an easy part of the class.  We discussed what happens during each part of the Mass, and even touched on the Real Presence.  A discussion of sin and forgiveness followed, providing the first entry on our Old Testament timeline.

Each week, in addition to the main lesson, we begin the class by writing the psalm verse for the upcoming Sunday.  This gives the students who arrive early something to do while waiting for the latecomers, and gives them all the answer to one question on the homework.

Ah...the homework.  For the past few years I have been using the Mass worksheets from CatholicMom.com.  For the mostly 9-year-olds in the class, I use the worksheets for the 7-10 year old level.

Those of you who know me, STOP laughing...it's true that I hate worksheets, but they work for this classroom format.  And the worksheets are easier to complete if the children go to Mass.  The worksheets are very easy, and the kids enjoy them.

And no parent has ever complained.  Until today.

She caught me in the parking lot, this Disgruntled Mother (she told me on the first day that she pulled her kids out of the last CCD program because the people were "snooty" so I guess I have to be non-snooty if I want to keep her kids in the program).  The conversation went something like this:

Disgruntled mom:  Do they still have to do those worksheets with the stuff from Mass?
Me:  Yes.  That is the format of the homework every week.  The answers are all found at Mass...
DM:  Well, we missed Mass this week (I stopped listening there...the kids had told me the reason).  So I had to look up the answers.
What snooty-me wanted to say:  There are 5 Catholic churches within a mile of ours.  Our own parish offers 8 Masses every weekend.  You could not make any of them?
What I actually said:  The answers are also online on the USCCB website, in case you miss Mass.
DM:  Well this is becoming MY homework, not theirs.
What snooty-me wanted to say:  Yes, and so it should be, if you need a refresher!
What I actually said (laughing in the nicest way):   Yeah, but it's not that hard for the kids once they get in the habit of...
DM:  Is it OK if I take a missal home from Mass?  The priest won't mind?
Me:  I'm sure he'd be happy to know you were taking a second look at the readings!  So, have a good week!

Ack.

Good Questions

Following our weekly review of the homework, I "opened the floor" to questions from my 4th grade CCD class. After getting to the heart of great matters like, "Is the Easter Bunny real?", The kids started asking real questions. None of these questions could be answered by using the crummy text book that is approved for the class. Here's what they wanted to know:

Why did Judas betray Jesus?
What does "Catholic" mean?
Why did Jesus wash the feet of his disciples?
What is the difference between "Catholic" and "Christian"?
What's so important about Easter?
What's up with the number 40?

I expect more questions after Easter break...I hope I can keep up!

"Because I'm Catholic"

Sometimes, my CCD kids are so great.

Yesterday they had the double fun of confession and a test on the same day. One of the questions (it was a quick test) was to name any three Sacraments. One boy got two, and was struggling with the third, so I gave him a hint: "Why are you here today?" I asked, gesturing my head towards the confessional. He answered, without missing a beat, "Because I'm Catholic!" Good answer. He gets and A.

And he filled in the blank correctly, too.

Old Testament Questions

Those cute little CCD fourth graders. They have so many questions. We are reading Marigold Hunt's wonderful A Life of our Lord for Children, though we are only plodding through the chapter entitled "Before the King Came." This chapter is a sort of Reader's Digest version of the OT, in the extreme. Just about every part of the story is left out, and those mentioned are very, very abbreviated. For the purposes of the class--not too much time, not too much previous knowledge--it's perfect. See, most of these students have never heard any of the OT, except a bit about Adam and Eve, a bit about Moses, and, if they are very well-informed, they have seen a DVD of Joseph. So a quick overview is just the thing. Sadly.

We are up to Moses now, and they are interested, and asking questions. "What were the plagues?" "What if an Egyptian had put blood on his door posts. Would he have been spared?" "Why didn't God just transport the Israelites out of Egypt?" And then there was my favorite: "Why didn't God intervene in the American Civil War?"

When we got to Passover, their faces all lit up in recognition right away...at least, they had heard of it. They didn't know the history at all.

60 minutes per week. Will we ever get out of the desert?

A New CCD Class

Twice the size of last year's class! Eek! 18 kids who know nearly nothing about being Catholic! And just to put the pressure on, the DRE had the new priest from Poland sit in on my class. Luckily, my middle kids are my assistants for the year.

The first day of class is typically chaotic. With 18 children in the class, it may take a while to learn all the names, so I gave them an assessment to find out what they know. There's nothing like asking 18 4th graders the name of their parish in front of a priest and having only two students get the answer right. Not one knew the name of our pastor. No one knew the name of the pope. One student insisted that a different pope was at Mass each week. Another student insisted that the Pope stopped by for a CYO volleyball game last week. No one knew the name of our bishop. Father began whispering the answers to the students, and the students loved it! It was actually sweet to see them turn to him for the answers.

On the encouraging side, they all knew what sacraments they had received. Whew.

Next week is the opening Mass for the CCD students. The week after that, the fun really begins. Ahhh!

The Most Annoying Book I have ever Enjoyed

Someone, somewhere suggested The Call to Brilliance by Resa Steindel Brown as an interesting read, and it is. It's also an aggravating read. An odd combination of education memoir mixed with a collection of the author's favorite quotes, the book would have benefited from a good strict editor. Still, it's worth reading for the inspirational story it tells, though the quotes seem perfunctory more often than not.

The best part of the book is a personal story of one family's educational journey. The author explores, outlines and discusses her own education (including an anecdote from her experience at the always-amusing UC Berkeley), setting us up for the tale of her search for a real education for her children. She continues the story with detailed descriptions of how she facilitated the education of her children, often in unusual ways. She tries different schools, clearly frustrated with one-size-fits-all educational models, with innovative-sounding schools that fail to follow their own foundational theories, and with teachers who just don't get her child's unique way of learning. She tries homeschooling, and homeschooling other people's children, and in the end, settles on a sort of start-up school with a homeschooling flavor. The results are spectacular. We follow her three children from childhood to advanced university degrees and beyond, and we meet three wonderfully whole people emerging from their adventure.

The frustrating parts of the book were long quotes from all sorts of sources, from educational theorists (some traditional, like Maria Montessori), self-help gurus (like Tony Robbins), and even the Dalai Lama (who will be in Aspen this weekend--Libby is hoping to catch a glimpse ;)). I tried--I really did try--to read through all the quotes and establish some kind of connection to what was happening in the narrative part of the book. I failed often, and often failed horribly. Occasionally, the quotes fit nicely; but I soon learned to recognize when a quote was interfering with the pace of the narrative, or simply going nowhere, and skipped it. In the end, what I most wanted to do was take a pair of scissors to the book, excise all of the irrelevant quotes, and paste it all back together. Certainly, it would make the book more readable, so skip the quotes and get through the very valuable story, which loses nothing without them; you can always return to the quotes later.

Brown insists throughout the book that all children are brilliant, and she makes her case well. And her story of search and discovery will resound with most homeschooling parents; The Call to Brilliance is similar to the stories we each have--stories of helping our children become the people they are intended to become, despite "learning disabilities" or those insidious labels that institutional schools use to explain away differences in individuals. The specifics of Brown's story may help some families look beyond schools, beyond curriculum providers and text-books, and beyond desks and tests to find that elusive "better way" to facilitate the education of their children. It is a book which will certainly inspire every parent who reads it. And there is even some dim hope that those outside the world of homeschooling will take a closer look at alternatives to institutional education, considering the details of this story and of our own stories as we tell them, not as unusual exceptions, but as extraordinary norms. Someday, someday soon, I hope, when a child says, "I homeschool," the world will come to expect and recognize brilliance.

ETA (LOL!!): I totally ruined the spelling of the Dalai Lama's title...fixed now. How delightfully embarrassing. ;) But brilliance has nothing to do with spelling, I'm sure.

Enthused by the Banal

I just heard a well-intentioned caller on EWTN describe the experience of her Montessori class watching the Papal Mass in DC. The children were crowded 'round a computer, she tells us, and rather bored...until they heard a Marty Haugen song that was familiar to them. She marveled with the class, and reinforced to the children how "Catholic" it was to hear this familiar song.

I wanted to cry. Imagine growing up thinking that this is Catholic music, and having that idea reinforced by a teacher.

Fact (paraphrased from one of Libby's college application essays--she directs the children's choir; she knows what she is talking about): It is just as easy to teach a child to sing "Agnus Dei" as it is to teach him "Gather Us In." Maybe...easier. Why compromise? Can our Catholic children only understand the latter? As for the former, it only takes a second for a child to realize that this is the familiar "Lamb of God." Why not give our children real Catholic music?

Interested? Just a little?

Via (<- Latin word alert!!) Facebook, I found this group of dedicated Catholics:

Society for a Moratorium on the Music of
Marty Haugen and David Haas

Confirmation!

Amidst all the audition craziness around here, I forgot to post about the most important event of the week: Annika's Confirmation!

Libby and Annika head over to the church. Libby was Annika's sponsor!

The girls with the parish priests and the bishop, and the boys who served...two brothers and a cousin!

The Dawning of the Age of ...Deuteronomy?

Some of you might recall that I posted a few CCD stories last year. Kids never cease to amaze me with their knowledge, and their misconceptions. Here's the latest.

I gave my wonderful class of 4th grade CCD students a challenge: Memorize the books of the OT by the end of the year, and get a gift certificate. So, every class, we have little games to help them memorize them...this time, I simply went around the room once and asked each child to name one of the OT books, and they all did well, until the last. Her answer? Aquarius. Not sure what to think about that...