Day 12

Have you read Life Teen's article yet regarding Robin Thicke's song "Blurred Lines" and his "performance" with Miley Cyrus on the VMAs?

If not, please do before reading the rest of my blog.  "It's Not Blurry" articulates everything I talked about with my students during our first full week in addition to our conversation yesterday.  

We then transitioned into our class studying the EUCHARIST!  Bah!  I should have just recorded my lesson today.  I thought it went really well.  I'm feeling quite sluggish right now.  Didn't sleep very well last night and the heat today is super gross.  The air in my apartment is doing it's best to keep me cool.  I'm waiting for my new couch to be delivered and thought I'd fill the time with blogging about today!  :)  

Anyway, my students seemed to be listening to me talk about how great the sacrament of the Eucharist is and were taking notes.  Most of them were.  One student that never writes notes was actually writing stuff down!  It was so exciting!  I anxiously checked out what he wrote after I dismissed his class.  This is what I found:

Nothing like fooling your teacher by doodling you name all over the handout...  ;)

Next class (Tuesday), I'm going to share a couple personal stories of my experiences with the Blessed Sacrament- a time at mass, a Eucharistic miracle (which I did not witness), and talk about what Adoration of the blessed sacrament is.  I'm not sure if they have ever prayed during adoration before.  Our cluster only offers once a month of the First Friday of every month during school hours : (  We will probably take a field trip to pray one class :)

Anyway, GO make disciples and enjoy your 3 day weekend!  

God Bless!

Day 11

"I LOVE Chevron!",  "I can't get enough of Chevron!", "Miss Sexton, most pop songs are super catchy but the lyrics are REALLY BAD" oh, and, "Say 'YES' to everlasting life!" are just a few phrases that stuck out in school today.  Life of a religion teacher!

For those of you that are scratching your heads wondering what Chevron is (not the energy corporation)- I present to you..Chevron!

It's a pattern that some of my students are quite obsessed with.  And I like that, because I too really like this pattern.  Oh, and "Miss Sexton, WHERE did you buy all of this great paper?"  "At a mystical store called Hobby Lobby in Dubuque." They love me.

Today. we did our "Say 'YES' to..." posters for our classroom.  I had them finish that sentence to promote what we as Catholic Christians say yes to by responding to our Baptismal call.  Check out what we did!

We did a review over the function of sanctifying grace in the sacrament of Baptism and the essential elements of Baptism (Light of Christ, Word of God, and Water of Life).

It was fun and pretty relaxed.  Just being able to talk to them about everyday things was good too.  Evangelization is not all about bombarding people with everything you know about God or the Church.   A huge element is listening- listening to their concerns, what they are interested in, and just being present.  I have one student that has basically showed up to every class and has hardly said a word to his classmates or myself.  Today, we had a full out conversation!  Do you know how huge this is?!  Every time I have spoken to him it has just seemed awkward because sometimes he wouldn't even reply after I'd greet him coming in.  This was a huge step!  We talked about what he's interested in-the athletic teams at their school.  He was telling me stats of all of the the sport teams and all about different rivalry teams.  I couldn't keep track of everything he was saying, but the fact that he was telling me these things, sharing with me something he is so invested in was AWESOME!  That is how you build trust with people-giving people the time of day. I am genuinely interested in all of my students.  Whether I'm a sports expert or not, I now have a connection with my student.  And that is a huge accomplishment I believe on both of our ends.

So that's what happened today.

Day 10

Knock Knock? 
Who's there?
John.
John who?
JOHN THE BAPTIST!!!!! (pours water bottle on top of person)

No, I did not pick on any of my students are act this out.  I fell subject to this many years ago as a counselor at Camp WOW back in the day.  Too funny!

Anyway, today we talked about Baptism and the difference between Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist (J-the-B as Padre from Loras referred to him- I used that and my students got a kick out of that) and our Baptism in the Catholic/Christian Church.

I won't go on about everything I told them about the sacrament other than how awesome Jesus' sanctifying grace is and how it still stirs things up in our hearts if we allow it!  This grace helps us live out both the cardinal and theological virtues!  Baptism encourages and helps us bring about moral goodness into the world.  

We are a Church that says "Yes" to the culture of life.  We ran out of time because of another early out today.  Just found out that we have an early out for the rest of this week which is exciting but it really narrows down my time with them :(.  So, tomorrow they will do an activity of making billboards/signs that promote how we say yes!  For example:  Say YES to life!  or Say YES to social responsibility....etc etc.  Basically I wanted to show how we are a community of people striving for good in our world and not some outdated group that constantly says no.  We do say no.  We have a list of commandants that say "Thou shall not...."  We say NO to sin, but to put a more positive twist on it, I want them to be creative and come up with what we say yes to!  Those will be displayed in my classroom tomorrow so you'll see pictures of those tomorrow!

Today I brought in my Holy Water, seeing it was fitting when talking about the Sacrament of Baptism and we used it to bless ourselves as we started off class with prayer.  Yesterday, someone asked me why we bless ourselves with holy water when we walk into church and I said because it prepares us for mass and to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.  It also reminds us of our Baptismal promises.  Oh, and I mentioned that by doing so, we are forgiven of our venial sins!  They got SO excited about that!  You would have thought I told them we were having a pizza party or something.  But no, they all got so excited over the function of holy water.  (Saints in the making?!  Ehhh?!  I think SO!)  I told them how even though it might not be common, it's totally ok to have holy water in our homes.  I shared that sometimes I use it when I'm praying at home or if I have nightmares I usually grab it to bless my bed.  That made them smile.  Back to today. As I was dismissing them, one of my students said, "Miss Sexton, should we bless ourselves on our way out?"  They continue to surprise me every single day.  So yes, I encouraged them, if they wished, to bless themselves on their way out.  Every one of them took the moment to pour a little holy water on their fingers and bless themselves by making the sign of the cross.  DAY MADE.

I need to get a holy water font or bowl so they can do this every class.  For now, we'll just be using this little bottle.

Day 9

Another early out due to the heat...and folks, it is WARM!  This is the kind of heat that causes me to do crazy things, like finish an entire row of double stuff Oreos.  Something must be done!!!  I really do think I am crazy.  But in all honesty, reviewing and learning more about my belief in Jesus and the sacraments really makes me step back and ask the question, "This is actually what I profess and believe in?!?"  Not because I doubt the trueness or legitimacy of my faith, but I become excited, overwhelmed, and zealous when I realize how AWESOME Jesus is and how much He really does love us on an individual basis!  

Curtis Martin, founder of FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) once asked us at a conference another question..."Do you believe that what you believe is really real?"

I posed a similar question to my students in regards to whether they really do believe that the sacraments can and do transform our lives.  

I woke up this morning and almost hit the snooze button.  My plan was to get up early and go to mass before making my way over to school.  I turned my alarm off, put my head back down on the pillow, and for the first time in a long time, I told myself "No, today is the Lord's day, and He wants to feed me."  What?  This thought could not have been of myself.  I've always tried to make Jesus the center of my life, but there are times when I forget that and get distracted.  This morning I woke up with the mission of Jesus instilled in me.  That does not make me perfect.  I am far for perfect.  I am striving for holiness.

Then I went to school, found out we had another early out and decided to edit my plan for today.  Instead of jumping into the topic of Baptism, I really tried to get them talking about their experiences with the sacraments, talk about their first communions, first reconciliations, and there were some pretty funny stories and cute things shared.  But then I asked the question, do you really believe that Jesus is present and can transform YOU through receiving the sacraments?  By praying at mass?  Through personal prayer?  CAN HE?  

Most of my students cannot recall a time where they felt Jesus truly speaking to their souls.  The idea of God as a person (intellect and will) and that they can pray to Him and have a conversation with Him is a pretty foreign concept to them.  But I want them to have that SO badly.

I know I can teach.  My students can recall information from days ago about the definition of a person, the definition of a sacrament, they can and do know A LOT of information, a lot about God.  More than anything, I want them to KNOW God.  I don't want to just catechize.  I want to evangelize!  I want Him to be their "Abba," their father.  I want them to love Him and to put Him at the center of their lives.  I want them to know how much He loves them and longs to have an even closer relationship with them.  My students are GREAT.  They are constantly surprised by what we talk about and come up with more and more questions about everything from why we bless ourselves with holy water to whether or not they should receive Jesus in the Eucharist by hand or tongue, how often they should go to confession, if our sins actually go away, etc.  This was all one shortened class by the way...  Their hearts, all of our hearts, were made to be in right relationship with God and all of creation, especially our brothers and sisters.

This morning I really felt the call.  This song perfectly fits a prayer I've found myself saying to God.  You can listen to it on YouTube by clicking here.  It's called "O My Soul" by Audrey Assad.  Here are the lyrics:

Rivers and stones and the trees of the field, they sing in the night 
And a thousand tongues lay deep in your lungs to raise to the sky 
Don't lie to yourself, o my soul—love your God. 

Deep in your heart you feather and tar your folly and fear: 
Expose them for the fools they are, and the world comes clear. 
Don't lie to yourself, o my soul—love your God. 

Your worries will never love you 
They'll leave you all alone 
But your God will not forsake you 
O my soul.

We need to let ourselves love God!  The more I teach my students, the more I am able to hold myself accountable.  Living alone has given me the opportunity to recognize my ultimate need for God.  I mean, I already knew that, but that need is uncovering itself more and more in the silence of my being, at mass, and in my classroom.

Love your God.  You are wonderful.  Happy Tuesday!

Day 8

Believe it or not, we had an early out due to the heat! Thankfully I have air conditioning in my room here at St. Paul but I do empathize with my students who are in very hot and stuffy classrooms expected to "think" on a Monday.  Speaking of thinking, I have very high expectations for my students.  I expect them to "think" in my classroom.  I want them to make connections, analyze scripture passages, etc. and be able to communicate ideas with their classmates and myself.  We do not have a textbook therefore they can't "find the answer" clearly stated in a book.  

Today, we started to talk about the definition of a sacrament is, played a round of hangman to guess the words "efficacious sign."  You should have seen the looks on their faces when they finally got it!  I know they are at least learning terminology in this class.  Anyway, we then moved on to talk about how sacraments, outward signs of an inward reality, really do cause God's grace to come and that it's not just merely an idea.  

I had them get into groups (2-3) and each were given a sign that Jesus used (water, bread, oil, and touch) and had them read a few passages that included the use of that sign.  Based on reading their assigned passages with their group, they had to come up with what they think Jesus is telling us about God's love through the sign.  That was the instruction.  They, however, wrote/spoke about the function of the signs instead of that deeper question of what was the message about God's love.  I told them that their answers are not "wrong" and that they are great at analyzing and understanding the passages, but then prompted them and had them give me what I was looking for.  I think they were shocked that they weren't being told "what they need to know."  Critical thinking is a skill that needs to be practiced in all disciplines.  Religion class is NO exception.  God gave them an intellect and they will use it to its highest potential here! :)

Below is from my 3rd hour class. We did the first one together and the other signs were done in groups.

As I mentioned, we officially started talking about the sacraments today!  Tomorrow we will begin with the first sacrament of initiation: Baptism!

Oh, this might make you giggle...it sure made me!  I had my students come in and start class with a journal prompt.  Their prompt was "What was the best part of your weekend?  Write a prayer thanking God for it."  Most had more in-depth responses, but hey, there is MUCH to be thankful for, and this should not be excluded! 

With that, Happy Monday! 

Days 6 and 7

It's Friday after school.  As much as I love what I'm doing here, I will always look forward to the weekend.  Thursday was Day 6, and to be completely honest, I spent both class periods trying to invest in my students, getting to know them more.  So what did we do?  We opened up with prayer, and then I had each of them pull up their favorite songs so we could listen to them and had a brief conversation after each one discussing why they liked the songs and what the themes of those songs are.

Here is a combined playlist of both classes:

Treasure, Bruno Mars

Everything has Changed, Taylor Swift

Care, Kid Rock

You Will Not be Forgotten, Jessica Andrews

Can't Stop Us, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

Ships in the Night, Mat Kearney

Something to be Proud of, Montgomery Gentry

30 Seconds to Mars, Kings & Queens

Live Like you were Dying, Tim McGraw

Sunshine & City Lights, Greyson Chance

Amarillo Sky, Jason Aldean

Drivin Around Song, Colt Ford

To conclude that activity, I summarized how we all long for happiness, greatness, and loving relationships and continued with how our ultimate source of happiness is from God.  When all is right our relationship with Him, more than likely our other relationships will flourish.  

I then guided them to the book of Psalms which is filled with 150 "songs" telling them that these were the prayers that Jesus prayed and how they express the same desires that we do today in the music we listen to.

Another highlight was getting my students to follow the pope on Twitter and checking out what his message was for us.  It was pretty great :)

I will summarize today in pictures:

 

Thank you Mom and Margie for making the curtains to cover up the shelves!  It looks a lot nicer now!

Every human's nightmare...Clearly Satan did not want me teaching today.  

So I decided to switch up my entire plan (because I had no other choice since I didn't back up my lesson plans for today.  But hey, I kicked him in the face today with my students!  Check out the board/agenda.)

We read an article on White Sox catcher, Tyler Flowers and his love for the Catholic faith, talked about how sneaky the Devil is and explained what spiritual warfare is, told saint stories, one being about Blessed Chiara Luce Badano, and taught them a way of praying with scripture called "Lectio Divina."  We did that with the passage on one of Jesus' healing accounts Mark 5: 21-? where Jesus heals the woman who take a risk and touches Jesus in the crowd to be cured of her illness.  Check out what one of my students wrote:

Just beautiful.  I love when people pray.

  Also we recapped on the question of who Jesus is and why He came.  Do you like my image?  The first 4 symbols I borrowed from a lovely Protestant on Pinterest and continued the story of Jesus/Holy Spirit/Church :)

(Jesus came, died, rose, ascended, Holy Spirit/Pentecost, established the Church, the Church is a channel of God's grace, and basically that grace should be found everywhere based on us frequently receiving God's grace through the sacraments and prayer and should also be spread out all over the place.  Let's make a mess as Pope Francis suggests us!)

Now it is the weekend.  A time for rest, a time for service, hanging with my cousin Nick, lesson planning, and whatever else is ahead of me.  

Please know of my prayers for all of you reading this blog.  God love ya!

Days 4 and 5

Hey everyone.  Before I give you a few updates, I thought I'd extend a huge THANK YOU-for all of your love, prayers, and support.  We thrive on companionship/relationships, and without you- I would shrivel up.  And trust me, I've felt some severe moments of doubt, loneliness, anxiety, and disappointment, so please, know that we all go through some kind of suffering, no matter how put together we appear.  I noticed my blogs make my life seem like it's PERFECT.  And really, I do have it pretty darn good, but one thing I'm currently lacking is a community of friends here.  Thankfully we have social media and I own a vehicle so I can go see existing friends! 

I was in Dubuque over the last 24+ hours visiting friends, attending the New Faith Formation Leaders Orientation at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center today, watching some of my favorite people in Dubuque move :(, and attending another meeting in Dyersville tonight.  My life used to be this busy ALL the time, but since the move and life after my college graduation, it's been much quieter, with a lot of things happening over the last few months- both exciting and tragic.  

What I'm trying to get at is that our relationship with God is the one thing that will ultimately determine how things are truly well or unwell with our souls.  With or without Jesus, we will experience suffering, which will ultimately unite us closer to Him.  So what's the point of letting Jesus into your life?  I propose that not allowing Him in is pointless!  

On Tuesday in my classes, I posed the questions "Who is Jesus?" and "Who/What is the Church?"  We didn't quite get to the second question, but this Jesus guy...man!  Hard to summarize all He did, and we really can't keep it in the past, because Jesus continues to open the eyes of our hearts and transform our lives...if we all Him to!

Today was day 5 as a teacher and I was at the meetings all day/seeing Loras friends! (S/O to Col, Amy, Chels, Anne, Teresa, Teresa, Jessica, and Zach!) While my students were hanging out with the youth minister that subbed for me, I was being empowered by our newly appointed Archbishop, Michael Jackels.  What a great servant of our Lord!  

You want to know what he said is the most important job of the entire Church?  To teach and form the youth and the people around us.  So that made me explode with joy, excitement, etc.  But hey, while I'm doing this as my "job", this is the Baptisimal call that we are all expected to respond to!  And let me tell you, a lot of people have taught me what it's like to live a full life in Christ (S/O to my parents, sister, too many friends to explicitly mention, the Dominican Sisters of Nashville, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, MARGIE! :), etc).  We are expected to hold one another accountable and bring each other to Christ. Also, think about it this way.  We are all bearers of God.  If God dwells within each of us, then every single human being demands our respect.  Where do you see neglect in your communities?  Go and try to remedy that!

I'm really striving for my students to understand more about God but more importantly have a personal relationship with Him.  Please join me in praying for them, and their parents, who are truly the people that made it possible to come into existence with God's intention as well!  "We are souls.  We have bodies."  That was said by C.S. Lewis and he couldn't be more right!  Let's live well and strive to recognize God in everyone.  

Please join me in praying for our families, friends, and the people we come into contact with regularly- that they may experience the love of God and His redeeming love continually.  We must make the decision daily to serve Him!

Check out my friends, two seminarians, praying Wednesday Night Prayer and pray with them and all Christians around the world praying this prayer tonight!

Thanks again everyone.  I needed the last two days.

***Tomorrow is a big day! My little sister is heading off to college!  (Pray for her and my parents in a special way, now that they'll be empty nesters, and as Mary embarks on her college journey.)  I cannot wait to hug and kiss all of them tomorrow!  

Good night!

My apologies

Sorry for the repetition and typos in that last post (Day 3).  That was probably the first time I've ever posted something without proof-reading.  The English Major in me is ashamed.  I will strive for a better tomorrow ; )

Sleep with the angels!  

Day 3

Who is God?  Who am I?

These are the questions that we dived into today.  Before we could begin discussing and learning about the sacraments, I found it crucial that we spent today focusing on who God is, how our identity is from Him/essence of God and humans, and tomorrow we will then talk about where Jesus and the Church come into play, the source and channel of the 7 sacraments.

Summary of today, I was rejuvenated.  To teach others about who God is, proofs of His existence (referencing St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica), discussing the nature of God, and then diving into how we are made in God's image and likeness which makes us favorable out of all of God's creation, reminded me of truly how amazing this gift of life truly is, and how much I owe to God.    To teach them that were made for eternal life with God and how the belief in our soul is what separates us from all other visible creatures also made me curious to learn more, to study more. 

If we truly understood our identity, we would strive much harder to know our Creator and live in a way that shows how much we honor and respect Him, ourselves, and everyone and everything around us.  We would strive to live in right relationship with everyone and everything!  We would have HEAVEN on Earth!  

The more I talked about our soul and the importance of the visible and invisible elements of humankind, the more I could see my students opening their minds and  recognizing their need for God.  It was amazing to see how intrigued they were, especially when I taught them about our souls.  (Teachers can tell even when they don't show it in their facial expressions.)  

personal soul: 

invisible, spiritual, and immortal gift from God that gives a human being life

Now, I didn't even dive into being pro-life or anything, and I had a student ask, "Miss Sexton, is that why Catholics are so against abortion?"  I paused, and for the first time, I came to understand that that is a huge reason why!   Never had that reason struck me, and I was so amazed by the connection she made.  But yes, we are SO against abortion because God wants to spend not only this life with us, but also life after death.  Our bodies and souls separate at death and will one day be unified (at the final judgement), therefore, we need to respect human life at any stage!  

We also discussed the hierarchy of God's visible and invisible creations.  Below are one of my student's notes for the day.  At the bottom I asked them to write down one thing they learned.  I'm glad she was listening to my summary of Aquinas' proofs :)

I'm really tired, otherwise I'd go into EVERYTHING we did in classes today.  I'm not sure if today's presentation helped my students or myself more.  It's funny how sometimes we need to take our own advice or re-teach ourselves that our identity lies in God and how valuable that makes us!  

Our identity in God should affect EVERYTHING.  Don't you think if we all really knew, understood, or accepted how truly valuable we are that things would be so different?  Aka more peaceful and intentional?  We have the potential of being GREAT, of being more like Jesus!  

Let us ask God to remind us of value and that tomorrow we can strive to be more like Him.

If you'd like, you can try this out.  We did this as an activity in class.  Read 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8   a few times.  The first recognizing that this is God's way of loving and that we need Him to help us to love in those ways, and then by replacing the words "Love" and "It" with His name to recognize the HE is love, finally read it by replacing those words with your name to examine your conscience- to see how well you lived today.  It will surely make you more aware and more intentional tomorrow!  I know it helped me recognize some areas that I need to work on but also some areas that I rock in! ;)  God loves us no matter what, but strive for a greater you, and a greater tomorrow.

St. Paul, pray for us!

Day 2, Aug. 16

So apparently I have a hard time staying up past midnight on days I teach, so now I'll tell you ALL about my second day of teaching.

Yesterday morning was exciting because I knew who to expect in both of my classes.  I was really excited to look over the questionnaire I had each of them fill out.  These are the questions that I asked them:

What do you like to do in your free time?
What extracurricular activities are you involved in (sports, clubs, organizations)?
What do you want to do after you graduate high school?
What's your favorite quote?  Why?
Why are you Catholic?
What is one reason you like being Catholic?
What do you want to learn in this class?

Essentially I was looking to get to know them and how interested they are in their faith.  

I'll focus on the responses I received for the last three questions.


Why are you Catholic?
Majority of them said because they were baptized Catholic and that it is the religion of all of their family members.  

What is one reason you like being Catholic?
The responses I got for this question were more original:

"It's not as strict as others"
"It guides me to be a better person"
"Because of how strong it is"
"Knowing that there is an after life and that we will be reunited with our loved ones"
"I get to get together with people I can relate to"
"Get to come to release time" <-- Now that made me smile!
"We have a lot of freedom"
"There are some amazing people you can meet just by going to Church"

What do you want to learn in this class?
Many of them wrote "more about God", Confirmation, and Catholicism.  Here are the ones that stuck out to me:

"More about heaven and the afterlife"
"Just anything really"
"Anything about our faith.  I've gone to 'religion' my whole life- yet I still feel as if I know hardly anything about it"
"As much as I possibly can about God, the Church, everything I can!"
"Be more holy"

And that is why I'm here.  To teach them the beauty of our faith tradition, how our belief can call us to make a difference in this world, and that we are all called to be saints!

With that, we read the poem that recently blew up my Facebook mini-feed very recently.  It is a poem called "We Need Saints" and was mis-attributed to Pope Francis.  Oh well. 

But check it out because it is beautiful!  

We need saints without veil or cassock.
We need saints who wear jeans and sneakers.
We need saints who go to the movies, listen to music and hang out with friends.
We need saints who put God in first place, but who let go of their power.
We need saints who have time everyday to pray and who know how to date in purity and chastity, or who consecrate their chastity.
We need modern saints, Saints of the 21st century with a spirituality that is part of our time.
We need saints committed to the poor and the necessary social changes.
We need saints who live in the world and who are sanctified in the world, who are not afraid to live in the world.
We need saints who drink Coke and eat hot dogs, who wear jeans, who are Internet-savvy, who listen to CDs.
We need saints who passionately love the Eucharist and who are not ashamed to drink a soda or eat pizza on weekends with friends.
We need saints who like movies, the theater, music, dance, sports.
We need saints who are social, open, normal, friendly, happy and who are good companions.
We need saints who are in the world and know how to taste the pure and nice things of the world but who aren’t of the world.

(http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/blog/the-poem-pope-francis-never-wrote/)

We need YOUNG saints.  We need more lay people to step up and respond to the call of Jesus.  I shared this with them to encourage them to ask questions, to strive for holiness according to their already established lifestyles.  As 16 year olds, they still have a lot of limits- yet they can be saints in the way they approach their class work, the way they treat their peers, their attitude at football practice and play rehearsals, the way they talk to their parents and siblings, etc. 

I think they're already hooked to this idea and curious to know MORE. 

Check out the wall!!!  They did such a wonderful job!  It looks great and I know Mary is interceding for us.

  
This year I am teaching Sacraments and Morality.  Pretty sweet classes if you ask me!  Before I can start though, I needed to get an idea of where they're at in their knowledge of these topics.  I created a pre-assessment (pop quiz, whatever you want to call it), and warned them that if they answered all of them correctly, that I would have no reason for being there.

Now I did not expect them to know all of the answers, but I though they would have known a lot more than what they do.

Here are the questions I asked:

Define "sacrament."
List the 7 sacraments.
JEsus is truly present in the Eucharist.  True of False?
What is original sin?
You can only make your Baptism as an infant.  True or False?
The sacrament of Reconciliation is outdated and a sacrament that is no longer necessary.  True or False?
What can a priest do that deacons can't?
List the sacraments of healing.
List the sacraments of initiation.
What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit?
What will take place at your Confirmation?
What's the difference between a mortal and venial sin?
Why do we go to mass?
Can we really encounter the Holy Spirit through prayer, liturgy, and sacraments?
How does the ministerial priesthood differ from the communal priesthood?
What sacraments imprint an indelible mark on the souls of Christians?

To put it nicely, they had a really difficult time answering these questions.  I had one junior who was able to list all 7 of the sacraments.  Many thought the "washing of feet" was one of them.  Nobody could even list 1 gift of the holy spirit, most had the idea of what a mortal and venial sin flip-flopped, and one put that he honestly has no idea what Confirmation is.  They will all be making their Confirmation THIS year.  Now, I am bothered by the fact that my students have been in religious ed their entire lives, and a majority of them cannot at least list all 7 sacraments.  Only one student knew what the Assumption of Mary was, nobody had heard of St. Dominic, World Youth Day, etc.!  I mean, I know I'm in a small town, but REALLY?!?  My students are very intelligent.  They are taking Chemisty, Algebra 2 or even higher math, and yet all along they were given a very watered-down education of the most beautiful reality of this world-Jesus Christ and the Church!  

They have the desire to KNOW about their faith, and they want to be HOLY!  And I believe that they are holy!  I am so blessed that all of my students want to be there, recognize their desire for God, and want to take this class.  We will start from the beginning.  I am so privileged to teach them the greatest love story there is- How Jesus came, died, rose, ascended, and established the living Church for each and everyone of us.  

I'll be lesson planning this weekend and getting myself ready for our first full week of 80 minute classes!

Please keep my 11 students and I in your prayers!  

St. Paul, pray for us!
Holy Spirit, inspire us!

Day 1

As excited as I was for my first day of teaching, it wasn't how I had fantasized it. It was BETTER.  

I picked out a blue dress in honor of our Blessed Mother as it was the feast of the Assumption.  

After my 15 minute walk, I arrived at school about an hour before my first class of students would arrive.  I turned out the ceiling fan, turned on the AC, put the agenda on the white board, said a quick prayer for them and for the right words to say, and then I heard the buzzer.  They had arrived!

2 gentlemen and 2 ladies walked down the hall to my door way.  I greeted each with a smile and a firm handshake.  In they went.  And our class began.  Like all good things, we started with a prayer from one of my prayer devotionals that I used in high school.   

It was a short class since it was a half day so we had about 30 min together.  I asked them if they knew what took place at the Assumption and none of them had a clue, so I gladly started describing how it was such an amazing feast...I mean, Mary couldn't be like the rest of us and experience a "human death."  When we die, our souls will leave our bodies and at the final judgement, they will be reunited.  Well Mary went straight to heaven BODY AND SOUL!  She is THE perfect disciple of Jesus and our greatest fan!  I referred to her as our "Mama Bear" and that got my students to giggle.  With that I gave them a brief introduction of St. Dominic like any former student of the Nashville Dominican sisters and Dominican high school SHOULD do on their first day of teaching! ;)  I also taught them how the rosary came to be.  Based on our conversation, it appeared as though none of them quite know how to pray a rosary, but they kind of had an idea of what it is.  We then moved on to our fun activity of making a rosary for one of the bare walls in my classroom.  Sadly they had to go back to their other school.  I gave them their first and only homework assignment, a questionnaire for me to get to know their interests in their social lives but also in matters of our faith, and off they went.

A similar experience took place in the second class I had.  However, this class was much more talkative than the first group.  I knew I got ahead of myself when I started rambling about the Albigensians and dualism.  However, now they know what the term "heresy" means and who St. Dominic had to encounter and what they believed.  Oh yes, it made me chuckle because I was so ZEALOUS and then I noticed a few confused faces.  So I slowed down, finished my thought, and transitioned into the project.  

They were really excited to get to know me as I was to get to know them!  I even got invited to all of their games and performances.  #winning! Oh, and the ladies really appreciated the scrap booking paper I picked out for our Wall Rosary, especially the Chevron design.  

I introduced the books we will be using to both classes- The Bible, YouCat, and Catechism and explained how Mary says that we will reform our world by praying the rosary!  I know that both classes left excited to come back based on their kind words leaving class and their demeanor as a whole.

(spiritual weapons and sources of truth)

(Also, I gave them mass times and their locations because it was a holy day of obligation. Only in a Catholic setting could I ever dream of putting that on the board!)

It was so refreshing to know that my students are well-behaved and happy to be there.  During our introductions, I had them each tell me why they were here today.  While many said "So I can make my Confirmation" they also said "To get away from school."  I of course wanted to know why they wanted to get away and almost in unison they explained how stressful school is.  I assured them that I would not over-work them... BUT that they can expect this to be a very productive class and one in which will not only stretch their intellects but also their hearts.  Our goal is to have a heart for God! To be saints!  I got more into that the following day.  (Read the next post!)  

Most of my students are juniors with the exception of one senior.  The class is meant for both seniors and juniors mixed in together for the first 2 terms, but most people "graduate" from this class after they make their Confirmation (junior year).  I'm hoping to change that and hopefully help them realize that there is so much to learn about our faith and how having a peaceful environment and fellowship is essential for our faith development.

Unfortunately I left the letter I sent each of them home with at work. It is Pinterest inspired but I added my own twist to it.  Basically it tells them how much I care for them and want to grow in our belief and love for God together.  I'll post it later.

All in all, I guess you could say I like my job!!!    

Setting up my classroom

Inheriting your own classroom is one of the most exciting things for a new teacher.  For any of you that are aspiring teachers, be sure to come in a few days to CLEAN your classroom.  I can guarantee you that it will be dusty and it may appear like it had never been wiped down...because it probably hasn't.  I brought in a ton of cleaning supplies that I would normally use (old rags, lysol spray, wipes, windex, 409, and my handheld vacuum.)  I found cleaning supplies after I had already started to use mine, but it felt good to use what I'm used to. I'm a bit of a clean freak, if you didn't already know. It will smell much better after you clean and your classroom itself will be ready for a "fresh" start!  If you have a janitor they will probably clean your room to a certain extent, but in my case, we don't have a janitor, and I like to clean things my way, so there ya have it.  I'll stop blabbing about cleaning my classroom now!

This is what it looked like before I took over:

So I'm not a fan of the mural, but I can't do anything about it...

Scary Mary-you should have seen the other posters I've put in storage!

Old text books, etc.

Old Cork Board

This is what it looks like now! :)

New look for the cork board with a note to my students, a poem, and some pretty great role-models!  We are striving to be saints!

Day 1!  Assumption of Mary!

Between all of my classes, they created this in honor of Mary for the Assumption!  Just went up on the wall this morning! (8/16/2013)

Doesn't it look great?!  I love it!

More will be done to my classroom, but this is how it looks after Week 1!

I am a teacher!

I am a teacher.  Finally!  As far back as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a teacher, with the exception of wanting to be a vet because of my love for animals.  

I am very fortunate to have a job and to be doing what I love.  My grandfather always says, "If you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life."  Teaching has always brought me so much joy and fulfillment so that's why I have pursued it all along.

I can't begin to say how excited I was to get my own classroom and to begin my teaching career.  As you know, I attended Catholic Schools for 16 years of my life (aka my entire life).  My understanding of what it means to be Catholic comes from both formal and informal education, a number of different people, and a ton of experiences.  

When you ask kids what they want to "be" when they grow up, you don't typically hear anyone say "A religion teacher!"  Since my freshman year of high school, that's always something I've wanted to do.  I majored in English Literature, minored in Religious Studies, and received an Endorsement in Secondary Education.  I am able to teach in both the public and Catholic school systems in Illinois and Iowa.  

If you know anything about me, you know that I am a very faith-filled individual, and I believe that God has something planned for us well before we ever come to recognize what that is.

I student taught for a semester at a public school teaching sophomore English and a little bit with juniors and seniors for Publications and AP Literature.  I really enjoyed that and I thought realistically, I would end up teaching High School English somewhere around the Chicagoland area for my first teaching job.  English has always been my favorite subject in school.  Most would assume it was Religion, but I received such a watered down education of my faith in high school that it made me search outside of the classroom for more.  But yes, English and Religion were always my favorites!

Back to God's plans...I received a phone call on my last day of student teaching (4 days before my graduation) from the Director of Religious Education of a small school in a small town in Iowa.  A principal had recommended me for a job and passed my resume along to her.  With that, I went in for an interview 2 days before my graduation and found myself accepting the job 5 days after I graduated!  And boy, could I have been more excited or relieved?!  In a matter of moments, I accepted the most unique teaching job I could ever imagine.

Get this- I work for the St. Paul School of Religion.  I am the only teacher.  I am a full-time religion teacher.  My students go to the public high school which is about 2 blocks away.  The softball and football fields are right next to my building.  They sign up for a "release time" and get bussed over to my school for their Catholic education!  I have them for 80 minutes everyday.  I will have the same group of students for a term (8 weeks) and then I will receive an entirely new group of them!  I will teach the same curriculum 4 times (4 terms in a school year) to all of the high school students that sign up.  They are not required to take this class and they receive zero credit or recognition on their high school transcripts.  These students are there for a purpose.  They (or their parents) want to continue their education on matters of our faith.  

Oh, and days before I accepted the job, this is what my Grandma texted me (white box):

I can't remember, but I don't think I had told her about that job interview or how it had all come together until after I accepted the job.  All along it had been her prayer and I truly believe God's will for me to teach high school religion.  

The fact that I was able to be an "answered prayer" for her has been one of the reasons why I get out of bed and make the most of each day since her passing (July 11, 2013).  Here are a few more messages from her regarding the job (start reading from the first white box):

It has been 5 weeks since my Grandma, one of my biggest fans, has entered into eternal life.  As a Catholic, I know this is the greatest thing imaginable because she is no longer facing any kind of pain or suffering, yet, it is still one of the hardest realities that I am facing because I miss her SO much.  However, deep down in my heart, I know that she will always be with me, watching, and hopefully smiling because of all of my efforts.    I love you, Grandma Buddy!

I could not feel more privileged and excited for this huge undertaking.  We are all called to share our faith, yet I get to do it as a career this school year!

As crazy as it seems, I did take a leap of faith, and accepted my first teaching job in a small town in Iowa.  Everything is different here, yet the one reason why I am here is what is keeping me sane.  My faith is something nobody can ever take away from me, and that is what gives me comfort in this time of transition and change.

(The face of a teacher.  I know it's a selfie, but hey, when you're on your own that's about all you can do.)