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.