TEACHING & REACHING 5th GRADERS
Pretty soon I and another catechist will be trying to teach rudiments of Catholicism to 5th graders who will assemble after Sunday Mass. We have been provided with hefty books full of course material and advice on how to proceed. But the book is a product of the ‘visual literacy’ generation, having all sorts of things scrambled together on pages crammed with splashy colors and antic photographs and drawings. I’m sure we’ll manage fairly well; my partner has some allied experience at another parish to draw upon.
But I have a few objectives I want to achieve with the kids during our year together. I want to lead them somehow to improving their prayer lives. I’m going to ask them to find existing prayers for helping with their studying and learning, andyhe other things important in their lives, such as more intentionally loving their parents and the other people in their lives. And I want to encourage each of them toward picking out a ‘life verse’ of their very own. If they already have done so, all the better. Furthermore… I want to interest them, to a degree greater than is at present the case with them, in what takes place during the Mass. There’s a lot about the Mass in the splashy book, so this should be a done deal .
