Religous Education .......Home or at Church?

This has been a frustrating year for volunteering as a teacher for the chosen religious education program. I am not a teacher, so I volunteer with watching the preschool age children which this year range from age 2 through 4. This age group is not included in the curriculum for this particular program, so this allows me the freedom to entertain this age group for the 30 to 45 minutes I have them with me. I do try to plan activities that relate somewhat to the subject the older children and adults will be discussing in their classes.

This program meets once a month with a theme predetermined for each month. The adult class not only teaches the adults, but the parents should be able to take what they have discussed in their class and be able to build upon what their children learned. The children's classes are separated by grade level and the teachers are supposed to teach the theme accordingly.

There were complaints by some of the parents that were recently brought to the attention of the church community. In my opinion, these complaints should have been dealt with on an individual basis and not shared with the community as a whole. The complaints as described to the community were more of the parent not understanding the purpose of the program and now the community is questioning whether or not the church is teaching the children appropriately concerning our faith.

As the volunteers met beginning in August to prepare for the first class, I learned that many were not teachers nor had been trained in any way as a teacher. I also learned quickly that none of us would be trained at all in teaching this program. It appears that different age groups are not learning the same subject matter as other age groups, or that the children are not learning the basic foundation of our religion. This may be due to the fact that the "teachers" do not know how to teach and I'm including those who are leading the adult group.

It is very difficult to be a teacher/leader in a job when the person doesn't not have experience or knowledge of that job. This program is run by a church employee, but is staffed with volunteers. It is also difficult to recruit only volunteers who are teachers, or even student teachers. This program would need about 18 for both days and these volunteers would have to commit for 10 months. This may be easier if our recruitment when outside the parish and didn't have to include begin a practicing member of our religion. Knowing this, some type of training or lesson plans should be given to these volunteers. Yes, themes are given and suggestions of web sites where ideas can be found are also given. These are nice tools, but if someone doesn't know how to use these tools to write a lesson plan that teacher has been set up to fail. (I do ask my daughter if what I have planned is too much or above the age group I have because again I am not nor am I trained as a teacher.)

I was taught that it is the parents responsibility to teach their children about their religious faith and the church's responsibility to build upon what the parents have and are teaching their children. As my children are now grown for the most part and are about to embark out on their own, I have learned that many parents are relying on others to teach their children instead of relying on themselves as parents. This may be due to circumstances of say single parenthood, or by choice. However, I still strongly believe that there are very few cases where the parent should rely on others to raise their children.

All in all, this is a great program and I feel that the majority of the children are learning about our faith. There are always those few in the crowd that will upset the applecart, and now we will see what our program coordinator is made of.