31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator
By Jared Dees and Joe Paprocki
4.5/5
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About this ebook
Volunteer catechists and professional religion teachers are responsible for two unique and challenging tasks: sharing (and assessing) information and the spiritual formation of their students. This succinct, practical resource helps busy catechists and religion teachers with both tasks and is designed for use either over consecutive days in one month, or by specific themes that encourage personal improvement in areas of discipleship, service, leadership, and overall teaching. Each of the thirty-one days includes a clear title that gives the lesson theme, a quotation from Scripture, an introduction to the exercise, step-by-step actions to take for the day, and spiritual enrichment ideas for the educator.
Jared Dees
Jared Dees is the creator of the popular website The Religion Teacher, which provides practical resources and effective teaching strategies to religious educators. He is respected graduate of the Alliance for Catholic Education program at the University of Notre Dame, where he earned master’s degrees in education and theology. Dees has served as a Catholic school religion teacher and now volunteer catechist for more than a decade. He is the content marketing manager at Ave Maria Press and the author of 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator; To Heal, Proclaim, and Teach; and Praying the Angelus. His articles have appeared in Momentum, CATECHIST, Catechetical Leader, and on numerous websites. Dees lives in South Bend, Indiana, with his wife and four children.
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Reviews for 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator
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Book preview
31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator - Jared Dees
"Jared Dees is one of the most gifted young catechetical leaders of our time. 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator—full of inspiration and practical insight—is a wonderful gift to the Church."
Rev. Timothy R. Scully, C.S.C.
Founder of Alliance for Catholic Education
University of Notre Dame
Dees offers practical ideas and simple exercises for deepening your faith and improving your performance as a teacher/catechist. It’s boot camp basics for a new teacher and offers new and improved techniques for veteran catechists. You won’t be disappointed. Two pages a day for a month and if you only make one change, I guarantee you will be happier and so will your students. Read it, start exercising the idea, and it will become part of your DNA of teaching. It’s simple but essential on the road to being a great catechist who connects head, heart, and hands—both yours and theirs. Dees has taken our basic desire to improve, combined it with the essentials of good teaching, mingled in the core elements of a good spiritual life, and added a dose of servant leadership to create a self-help book for both initial teachers and long-time catechists. It’s an easy read with practical exercises to maximize your potential for success.
Leland Nagel
Executive Director
National Conference for Catechetical Leadership
The chapters of this book have very practical concepts and ideas for catechists, but more importantly, the ‘going deeper’ section brings in an applicable spiritual dimension.
Sr. Margaret Kuntz, A.S.C.J.
Director of the Office of Catechesis
Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee
"The strength of any Catholic school lies in the ability of its teachers to deliver and communicate our faith with enthusiasm and personal witness. 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator offers encouragement and practical advice to religious educators in order to better serve their students and enhance their own abilities as Catholic school teachers."
Diane Starkovich
Superintendent of Schools
Archdiocese of Atlanta
A handy and practical tool from an emerging voice in religious education for enriching and enlivening faith development.
Gerard F. Baumbach
Senior Catechetical Advisor
Institute for Church Life
University of Notre Dame
Jared Dees has created an exciting and superbly practical field guide for those who love the Catholic faith and have a passion for effective teaching.
Lisa Mladinich
Author of Be an Amazing Catechist
You can always spot someone who is a natural teacher, and Jared Dees fits the description. Dees understands the ins and outs of the religious education classroom and offers tried-and-true strategies for helping religious educators more effectively share information with and spiritually form their students.
Joe Paprocki
Author of The Catechist’s Toolbox
"Jared Dees is one of the most innovative catechists writing today. He brings his considerable knowledge and experience to bear in 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator. Even the most veteran catechists are sure to find valuable insights, tips, and advice to help them in their ministry."
Jonathan Sullivan
Director of Catechetical Services
Diocese of Springfield in Illinois
"Dees offers an extensive collection of simple, practical, and well-researched ideas and strategies for becoming effective catechists in parish faith formation programs and religion teachers in Catholic schools.
"31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator can be used individually, in small groups, and for in-service programs. It is for beginning and veteran catechists/religion teachers and helps them develop clear and practical plans for nurturing the spiritual formation of their students at the elementary, junior high, and senior high levels."
Daniel J. Pierson
Coauthor of What Do I Do Know?: A Guide for the Reluctant Catechist
"As a religious educator, one who supports catechists in my work, and especially as a mom—and thus as the primary faith formation teacher for my sons—I am thrilled to have Jared Dees’s tremendous new resource, 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator, in my arsenal. Dees shows each of us a manageable path toward becoming more effective in our sharing of the faith with those we serve. This book belongs in every Catholic parish, classroom, and home."
Lisa M. Hendey
Author of A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms
This is a thoroughly practical, modern methodology grounded in Scripture and oriented toward the spiritual. Jared Dees defines what Catholic religious education needs to be.
Marc Cardaronella
Director of Religious Education
Holy Cross Church, Champaign, IL
Jared Dees provides a terrific resource for catechists and teachers not only on how to bear great fruit in the classroom, but also on how they are called to be spiritually nourished in their ministry of passing on the faith in the third millennium. This will be a valuable resource not just to read once, but to constantly come back to and be encouraged, challenged, and inspired.
William O’Leary
Director of Religious Formation
Church of the Ascension
Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible with Revised New Testament and Revised Psalms © 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC, and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
____________________________________
© 2013 by Jared Dees
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews, without written permission from Ave Maria Press®, Inc., P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556, 1-800-282-1865.
Founded in 1865, Ave Maria Press is a ministry of the United States Province of Holy Cross.
www.avemariapress.com
Paperback: ISBN-10 1-59471-384-7, ISBN-13 978-1-59471-384-2
E-book: ISBN-10 1-59471-385-5, ISBN-13 978-1-59471-385-9
Cover image © Getty Images.
Cover and text design by Andy Wagoner.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Contents
Foreword by Joe Paprocki
Introduction
Part I: Become a Better Disciple
Day 1: Recall Your Calling as a Religious Educator
Day 2: Recognize Your Relationship with Christ
Day 3: Imitate One of the Best Teachers in Your Life
Day 4: Spend Time Reading the Scriptures
Day 5: Spend Time Reading the Writings of a Saint
Day 6: Learn Something from Your Students
Day 7: Improve One Prayer Habit
Part II: Become a Better Servant
Day 8: Identify Your Students’ Top Needs
Day 9: Identify Your Students’ Biggest Strengths
Day 10: Get to Know a Student before or after Class
Day 11: Write a Note of Praise to a Student Who Struggles
Day 12: Compliment a Parent about Their Child
Day 13: Pray for Your Students
Part III: Become a Better Leader
Day 14: Eliminate the Time-Wasters
Day 15: Update Your Classroom Procedures
Day 16: Update Your Classroom Rules
Day 17: Articulate the Vision for Your Classroom
Day 18: Practice Giving Positive, Constructive Feedback
Day 19: Give Students Ownership over Certain Tasks
Part IV: Become a Better Teacher
Day 20: Write Out Why the Lesson Is Important
Day 21: Draft or Edit Student Learning Objectives
Day 22: Assess Without a Test
Day 23: Simplify Your Lesson
Day 24: Tell a Story in Class
Day 25: Change the Way Your Students Read Their Textbook
Day 26: Plan and Assign a Project
Day 27: Incorporate Music into Your Day
Day 28: Liberate Students from Their Chairs
Day 29: Review a Lesson from the Past
Day 30: Visualize a Lesson in Action
Day 31: Become a Witness
Foreword
In my travels around the country, speaking to catechists and catechetical leaders, I like to ask my audiences to indicate how many years they have been serving as catechists: first year? five years? ten? fifteen? twenty? Typically, I’ll find someone who has twenty plus years of teaching experience. Once, however, as I went through this routine, one woman’s hand remained in the air: thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five, fifty, fifty-five . . . I finally gave up and just asked her how many years she had been serving as a catechist. She proudly announced, sixty years!
She had been a catechist longer than I had been alive. What was even more impressive, however, was the fact that, here she was, attending a workshop to learn practical skills for teaching the Catholic faith! She gets it: The most effective religion teachers are those who never tire of looking for, acquiring, and implementing practical skills and strategies for teaching the faith.
Jared Dees gets that as well. He knows that practical ideas help bring the faith to life and that parish catechists and Catholic school religion teachers are in need of practical strategies for catechizing effectively. I have no doubt that, like that woman I met at one of my workshops, Jared will still be excitedly pursuing the latest practical teaching strategies when he’s in his sixth decade of teaching!
It is Jared’s practicality, combined with his deep faith, that I find so compelling and inspiring. I have closely watched Jared’s career in catechetical ministry, happily observing him evolve into one of the bright young stars
on the catechetical scene. I have had the pleasure of knowing Jared for a number of years now and always enjoy meeting him out on the speaker’s circuit where I am glad to say, he is making a name for himself as one of the most sought-after speakers in the field of catechesis.
Now, Jared brings all of this—his practicality, depth, youthful enthusiasm, and creativity—to this book, 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator, which he aptly describes as providing "practical