Christ in the Classroom

A good guide for Sunday school teachers filled with helpful advice and tips on what not to do within the first few pages, it helps you optimise your lessons for all ages - perfect if you teach either a wide age range or a small bracket.

I found Christ in the Classroom when perusing NetGalley one day and decided to give it a try.  It is Jared Dees' thesis that unless our students develop a relationship with Christ, we are wasting our time.  I tend to agree.  While I understand why religion texts seem to have gotten longer and more complex over the years, it seems to me, especially when working with basically unchurched kids, that all we are doing is (attempting to)filling their heads with trivia.  If you have no relationship with Jesus are you going to attend Mass?  If you don't attend Mass, does it matter if you can define transubstantiation or epiclesis? 

Dees advocates integrating real times of prayer into your class and the form of prayer he advocates is Lectio Divina, basically praying with scripture. 

Regarding those overly wordy textbooks, Dees recommends picking a limited number of points to make and rather than trying to cover the whole chapter, make those points in a variety of ways--and then use them as a basis for prayer. 

The book itself is easy to read and would be a good gift for any new catechist and well as for experienced ones who are open to trying something new. 

Dees is the author of the website The Religion Teacher which has both free and paid resources. 

I'd like to thank Dees and the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.  Grade: B+

Catholic school principals, dioceses, Directors of Religious Education, team leads in Catholic schools, and anyone who wants to be an effective catechist, listen up: you need to read this book. And if you are a leader in your parish or school with teachers or volunteers who teach kiddos, you need to buy a copy of this for every one of them.

As a teacher, I can confidently share that Jared Dees has compiled current research on pedagogy in a succinct manner and applied it to the religious education classroom. Is teaching the Faith about knowing the answers to pop quiz questions? The author says it is not and all of us should agree. But how do we accomplish bringing our students to learn to love God rather than just know about Him? This book breaks down an encompassing method: apply Lectio Divina to your lesson planning.

Dees doesn't just mean that you should be preparing your lessons through prayerful consideration and meditation, but he actually creates a structure for the lesson that follows the four steps of Lecito Divina (he adds one more), corresponding to the chapters. He encourages teachers to be the "guide on the side" instead of simply lecturing and to engage students through those Lectio Divina steps: reading, meditating, praying, contemplating, and acting. Dees concludes that this structure is not meant to be a template (probably so a teacher who has been teaching for years doesn't throw their hands up in frustration that they're supposed to change everything they're doing), but that the teacher can just apply the principles to what he or she is already doing. Personally, if a teacher aims to lead his or her students to Christ, rather than just to answering the questions right, they would follow his structure (and abundant tips, resources, examples, and suggestions!) to a T.

Many parishes and Catholic schools hire good people who have never taught before or who need a refresher on the best way to teach (read: don't just lecture all day). This book, if read and discussed in a staff-wide book club, could be a linchpin. It teaches pedagogy for all education philosophy, reflects on the importance of leading students to encounter Christ, and provides specific and concrete resources that teachers can take and use in tomorrow's lesson plans. Highly recommended.

An interesting book for Christian educators
Jared Dess is the creator of the website "The Religious Teacher" that offers free and paid resources. He is also engaged in a variety of Catholic ministries and author of books and articles. His book "Christ in the Classroom - Lesson Planning for the Heart and Mind" is primarily written for Catholic educators and catechists, some of the concepts can also be applied by educators from different Christian backgrounds (Evangelicals, Lutherans, ...). It is good fro people who have no background in pedagogy. Dees shows the mistakes that are made by educators: long lectures, limited class engagement, lack of relevance for students. Instead, in his opinion, there should be worksheets and resources that challenge the students and help them to make connections to their daily life. Dees encourages to guide the students and shows how to engage them by applying the four steps of the Lectio Divina: reading, meditating, praying, contemplating. As a final steps he adds the step of acting because he is convinced that the natural effect of an encounter with Christ is action and that the students "start to see how they are being called to think and act differently. They start to see how they must live their lives in new ways."
Not being Catholic, it was an interesting book to read and I recommend the book for Christian educators of various traditions who have an open mind and are looking for new ideas for their teaching (and some of the ideas can even be applied in other subjects where a Christian world view can also be applied).
The complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley free of charge. I was under no obligation to offer a positive review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
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