Take Time to Practice What You Teach


“The trick is teaching our students how to see those moments as gifts from God...as invitations from God to be in a relationship with Him. I am firmly convinced that our role as Catholic school teachers is to walk with these kids as they begin to hear and respond to God's call to know Him and to learn what True Love is.”
I had a conversation with a coworker the other day about needing time to step away from lesson plans and daily objective and the like. Even if our lessons and objectives address directly the need to cultivate Love in the classroom and to allow for increased dialogue, unless we actually create the space to make that happen, there is no real point to our lessons or objectives. It is one think to learn about cultivating Love; it is another thing to actually do it. I suppose it is similar to the difference between “book learning” and “experiential learning”. We need both.
St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare, Ireland. St. John, himself, realized that it wasn't his lessons that would save people; he must decrease so Jesus can increase. Teachers need to be the same. (photo P. Smith)

I am, perhaps, a bit over-obsessed with lessons and objectives. If I have 180 days to teach in a year, I can plan to have 181 lessons prepared (I plan to have an extra day just in case). But the reality is, the adolescent mind can only take so much rigor before the material they are studying becomes dry and without purpose to them. So, about every fifth day I take a day to not teach. Instead, I just want them to develop community… community with God and with each other. There are a million ways to do this, but, essentially, I try to create space for them to reflect and to practice. I create space for them to reflect on how much they are Loved and I cerate space for them to practice Loving each other. It is one thing to learn with the intellect; it is, in fact, essential to do so as we are made in the image and likeness of a rational and intelligent God. But we also need to practice what we learn about Loving and being Loved. The rest of our human self needs to learn this to, and we do so through encounter. Every moment we have with them is a gift…an opportunity for us, as teachers, to Love them and to be Loved by them. But maybe more importantly, every moment is a gift for them to encounter that same Love.

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