Advent

Its coming to that time of year again, where people are preparing for Christmas, worrying about what presents they have to buy and rushing to the shops to buy the presents out of fear there wont be any left in a few weeks time. Christmas preparations appears to get earlier every year, it is crazy. Personally I think the celebration of Christmas changes every year. And with the changes every year, and the focus on presents, people forget the true meaning of Christmas.

For this reason I think it is important to teach students about Advent and the true meaning of Christmas so that they can see where Christmas came from and how it isn’t just about the presents or food on Christmas day. I started preparing my class for Advent last week by making the Advent wreath, so that we could finish it on Monday and have it ready for the next three weeks in school. To make the Advent wreath I got the students to draw around their hands and paint them green. We then waited for them to dry and cut them out. We glued the hands in a circle and decorated with green glitter, gold glitter around the edges and red berries to help add different textures to the art work. Next week we are going to finish off the wreath by creating candles out of toilet paper rolls and pink and purple card. I will then leave the wreath at the table that everyone sees when they enter the room so that the Advent wreath is a central figure in the classroom.

Next week I am going to introduce Advent properly and brainstorm what they know about Christmas and Advent and get them to differentiate between the two. Then I will play the PowToon I create on Advent, that I shared in the previous post to help discuss the importance behind the wreath. I will get the students to draw a wreath and label each of the candles so that they can stick them in their Religious Education scrapbooks. The students will then create their own ADVENT acrostic poems to help describe the time of Advent.

From my lessons I hope that the students will realise that Advent is a time of preparation, that Christians are awaiting the birth of Christ and remembering him throughout the Christmas period.

I found some useful resources online for Advent:

1. The Religion Teacher

2. Christmas Seomra Ranga

3. Loyola Press

4. Teaching Ideas

5. 

6.Dublin Diocese

There are many more useful resources online to help teachers prepare for Advent, this is just a short list to help you start your search.

Asking Questions

Last week I was teaching the story about Abraham and Sarah when I found my class asking questions about God. I let the lesson veer away from the story of Abraham and Sarah, and we ended up entering into a conversation about who is God? It wasn’t part of the plan, but the students directed their own learning by asking questions and letting me know about their hesitations towards religion. It made me realise that we need to teach our students that it is okay to ask questions about God, and about religion because that is what will help develop their faith. The first day I taught Religious Education, some of my students made me aware that they did not believe in God. However, from my class the other day it became evident that they had some belief in God, but they found it difficult to believe in someone that wasn’t human or something that didn’t have any literal evidence to prove his existence. This reminded me of a topic I taught during teaching placement. It was part of Section D: The Question of Faith, and the lesson was about asking questions and teaching students that it is okay to ask questions and question your faith. Attached below is a presentation that I found worked really well with the students.

Asking Questions

In November we remember

As you all know the month of November is the month where we remember all the souls that have passed before us. To incorporate this into my religion class I decided that as a class we would make a remembrance tree. First of all we went to the prayer room and we silently remembered all of the deceased. Then I brought the students back to the classroom and gave each student the outline of leaves. I asked each student to write the name of people that they would like us to remember this month. They then decorated them and together we made the classroom display above our sacred space. We are now going to make a Book of Remembrance that we can place on our sacred space and remember the souls while we meditate every Monday and Wednesday. In the Book of Remembrance each student will get a chance to fill out a sheet about the person or persons they want us to remember, describing who they are or a happy memory of them. They can either include a photograph or draw a picture symbolising them. The students really like this and it is particularly fitting as there were a few deaths within their families within the past few months.

Christianity: Leaving Certificate Religious Education

Leaving Certificate students look at Jesus in Contemporary Culture. However, I think this is a section that we could utilize with younger students. I think looking at Jesus in art, music and other things they can relate to will really help the students to engage with Jesus, especially for students who have trouble talking about and understanding Jesus. Below is a presentation that I used with 5th year students to discuss Jesus in contemporary culture.

I split the students into groups and gave them the words of the songs, the audio of the songs and images of Jesus in art. I then gave them a class to discuss the images and music in their groups. I listened to what they thought the images and words said about Jesus first, before I told them anything about them. They then researched the images and words of the songs and presented them to the class as minor projects. The students learned more by researching because they had to find out the information for themselves. Then after they had their own information about each song and image, I discuss them further and ensured that they had the vital proponents of information about each one. They then had to research Jesus in another contemporary song and present them to the class. This helped the class to develop a collection of songs that incorporated Jesus and his message in some way.

The students engaged with this on a deeper level with the topic by doing it themselves, rather than me just telling them what they need to know. It was a powerful way to help them understand Jesus in contemporary culture.

Jesus in Art

How Faith can help people to deal with grief

Throughout the week, the story of Sanjeev Chada and how he murdered his two sons permeated the Irish papers and radios. On Friday, his wife Kathleen made an appearance on The Late Late Show to talk about her horrific ordeal 14 months ago. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story I will give a brief synopsis.

Sanjeev was sentenced to two life sentences on Tuesday for murdering his two young sons, Eoghan and Ruairi. Sanjeev told Kathleen that he was going to bring the boys bowling to give her a break. The two “popular, gorgeous boys” were found in the boot of their father’s car after he strangled them to death, before attempting to take his own life.The court heard last week that Chada had also planned to kill his wife Kathleen, but feared that she would be too strong. Chada and Kathleen had been suffering difficulties in their marriage as a result of Sanjeev’s gambling problems.

In a note to his children he wrote: “I could not let you bear the pain of being from a broken home. Mammy is getting rid of me and I could not leave you behind. I have so much to teach you but I could not do that if I was not with you.

“We will be together now in some way … in the most beautiful country, your mate and Daddy.”

Kathleen’s appearance on The Late Late Show helped show the audience how strong she is. She is an inspiration in how she has dealt with her horrific experience. She talked with such strength and grace. She talked about how her Catholic faith has helped her to overcome such an ordeal. It really helps give other people an insight into how our faith can help us to overcome obstacles in our lives. She admits that she doesn’t go to mass every week and that she will never be able to forgive her husband for what he has done. However, she still asserts that her faith is strong and that her faith is what has helped her to move on with life.

I think this would be a good story to share with an older group in Religious Education to help show that faith comes in different forms and sizes, but that it can help us to deal with our difficult experiences in life. Kathleen truly is an inspirational woman. The Late Late Show 10th October

Images of God

Everyone has a different image of God. In today’s climate, we as teachers cannot assume that everyone will believe in God so we have to work from examples and images that they can relate to so that they can engage with the topic. It is not our job to make them believe in God, but it is our job to help them to understand what we are learning about.

Last year when I was completing teaching placement in a multi-denominational school I used the following PowerPoint presentation and the students responded really well to it. I think if you help the students to visualize what you are trying to teach them they will engage with it on a deeper level, rather than just discussing it.

Images of God in Scripture i

Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Malala would be a great person to research for Religious Education. She is a wonderful role model for young people around the world, especially girls.