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| DV Julia Butts |
Our latest blog post comes from Dominican Volunteer Julia Butts. Julia reflects on her experience as a religious education teacher at the St. Francis Center, a center for low-income families in Redwood City, California and the awe-inspiring privilege to offer life lessons to her fourth grade students.
As a DV, I wear three hats: religious education teacher,
English as a second language tutor, and advocacy coordinator for an after
school program. That last hat is actually more like lots of hats disguised as a
single one, but that’s a blog post for another time. Today I want to focus on
the hat that’s surprised me the most: the hat of being a religious education
teacher.
When Sister Christina asked me how I’d feel about being a
religious ed teacher, I was practically speechless. I told her I didn’t feel
particularly qualified, but I would definitely be willing to give it a go. With
a teacher’s manual in hand, I embarked on teaching 4th graders about the
Catholic faith.
I quickly realized the gravity of my job. For some of the
students, these three forty-minute classes per week are the primary education
they have in their faith. At ten years old,
they mostly do what their parents tell them to do when it comes to church. But
someday, they’ll decide if they get confirmed. They’ll decide whether to go to
church. On a deeper level, and even as soon as today, they’ll believe or not
believe. They’ll feel God’s loving presence in their lives, or they won’t.
They’ll pray, or they’ll reject prayer. They will feel called to service, or
not. These are experiences and decisions they will re-face innumerable times
over the course of their lives. And I’m in a position to influence them. It’s
kind of a big deal, and so, one I don’t take lightly.
Thus, I’ve found myself reflecting on my goals in this role
and on the impact of my teaching. Of course, I’m motivated by wanting my
students to have a strong Catholic faith. But I’m more so motivated by wanting
them to a) be informed about their faith, and b) to develop gospel values.
As they’re making choices down the road about whether or not
they’re going to practice Catholicism, or another Christian faith, or another
religion entirely, or no religion at all, I want them to have learned as much
as they can about the faith they “started out” in. In my personal experience
and the experiences of others that I’ve witnessed, the more one inquires about
and learns about their Catholic faith, the more confident and faithful they
become. And one thing’s for sure: religion is complicated. My students ask me
so many questions. I answer all that I can and look up answers to the questions
I can’t. And when the questions enter more complex theology that I could
explain, but it’s a bit beyond their level of comprehension, I praise them for
their inquiries and encourage them to keep studying and their questions will be
answered. I want them to view this learning process as a lifelong one.
What I truly love is that being a religion teacher is about
imparting values. My class is time dedicated to developing moral compasses,
explicitly exploring and discussing what it means to be good. We learn about being generous even when we’d
rather be selfish. We learn about being kind to our enemies, and merciful to
those who hurt and offend us. We learn about respecting the dignity of every
single human being. We learn to care for creation. We learn to love. We learn
how difficult it can be to do all of these things, but how faith gives us the
strength to do all things.
At the end of each day, I hope that my students are
inspired. I hope they feel God’s individual and immeasurable love for them, and
in feeling God’s love, spread that love in all they do. I hope that regardless
of whether they practice religion in a traditional sense, they stand by their
values and strive to be good even when (especially when) it’s difficult to do
so. I feel blessed to play a part in the
formation of their minds and hearts, and pray that I do my job well.
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| Some of Julia's teaching materials |
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