The Catholic School Leaders Podcast

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Catholic School Leaders Podcast. We discuss all things important to leadership and growth in Catholic education.

I'm your host, John Mahalio. Now I want you to think about your school or maybe your classroom, and I want you to think about the lessons that happen in your classroom. Think about lessons in language arts. And there might be centers, amazing lessons with the goal of getting kids to love reading. Math might be filled with manipulatives, maybe candy to sort, or things of that nature.

In science, teachers do incredible experiments, and they show the way something reacts to something else, usually meant to awe our students. In social studies, there's opportunities to do real world simulations, or memorable lessons that bring history to life for our students. But what about teaching religion?

Do your religion teachers and religion classes carry the same [00:01:00] passion as they do in language arts, math, science, or social studies? Now if that answer is no, then I'm going to ask you to reflect on why that is. If the answer is no, I'm guessing your lessons are probably worksheets or reading out loud.

They're very plain, very vanilla lessons, but yet teaching our faith is what makes us as a Catholic school, not just a private school. So my guest today in this two part series is Greg Aitchinson, who not only brings his classroom to life when it comes to religion class, but he makes it something memorable for his students.

And what Greg does is incredible, and something any teacher can bring to their classrooms immediately. And when Greg and I sat down for this interview to record it, we had set up about a 40 minute time to discuss this important topic, but the conversation was so good and so deep that Discussion was so fantastic that this is going to turn into a two part series with Greg and today is the first part of those of this series.

Now before I introduce Greg, I want to stop and start with a prayer to start our podcast. So I'm going to ask you just to [00:02:00] take a minute and join me if you would. As we start our episode with a prayer. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to come together today as your children to talk about and discuss bringing the faith to life for our students.

Please bless my guest today, Greg Aitchinson, in his work and his vocation, so that together we may give your name honor, praise, and glory through our discussion. We pray it will bring your light, love, and mission to our listeners and to the world. We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

As I mentioned before, this is a first in a two part series. I know you're going to enjoy this interview so much. And if you do, I encourage you, please subscribe, and if you can, drop a quick review or a rating. And feel free to share this with other Catholic school educators in your network.

This helps us to get the podcast out to more Catholic school educators [00:03:00] and leaders just like you, which helps us to work together to grow Catholic education. Thank you so much for listening. Enjoy today's interview. Today my guest is Greg Achinson, religion teacher and founder of CatholicReligionTeacher. com, which contains many resources for Catholic educators. Greg is a husband of one, father of four, born and raised in Iowa.

He met Jesus in high school, questioned his faith in college, discerned the priesthood, and then taught religion for two years in Texas and 12 years in Minnesota. He describes himself as a lover of fitness, theology, sports, and desserts, trying his best to be happy, healthy, and a holy saint. Greg, welcome to the Catholic School Leaders Podcast.

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Schedule a time to discuss your challenges and your goals for free at www. elementaryadvancement. com. Welcome, Greg! It's great to have you here today.

Thank you. Good to be here.

Yeah so I have been just seeing all the amazing things that you have done as a Catholic school teacher, and just in hearing the bio it sounds like even that first year of teaching you were asked to teach maybe not just one or two things, but but a whole bunch of subjects in one year.

I'm sure that's probably not unfamiliar to a lot of our teachers out there. Tell me a little bit about your journey into Catholic schools and Catholic [00:05:00] education.

Yeah, for sure. So I'll make the faith story as short as I can, but grew up Catholic, Catholic grade school, Catholic high school. And then after Catholic high school went off to public university and that was the first time like, for many folks, I started questioning my faith and saying, am I Catholic because my parents were, because my friends were, because I went to Catholic grade school and high school no I want to be Catholic because it's true.

So I started questioning things then and didn't have a lot of answers on campus, as you can imagine. In different pockets. I was living in a frat house for some crazy reason and finding a lot of wonderful Catholic answers there. So I transferred to the University of St. Thomas up here where I am right now in Minnesota.

And I transferred basically I need to figure out these answers. Cause my world was flipping upside down. I was, like, the the moment of, like, all right, if there is no God or if Jesus isn't who he said he was, then that changes everything. And so yeah, I literally transferred so I could study theology.

I had no career plans necessarily. I was in environmental studies, [00:06:00] an animal science major at that point, and I was like, I just need to figure out the answer. So I transferred. to study theology full time and in the process left all of it and said, I can't be Catholic anymore if I don't have the solid answers yet.

I should have the answers because I went to Catholic grade school and Catholic high school. Part of that might be my problem, like maybe I wasn't paying as well of attention as I should have in school. I also was a typical kid. I didn't really care about my faith all that much at the time I wasn't as in tuned into my religion classes.

I did fine in school, of course, but I also believe I didn't get the top notch high octane Catholic content that I think is maybe out there more today, and some teachers are delivering today. So again, long story short, I became an agnostic for about a year. Just said, I need to figure out these answers before I, go receive communion and keep going to church, things like that.

Lo and behold, whether I wanted to or not, I kept on asking all the questions and I kept on finding answers. All the answers were turning out to be Catholic, much to my chagrin, , [00:07:00] because that means I can't just go live my life and do whatever the heck I wanna do the rest of my life. It's gotta change and conform to the gospel and yeah I became Catholic over time, but a big piece of that puzzle was.

having just awesome professors who not only knew the faith and taught it very well, but also lived it out. Like they joined those two things together quite well. And the icing on the Catholic cake, I always say is I did a pilgrimage out to Rome with some friends and got to go to Mass with JP too.

Walk, go in the catacombs, just see the history of the church there. And, that was the last moment okay, like I'm in, like I'm back, I got all the big questions answered. And not only the professors on campus, but this was 2003 ish. And so the internet was. Blossoming a little bit more, so I found Peter Kreeft online, and he had a number of talks that were available that I started downloading, just started binging his, theology, philosophy talks.

Jason Everett was showing up on there as well, and so finding [00:08:00] some of those great Catholic speakers out there and just binging those audio tracks was a big piece of the puzzle, too.

And I think people may overlook just how, as you just said, readily accessible things are now, but 20 years ago, it wasn't we, we're probably still in the, I'm going to show my age on this. We're in the Napster days or the things like that, where you had to, but to go out there and find things was more of a challenge and, or you had to go to the, the go to your church and maybe they had a cassette or a CD or something like that you could borrow and that was really where things stemmed from.

But now, hey, with the beauty of technology, we have the ability to be in two different states in two different parts of the country and discuss the faith and bringing the faith alive to students all across the country and all across the world.

Yeah, so cool. I know there's so many more and when I started teaching That's when YouTube just popped up and around it before that was available I was just using these really grainy [00:09:00] videos that I found on some other random websites and there's just handfuls out there

Oh, yeah. And they're probably still VHS, right?

Yep

So talk about talk about, so you get, you go back and you get your degree in theology and then you get an opportunity to teach in a Catholic school. Talk about that and how that came to be and what that first year was like, because I'm sure there's teachers out there right now who are maybe in their first year of teaching, and at the time we're recording this, they may be in their first few weeks of teaching and teach in religion for the first time, or teach in whatever particular subjects they are, and in the Catholic school for the first time.

Talk about how you became a Catholic school teacher and what that first year was like for you.

yeah. So there's a little detour in there from college to teaching. I broke up with my girlfriend and went off to seminary and just served in the priesthood for a year at Munderland Seminary. I actually had Father Barron at the time, Bishop Barron now, as my political and [00:10:00] social philosophy professor, and that was amazing.

But just a year of formation, prayerful formation, studying philosophy, studying theology, it's just I love this stuff. Now, I came back to the church. I was eating it all up it was great and so discerning the priesthood, again, I was like, I came back, I was Catholic, I wanted to be all in, and part of that process was like, alright, Lord, I'm all in, and God said alright, are you all in to the point where you'd be a priest, and I was like yeah, but I'm dating this girl, and I want to marry her so anyway, I like to

Which is which is hard I mean I had the opportunity to interview One of our seminarians here with it within the diocese that I'm at and just to here are the sacrifices that are made and to get to the point where you say yes to the priesthood is huge. And sometimes God has that.

vocation for us of the priesthood or sometimes it's a vocation of married life. God definitely leads us to where he wants us to be for sure.

Yeah, and I see bits of how the Lord used this time in my life to form me into being the [00:11:00] teacher and now the husband and father and entrepreneur that I am now, but yeah, I think that time was very crucial in a lot of ways. First of all, it was the big gut check. Are you really all in now?

Prove it. And then being in seminary and the Lord pretty quickly saying, you know what? Yeah. I don't actually want you to be a priest but you proved to me that you're all in, you wrote the check, the blank check with your life, you gave it to me, I'm gonna use this year as an extra year of formation, studying, prayer, so on, and after this I want you to go get that girl, and marry her, be a husband and father someday, and go teach the faith, teach in a way that you probably didn't experience growing up in your grade school and high school.

And so I knew about the Notre Dame ACE program, which is Alliance for Catholic Education,

Fantastic program.

yeah, and I didn't have, I didn't have a degree in education. I actually started that for a little while in college when I was doing my theology degree. I was also doing Catholic studies and youth ministry.

And I [00:12:00] started down the secondary education path. And this is crazy to say, but I found those classes to be the most boring classes of all my classes on campus. And I was like, I don't want to teach ever if this is how boring and like how unenthused the professors in this department are. And I'm sure there are new professors there now who do a great job, but I was so unimpressed.

I was like, I'm done. If the

makes a big difference.

yeah, the Lord wants me to teach, he's going to find some other way to get me there. And that was it seminary. And then the ACE program, you do your master's in education through Notre Dame and you do two summers on campus, some classes during the year.

And they send you wherever they want to send you to, to fill in a role as a teacher. So I was sent to Dallas, Texas. I thought I'd be teaching high school theology. They said, no, we could use a middle school theology teacher. And I got to the school there and the principal said, you know what, based on your background and your, your philosophy and theology formation, let's have you do all fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade, [00:13:00] and eighth grade theology.

Let's give you second graders, too, because they're doing first communion, and how about fifth grade science and social studies, because we need that help, too. I was like, oh gosh,

Sounds like a perfect plan, right?

Yeah, what can go wrong? And

go wrong?

I feel for all the teachers that are out there that have the same kind of thing. I just had an email from a teacher yesterday who said she has eight preps to prepare for.

I was like, oh my gosh, I'm praying for you. Hang in

Yeah, no doubt. And when those things happen, they tend to get one planning period which is so hard. It makes it so hard. And then, we see teachers get burned out and we lose great teachers because, our schools are struggling to have the resources to fill all the spots that they need or to have the money to fill, but then we have a great teacher who we're asking too much of and they get burned out and say, you know what, I don't need this.

I want to do it. I love doing this, but it's just too much. And that just, it breaks my heart when I see that. Yeah, [00:14:00] so you walk into the classroom for the first time and in, I guess in any one of your 15 classrooms, I guess I could say that that you were in that first year talk to me about because I think one of the things that you, and I remember one of our priests said this a few years ago, he said, if you're going to have a great Lent, You need to know what success looks like at the end of Lent.

Okay? If you just give up chocolate or you give up whatever okay, what does that look like at the end when it's successful? Okay? So you have to know where you're starting from to know what success is going to look like at the end. When you get it into the classroom for the first time as a Catholic school teacher, and you're actually teaching religion, so let's focus on that topic.

Tell me what what's your first impressions? Is it wow, these kids are on fire? Or maybe that opposite piece of things, where it's this is just a class. Because as you said, you have to live the faith. The teachers and the professors that live the faith, I think, really bring it alive for the kids.

Yeah, and [00:15:00] actually what you alluded to earlier when we were chatting. The textbooks that they had, at least at this time, in 2005, were not, let's say, the most inspiring to me, as the teacher or the students. They had some pictures, but a whole lot of text, and actually, Just met with a teacher recently and she was chatting with me saying you know what?

I want the faith to come alive with my students. One great thing we have going on today, which I didn't quite have back then, but there are, there are a number of resources back then that you can pick and choose from. They were all similar in sense of like very text heavy. Some of them are more Catholic than others is what I'll say, and so at least there's a little bit of benefit there.

But this teacher I was chatting with, she said, you know what, we've got a curriculum that is super Catholic. It's really. Really solid in the teachings of the church. And she's this is great. I was like, yes, that's awesome But she's but look at it and it's again very text heavy And so we're just chatting yes, you have to take use that [00:16:00] maybe especially if you're coming in new use that as a guide You know use the topics and the order that they give you use the best from the book that you can, but then there's so many other resources out there that you can pull from and add into your class.

You can add in your own stories and connections. You can create your own silly rhymes silly songs actions with things, bring in Catholic art to connect with it. There are so many ways to, add on to those resources to supplement them in great ways. And that's what I realized right away is These textbooks are boring me, and I'm the Theology Nerd, so What is this going to do with my students?

It's I've got to, I've got to change this up. So I use them as a guide. And then just, I went for resources wherever I could find them. And and just let's see how it'd go. And some classes are like, this is an awesome lesson. Let's keep that one for next year. This was the biggest dud of the world.

I will not use this one next year.

Never again will this one ever be seen in the light of day.

Nope, exactly.

And I [00:17:00] think that's something that I, I taught in public school. I did not teach religion. But I think that's something that a lot of our classes were willing to take chances on. I don't know if this is going to work or not, but I'm going to take a chance because it's language arts, it's math, or whatever, social studies, whatever.

But we're not willing to take those same chances when it comes to religion. We want to play it real close to the best. And, our kids see that. They see that passion come alive when a teacher's teaching reading. When they're using manipulatives to teach math, or whatever the case might be, or doing science experiments.

And then when we get to religion class, it's as you just said, here's this big, thick book that's really boring the pictures are from, the 1960s and it's just and I think the kids pick up on that. They pick up on that immediately. And so I think I would say that to the teachers out there, if you're listening to this and you do teach religion the impact of bringing that same passion to religion [00:18:00] and to teaching, the kids about the Catholic faith that you bring to language arts and math, if it would change the world, it would change your school immediately.

I don't know what your thoughts are on that, Greg, but I just see that passion and living that out would just be a game changer in so many schools.

Oh, amen. Yeah, and kids can see right through you. They know if you're authentic or not. And if teachers just go to the book and let's just get through this they know. But if this is really important, if it's really the most important subject in all of school in all of life, then it should be presented that way.

And I think that's one of the things I'm pretty hard on myself, so I set the bar pretty high for myself. And so I would beat myself up quite a bit and, staying out till one or two in the morning, trying to perfect lesson plans that were top notch, a high quality, it's going to really connect.

This will be the magical one that'll like re, reignite their faith, all that kind of stuff. And so there's an extreme that way too, that we have to be careful with It's got to be a perfect lesson, it's got to be this and that, it's got to have all the bells and [00:19:00] whistles.

Because at the end of the day, at the end of the school year, years later when students would come back, they would not say I remember this lesson on this day that year. It was mainly, I remember the faith that you had, the passion that you taught with. That's carried with me to this day. It's great being out of the classroom for a number of years now and having done this for a while I just this past summer.

I had a number of students from years ago. Just look me up email me say hey, mr. Aitchison would love to reconnect. I'm re exploring the faith again. I left the church for a while. I remember religion classes and you taught with such passion. I'd love to get coffee with you and just chat about life.

And my wife has been laughing about this because it seems like, yeah every year now, more and more students from years ago will Aitchison, can we like chat or can I throw a question your way? And they're re exploring, not because they remember all the answers that I gave them in seventh or eighth [00:20:00] grade, but because.

They knew I was a person of faith, that I was truly trying to live it, as flawed as I was and flawed as I still am, and that I could still probably be a help to them today.

And I think that right there is so important because our kids, like you, like we talked about earlier, they'll see right through it. If you're unauthentic, the kids will see through it before you do, okay? They'll smell that from four miles away. And so I think bringing that up.

Authenticity to life and just having that passion and who are the teachers that the kids connect with the most? It's those that are authentic, those that they know this person is legit and they connect with that. And when you take that personal interest in just not only the subject matter that you're teaching, but when you don't just teach a subject when you teach kids.

And when you bring that personal faith journey that you have to life for the kids it ignites a spark in them. And if we ignite a lot of sparks in those kids that are in [00:21:00] Catholic schools and Catholic education right now we're going to be on fire here in a few years without question.

Amen.

Talk to me about so let's walk through your classroom because I know you, you really tried to bring the faith to life as we've talked about.

And so there's teachers out there that are probably listening to this going That's great, but I don't have any idea how you do that. Okay, talk to us about like maybe what a, what would a day look like in your classroom or, because we talked about, maybe not one particular lesson, but we all also do know that there are lessons that we've done that was a great way for us to showcase this component of things.

Talk to us about what your classroom would look like for your students and how you brought the faith to life for them.

Yeah, for sure. So first of all, I'd like to say, I had a structure that I would follow every day with my students, and it was, day one, we're walking through that structure and this is how it's set up every single day. I think kids thrive on routine just like adults do too. And so they come in knowing, all [00:22:00] right, this is the setup every day.

And that's maybe my type A personality too. Like I need to know this is how we do it. But I want to make sure we had a solid structure that had things built into it. That would guarantee opportunities for the kids to have fun, for them to feel welcomed and loved and just enjoyed but also for the faith to filter in, in all kinds of ways in powerful ways, but also just very relevant.

From the start to end of class pretty simple. Some days I would have music playing on my smart board in class or music in the background. Sometimes like fun Fridays, I would just put a playlist up. This is one of those things that I really try to get my students to latch onto during my time with them is there's good Christian music out there.

There is.

we know kids. We know how influential music is in a kid's life. And how many kids today have no clue that there's great Christian music out there. There's really good artists and you can play it. And a lot of times I would find my kids would listen [00:23:00] to wait a minute, this is Christian.

Like this guy's rapping. It's Yeah, I know you like, Lil Wayne and all these other folks who sing about all the other things, but this guy sounds just like him, but actually has some really good positive content. So just to have music on occasionally, just to students to walk in and just, there's a different feeling in a room when you have music and kids are Oh, what is that song?

And I would make sure to have the song presented on the Smartboard so you can see the artist, they can see the name of, just to lock away oh yeah. Yeah. Alright, maybe I'll check that artist out on Spotify later. So some days it would be like music coming in the classroom. When the bell rings I'm still all business, so we're gonna get to work.

I have a number of students help me in class. I call them the helper homies. They have a couple random jobs like, taking attendance things like that for me. Just different ownership roles for students, and those roles would change throughout the school year. But every day I would have a student read prayer in class.

They'd be the, we call them the prayer dog. So we just, I created [00:24:00] goofy names for a lot of things, a lot of roles. Again, the helper homies was one the prayer dog was another. And the helper homies were in charge of finding the next person on the list. So we just went alphabetical order. I was also on the list, so I didn't get skipped. I was also a prayer leader every 26th class or whatever, how many kids I had in the class. And you can't see it through a podcast, but you can see it right now, John, behind me. There's a sword hanging on the wall. It's just

see that.

it's a cheap Halloween prayer sword, is what I like to call it. But yeah, it's a Halloween prop for 10 bucks.

And I wrote on it, prayer sword on the back of it. It says 2 Timothy 4, 7, which is fight the good fight. And I would use that as the prayer leaders prop, basically. So again, this is goofy, but kids like this kind of thing. And so the helper homies would figure out, all right, John's up for prayer today.

They will walk over with the prayer sword and they say, hey, John, you got prayer today. It's like, all right, cool. He would come up to the front of the classroom. They would have a nighting ceremony. [00:25:00] So John, when you would get on your knees and they'd say, I dub thee prayer dog of the day and they would.

Doug him with the sword on the shoulders and then pass the sword off with a very irreverent pass And then John would assume the leadership of the day So he would lead class you would lead class And walk through Announcements that are on the board what's for homework any tests coming up things like that other special announcements before we even got to prayer, there's a quote of the day we call that the quote dog of the day.

And I had a picture of a dog with a big quote coming out of him. But on the front of the classroom I always have a quote of the day and that's one of my passions as well, since high school, collecting Catholic quotes. I have a website actually called catholic quotations.com, so about 2000 quotes there, various Catholic quotes, and I would use those quotes to pull from.

And I actually had other students during my homeroom that day, they would be the ones who'd pick the quote of the day from my binder of quotes, so they would choose the quote, put the quote up there it [00:26:00] was always either directly faith related, or else a very Very deep life connection, like something very positive that we could take with us, that we could connect to the faith.

And so the the prayer dog would read the quote of the day, the whole class would repeat it together, and then the prayer dog would pick a popsicle stick of all the names in the cup, so popsicle sticks with everybody's names on there, they would grab a student's name and say, All right, Susie, what do you think this quote means for us today?

And it might be a difficult GK Chesterton quote, and she might be like, I have no idea that's fine we're just taking guesses that, we're just working here. And she's oh, I think Chesterton's trying to say this. All right, cool. Great start. Who else wants to add on? So we take literally three minutes just to pepper some answers to this, what is this quote about?

Like, how can we connect that to our life? And that was every single day in class, and I really liked having this quarter of the day because one of the frustrations as a teacher is there's a [00:27:00] bajillion topics I want to teach to my students, but there's only so many days of the year that you can teach it.

And so there's always little gaps and things that, you want to pass this on to my students. And these quotes filled in a whole lot of those gaps throughout the year. So yeah, maybe we're not going to read Chesterton's Orthodoxy, but here is one really solid quote from his book that actually summarizes his main idea.

And in three minutes time, we're going to reflect on this. I will help give some hints and clues to get us to like what Chesterton is really trying to say. And then within a couple minutes of class, we've got a really solid theological point being tossed our way and we're walking with that.

And then the prayer dog, let's start with the actual prayer, the opening prayer of the day. So that's all within the first five minutes of class. Again, they're holding the sword. Yeah, go ahead, Jeff.

no, I was going to say, and what I want to just note too is, everything within that first five minutes of class that you just talked about none of it is teacher [00:28:00] led. student led. Okay, so when we talk about living out the faith you're giving the kids the opportunity to be active leaders and to take an ownership of the classroom immediately when the class starts.

Whether it's being the prayer leader, whether it's being the person who talks about what they think the quote means, and I'm going to guess certain kids, as we all know, are probably ducking behind the, the person in front of them when, when it came time to ask about certain quotes or things like that, but that's just me.

But you're getting the kids engaged immediately with what's happening in the classroom, and some of it in a fun way, and some of it in a serious way, but you're engaging immediately. And so I think that's awesome to hear that it's not just a lecture, it's a student, the best way I can call it, a student ownership of the classroom, and that leads to student ownership of the faith, so to speak, which I think is [00:29:00] powerful.

Yeah. Yup. And with the balance of, I know some, I've always heard of the sixties and the seventies, like a lot of religion classes went like, Oh, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? And the teacher didn't do anything or guide at all.

Totally different ballgame here.

yeah, exactly. And the other end of here's what the teaching is read the Baltimore Catechism, there's the answer, move on, no questions asked. This, I'd always try to, whether it was the quote dog of the day or a conversation during class, a discussion I wanted the students to work their way to it, to theologize and try to figure out, like, how what is actually the truth here?

Let's find it, and if the kids need those hints to get there, I will offer those, because I know where we need to go The students don't maybe necessarily see that yet. So if they're getting off track, I'm going to, I'm going to pull them back that we get to the actual point at some point. But yeah, but I want the students to own it and do the best that they can to get us there too.

And so out there, just again, I want to point this out. If you are a teacher out there who's wow, that sounds really cool. [00:30:00] Catholic quotations. com is the way 2000 of them. So you're good for the next, I don't know, 10 years. If you're in school for 180 days a year 10, 11 years, you're good to go with all these quotations out there.

I think it's a great resource for teachers to have. And I would really recommend checking that out for sure. Talk to me about once. Okay, so we got the kids warmed up. They're excited to be there now. We've talked about a good quote that's out there, or maybe we've the prayer dog has led the prayer and been knighted and the sword has been passed.

Now we got to get into the lesson. And I'm going to guess that if this is the way we start class for the first three to five minutes, that the fun doesn't end there and the learning doesn't just cease to exist at that point. Okay. So talk about maybe how you would bring in or how you would teach maybe some of these topics that Traditionally if you ask kids about it before they came in your classroom, it'd be like, oh, that's boring.

That's a boring subject I'm not really looking forward to that at all How would you bring that to life? Because that was something, as a history [00:31:00] teacher, I always wanted to do, was to bring history to life for the kids, to get them to experience it as best we can. And so how did you bring the Catholic faith to life for the kids during your class time?

Yeah first of all, I want to keep going with the structure of the class, if that's right,

You go right ahead.

we haven't even gotten opening prayer yet,

Oh my goodness, you're, it's, that's, I wish I was a fly on the wall for your classes at this point. I wish I could go back in time to see this, but please, you go right ahead.

yeah, cool, and we'll get to that, that other content for sure but yeah, with all that's happening within about five minutes of class, again, students are leaving a lot of that opening prayer, again, is whoever's the prayer dog of the day, and again, I'm on the list too, so I don't want to like, I don't want the students to be like, Mr.

Aitchison never leads in prayer. No, I'm also, I also get this role too, and I really enjoy the role. I want the sword. I want to be, kneel on the ground and be knighted by my students. That's really fun too. I want to have fun with you guys. So opening prayer is a freestyle prayer. And a lot of students, as we [00:32:00] know grow up just saying, Father, Hail Mary, Glory be, you name it.

And so they don't have a lot of practice with freestyle praying. They've never done it before, or it just, they feel a little off with it to begin with. And I tell them straight up I don't care where you're at with this. It's totally fine. We're going to work on this. And I have a.

On the front of my classroom, a little sign that says Freestyle Prayer, and it just has a couple little pointers just here, you can start this way, God, I thank you for, or Lord, I pray for, what just gives them a couple little clues here's how you can start to practice Freestyle Praying they'll lead us in a prayer Freestyle again just off the cuff, whatever's on the heart and their mind.

And then when they close in prayer, this is an extra little twist to it. Again, trying to combine faith and fun as many ways as we can. We start with the name of the father, son, Holy spirit. Amen. Normally student will lead the prayer. And then we end it with a different sign of the cross.

It's the sign of the cross, the name of the father and the son and the Holy spirit. Amen. But after the amen, there's a clap, which when it's one person, it doesn't sound [00:33:00] that cool, but when you have a class of, 25 kids, plus a teacher. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Boom! That's alright, that's like the rocket just went off. Now class has begun, let's go.

Let's go. Ha

yeah, so it's a fun little way to alright, boom, now we're in a big chunk of class of learning, and and I'll come back to this in a little bit, but that, the next 40 minutes are the main topic of the day, the main lesson, and we'll cover that. After all that, though, with five minutes left of class, I'll have my helper homies again. Somebody will give it, will give me a five minute warning, and it's a goofy thing, but they put their thumb on their nose and they wiggle their fingers. So it's a silent warning for me, so they're not, Hey, Mr.

H, there's only five minutes left don't forget to do the finishing stuff don't forget closing prayer, whatever. It's just a little silent way for them to show me alright, we've got five minutes left on the clock. Mr. Aitchison, wrap it up. And I told the kids this sometimes I get carried away.

I get too excited. I'm going to miss the time on the clock. You need to remind me so we can wrap the last couple things. So they gave me the [00:34:00] little reminder. I'll wrap things up and I'll call the prayer dog back up to the classroom. There's a poster on the wall that says two minute review.

And it just simply says, what did we do or learn in class today? And the prayer dog will lead that discussion. So it's two minutes, they grab a ball a fun, like Nerf ball, that's a review ball. They grab that, they throw that at the sign, they read the question out loud. And then any kids that want to answer the question, what do we do in our learning class today?

They throw the ball at them. And it's just a quick little pepper round of Oh we talked about Chesterton's quote earlier today. Oh we did the existence of God argument for desire. Oh, we talked about that one today. Oh, we did this thing earlier today. We did this thing. So it's just a quick little review, which I like to tie a bow on a class as a good little refresher.

Oh, like here are the little things that we learned or we did today. And then, after the two minute review, the prayer dog will close us in a Hail Mary, and then we'll ask the Saint of the Day to pray for us as well.

That's

[00:35:00] then, in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen. Clap out the door. There's a little Be a Saint sign on the side of my door, so students would touch that on the way out as a reminder I'm leaving this classroom.

My faith doesn't stay in the classroom. My faith is meant to go out of the classroom to science class, health class, home, the bus, wherever, like I'm called to be a Saint everywhere on this earth. So yeah, that's the main structure. And then within that big chunk is a lot of the other fun stuff too.

And I love the, just the interaction with the kids, because, you can, we're all guilty of it. We get caught up in something we're so passionate about, and we forget completely that the kids are glazed over, or we lost them 25 minutes ago. And I think what I'm hearing from you is just, they're actively engaged with this.

I go back to the student ownership within the classroom, and they are now becoming leaders of the faith. I know that's something that I had the opportunity to Talk a few months ago to Dr. Jacob Imam, who is the founder of the College of St. Joseph the Worker, and he [00:36:00] said, I don't want to just create, I don't want to teach kids to be electricians.

I want to teach them to own their own electrician company. Okay, and in your instance, you're not just teaching the kids about the faith. You want them to go forth and be leaders in the faith. Not only in your classroom, but out in the rest of the school as well, and out in the world as well. And that's what we need to do is to arm these kids with with the faith and with those foundations.

Because we all know there's a lot of things out there that when they leave the walls of our building that are going to tempt them and that are going to try to get them to deviate from it. And so I think we have to give them as much armor as we can, so to speak.

I hope you've enjoyed part one of my interview with Greg Aitchison. Be sure to check out the second part of this interview next week, as we dive into topics such as how to get parents involved in what's happening in your classroom as a religion teacher.

Something you're not going to want to miss. Don't forget to like and subscribe to get notified when that episode and all future episodes of the Catholic School Leaders [00:37:00] drop.