We had our first real class session last night, and, to be honest, it did not go very well. The students are extremely “chatty,” and there are a bunch of them. New enrollees yesterday brought the class total to 24 – in a room with only 17 desks. (We’re going to have to do something about that.)
Parents can help me by:
1.) Discussing with your child the importance of appropriate behavior for CCD class. Specifically, they should stop talking when asked, and/or when others (like myself) are talking.
2.) Getting your child to class on time. Last night, we had a seemingly constant stream of students who wandered in after the door was closed and we had begun. They all needed to be instructed to get their book find a seat, etc. The interruptions definitely make it difficult to maintain continuity.
Eventually, we started into the lesson on the biblical story of creation and what it means to us today. The textbook has an abridged, plain English, version of the first chapter of Genesis. We read that and talked about it. We especially focused on the difference between this account and what the students have learned or will learn in their science classes. We pointed out that some people do believe in the absolute literal version of Genesis, but that most people do not. As Catholics, we are not required to believe that Genesis is the literal and only acceptable account of Creation.
We described how the first five books of the Bible were supposedly written by Moses in approximately 1,400 BCE for a people who were mostly illiterate nomadic shepherds. They had no concept of the solar system, the “Big Bang,” or anything remotely close. We also showed the ancient Hebrew concept of the world (below). They believed the world to be like one of those “snow domes” with a flat surface and an overhead dome. We discussed the obvious differences between that picture and what we know the Universe to be today.
The Hebrew concept of the world
With that in mind, we probed the students to try to justify the two different stories of the same series of events. We pointed out that Genesis says that God created the world and everything that is in it, but is a little vague on exactly how he did it. We also told them that the “days” in Genesis should be thought of as time periods, not necessarily 24 hour days. The answer to the dilemma of the two versions is this.
Genesis says that God created the world; modern science tells us how he did it.
This may sound an awfully lot like “intelligent design,” and I guess it is. However, please remember, we are teaching religion, not public school science. We also talked about why they would not hear about this in a public school.
We emphasized to the students that there are a few key messages they should get from Genesis.
1. God created the world and everything that is in it.
2. Everything God created is good.
3. It is our responsibility to care for God’s gifts of Creation.
There will be a substitute teacher on hand next week, so there probably will not be a blog posting. I’ll be back in two weeks.
By the way, we will NOT be doing an All Saints Day program at the end of October. Please note the change in plans.
