Golden Opportunities in Teaching Ways of Christian Living

Last Ash Wednesday, I noticed that when the kids were asked to line up for Mr. Oandasan to put ash on their foreheads, all of them were excited but when I told them that only the ones who belong to the Catholic religion should line up everyone did not stand up at all. All of them do not know whether they are Catholic or not so I just brought out my list of their religion (along with their birthdays and whether they are car riders or not) and that’s when we were able to do the Ash Wednesday tradition of putting ash on forehead. This reminds me of the rosary month last October where they don’t know the prayers being recited plus the daily Angelus which they don’t know also the prayers to recite. I have no right to meddle with our CL curriculum but I guess, if I will decide to suggest, I will suggest that they plot the special Catholic events for the whole school year and perhaps accord the lesson somehow in preparation for these activities. The said activities are, for me, the golden moments that a Catholic school like us should capture and seeing the kids prepared for these marks their being Lasallians as Christians. These though are just my realizations and I don’t have plans (atleast not yet) of telling this to the people concerned plus the fact that I might also be wrong. Another thing that made me reflective on this was during the PTC where one of the parents commented that the kids seem to have not realized yet the values being learned in CL. She termed her description of the kids’ learning as “hilaw” which gives me an implication that something should be done. Anyway, I hope I really do not sound like “nangengelam” for I know for a fact that I also have my flaws and a lot of things to be improved when it comes to teaching language.