Choose your course

My wife, Kathleen, recently served on a team responsible for choosing a new math curriculum and text books for the school where she teaches. They've had meetings among the staff, consultations with experts, sessions with salespeople, and hours of classroom testing and review. Obviously, choosing a curriculum is a big deal among teachers.

Parents, isn't it worth spending some time thinking about the curriculum and methods we're using to pass along the faith? In his latest monumental book, Educating for Life (Thomas More Press, 1998), Thomas Groome says, "Parents, as much as any teacher, must make curriculum choices about their education approach - how and what to teach the family and to what end. Fortunately, parents, especially of younger children," he continues, "have a hundred educating opportunities every day, not only in explicit conversations but in the curriculum implicit throughout the shared life of the home."

What are some of these "hundred opportunities"? Here are a few to start your thinking. It pays to be more mindful of these natural occurrences so we can make the most of them.

Environment: What's on your walls? Is there any indication that yours is a Catholic home? Besides overtly religious art, what kinds of positive artwork or images do you display? Why not find a place to proudly display the palms from Palm Sunday all year round?

Atmosphere: Is your home welcoming, respectful of visitors, attentive to family members, forgiving, and full of hope? Do you ever express a sense of awe, or is life just one darned thing after another? The feel of your house reflects your view of what kind of world God created for you to live in.

Daily prayer: "Introduce your child to an everyday, everywhere God," says Lisa Engelhardt in Talking with Your Kids about God and Faith (Abbey Press, 1997). This counters the dualism that says God lives in church, and we live in the world. So include God in your daily life with prayers before meals, before a long trip, before a test or challenging day at work, when you see an awesome sunset, or after a great day of vacationing.

Witness: Let your children see you kneel down before a higher power. Do spiritual concerns ever encroach on your conversation? Do you help out at a homeless shelter, make soup for a soup kitchen, or speak out for the rights of others?

Modeling: Do you ever pick up the Bible? Do you subscribe to uplifting magazines or bring home books on religious themes? There are great tapes and videos on spiritual and religious themes as well. We show our kids what's really important by how we organize our day and allocate our time (today's most precious commodity) and money.

Reverence: Cultivate an aptitude and appreciation for silence in your children. Today's world is filled with noise and distraction. Are there times of quiet in your home? Do you allow and encourage a certain amount of solitude?

These are just a few of the many opportunities that come to mind.