What the Religious Education ABQ Is Teaching Me

I am in the middle of my Additional Qualification in Religious Education in Catholic Schools right now, alongside my Drama ABQ, and I did not expect the coursework to change me as much as it has. I came in thinking I would brush up on content. What is happening instead is closer to formation.

A few things have stayed with me. Studying the documents of the Second Vatican Council, I have a clearer sense of a Church that turned to face the modern world rather than retreating from it, which is exactly the Church I want to teach my students to recognize. Working through the sacraments has reminded me that our faith is not only believed but received, through water, oil, bread, and the ordinary stuff of life. And Catholic Social Teaching has given me language for things I already felt but could not articulate, the dignity of every person and our responsibility to the poor and the vulnerable.

I am also learning practices I can actually use, the Daily Examen chief among them. None of this is abstract for me. I am taking it directly into the classroom and into my own life. The deeper I go into this work, the more sure I am that teaching religion is what I want to do, not as a subject I cover but as something I am still learning to live.