“For Your Consideration” is a blog by and for Catholic high school religion teachers and campus ministers. It is coordinated by Boston College School of Theology and Ministry Continuing Education.
The idea for the blog emerged during a consultation with high school teachers and administrators in the Boston area in Spring 2017. It began to take shape in Summer 2017 as we encountered many students and alumnae/i who were engaged in these high school ministries.
Catholic high school teachers and campus ministers have our admiration. We hope this blog provides a space for conversation about how to make faith real to high school students and how to grow both as a teacher/minister and as a disciple of Jesus Christ. We expect our guest bloggers will raise timely, helpful, practical topics that surface issues and propose ideas in support of capable ministry in a high school setting.
Yes, our students are stressed, and yes, it’s a moral imperative–integral to our Catholic Identity–that we respond. What makes it hard is hearing that our teens spend hours playing video games or on social media. What makes it harder is knowing that they often turn to these easy distractions to tune out the world instead of dealing with it. It’s technological escapism, and many teachers have given into the same temptation when faced with “inches” of grading as deadlines loom. Our adolescents struggle with expressing limits, especially given parental pressure and higher educational hopes. Is it that we need to help them manage the stress or that we need to help them avoid getting into it in the first place by instituting limits on advanced courses… especially given our concern for the development of the whole student.
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