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S1E6: Teaching Styles · Mentoring In Ministry

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  Welcome to the Mentoring in Ministry podcast. In each
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  episode, we approach various catechetical
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  topics from different perspectives. Hello, I'm Drake
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  McCalister. I'm here with Scott Sollom,
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  and we're doing catechetical conversations today, answering
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  common questions by catechists out in
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  the field. And one question we often get anytime we do
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  catechist formation and catechist training,
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  questions about how to teach teaching styles, lots of
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  methods out there. Each person has to find
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  what they're most gifted at and natural at. And I remember
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  early on in my catechetical life,
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  actually early on in ministry, trying to adopt other
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  people's styles and crashing and burning
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  gloriously. So what are your favorite personally teaching
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  styles and maybe one of the things
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  you've seen that have been helpful, things
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  you've been able to adapt from others and use
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  effectively in your own teaching? Great question. You
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  already touched on one of the main points,
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  which is your personal style really has to be something to
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  do with your own personality,
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  that there's something about the credibility, the
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  authenticity, you're really you, you know,
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  and maybe over time you kind of beg, borrow and steal other
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  people's things that they do that
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  seem to work that work for you as well, or that work for me
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  as well, and slowly kind of come to
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  a better stature as a catechist. But by and large, of
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  course, you can't pretend to be somebody else.
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  And I've made that mistake on a couple of different
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  occasions, trying to be the very
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  professorial lecturer. I'm not that way. That's just not my
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  personality. I can't pull that off.
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  My personal style to answer your question more directly is
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  to be very much in dialogue. I like,
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  so for example, an adult faith formation. I think it's
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  really important. And I just enjoy kind of,
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  so to speak, warming up the room that I would much rather,
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  at least on a good night, I would
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  much rather be walking around, shaking people's hands,
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  reminiscing what happened last week. How
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  was your son or daughter? Or how was your mom or dad or
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  your roommate, whatever. And just letting
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  that little bit of tension that happens socially when
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  people get together in the same place at the
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  same time, you know, to kind of start to gel, to meld a
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  little bit, you know. And then even when I
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  start, I might, and this can even, by the way, some people
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  might not agree with this, but I don't
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  mind starting with a little bit of a, let's just go, like,
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  what's been going on last week? Anybody
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  anything to share any big news? Sometimes someone says, I
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  got engaged or someone says, so my aunt
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  had a baby and asked me to be the godparent, whatever, just gives
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  the people a chance to be themselves,
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  to begin speaking in the group in a way that's very kind of
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  easy, like an easy entrance, it's
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  kind of gets them into the threshold of the actual kind of
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  group dynamic. Very non-threatening.
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  Very non-threatening. And it's fairly casual. I, maybe on
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  the other hand, I can be a little bit too
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  casual at some points, because if the group is all talking
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  and hanging out and having a good time,
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  there's some kind of central conversation going on. I'm
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  quite likely, if the thing is supposed to begin
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  at seven, I'm likely to let just have a conversation for 10
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  minutes. Now, some people who are not my
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  type, they're looking at their watch, they can't believe
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  it, they look at their watch, they can't
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  believe it, let's start, let's start. But I'm thinking it's
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  begun. And this is, this is part of
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  the point is to get people speaking and dialoguing. And
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  then if we have some teaching, there's, it's
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  that much more likely in an open atmosphere to raise their
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  hand, to say something now about the
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  actual content of the catechesis, or when they go into
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  small groups in the application questions,
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  that they actually are more open to share because they've
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  been talking and they are a community. So
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  I would say I'm very dialogical, very much in dialogue. And
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  I do like, what's the old phrase,
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  keep it simple, stupid, I try to have at the beginning,
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  some kind of opening, once we do some,
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  some ice breaking kind of hello, how are you, here's our
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  topic, some opening prayer, some kind of,
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  I almost want to call it a thesis statement, some kind of a
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  premise, some kind of an opening,
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  here is the point and just roll it out there, let them hear
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  it. And then I tend to want to unpack
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  that point, let's take this word and look at it. Anything
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  say about this, take a good note, let's
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  plug it back into the sentence. Now let's take this word
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  and look at it. And so I try to, just as I
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  pose as a general courtesy, tell them what you're going to
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  tell them, tell them, and then, and then
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  tell them what you told them just to keep it kind of simple
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  so anybody could follow. But my point of
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  view is a little bit, I've learned that being used to a
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  classroom setting as a teacher, as a professor,
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  I can grow used to teaching and talking
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  for long periods of time. And then of course,
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  people have to listen because they're there and they need
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  to get good grades. Whereas in a
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  catechetical session, people aren't necessarily attuned to
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  or used to listening and listening
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  and listening. So there needs to be time for, for to throw
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  out a couple rhetorical questions to make
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  sure that they're all on board to keep into consideration.
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  Ah, this guy asked two weeks ago,
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  a question that relates to this. And while I'm preparing
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  that session, I'm thinking about him
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  and I'm thinking about her and I'm thinking about the kinds
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  of questions that can present to them.
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  And again, I just, I enjoy if they just, hey, I don't mean
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  to interrupt, but I say it by all means,
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  you're not interrupting. This is actually what's happening.
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  This is the point. I want you to speak
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  and we're in dialogue and that might help me shift what I
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  was going to say later a little bit
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  or jump to it early. But in general, I'm fairly loose,
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  fairly open, fairly kind of in dialogue.
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  And things that I've learned from different people. I think
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  one of the biggest things I learned was
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  that in fact, just warming up, warming people up to
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  actually give them a chance to talk socially
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  and then to maybe the, to turn the corner, to raise the bar
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  a little bit by saying something like,
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  let's just remember, what did we talk about the last week
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  or the last two weeks? What were we on?
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  What were we engaged in? It's so helpful to have people
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  say, oh, we were talking about this. And
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  then in my mind, I'm thinking, wow, that was, that's the
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  one thing they really took out of last week
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  was that particular piece. I wouldn't have guessed that. I
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  wouldn't have known that. Or the person
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  says, oh, I was thinking, you know, we're really on this
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  trail of thought here. And it really helps me
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  to understand where they are. And it also helps them to
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  kind of click their brains into a little
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  bit more critical thinking gear. Here's what's going on
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  here. Here's what's happening. And yeah,
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  just through and through. I like to be just open and very,
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  and very dialogical, hopefully keeping us
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  enough on track and keeping the lecture smooth enough that
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  people can actually follow it from
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  beginning until end, but always trying to engage, engage
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  the people. Yes. Yeah. Well said. I know
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  often there's many people on my team that do have very
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  different gifts than myself. They present
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  in a different manner. And, and I'm always blessed by their
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  gifts and skills. And, and knowing that
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  they, they tend to often offset mine where I can be so
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  true, more dialogical, go with the flow like
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  yourself. And there's others that are really structured
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  and, and, and it really works. In fact,
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  one year I had a gal who was going to share her testimony
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  and she was said she was going to read
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  it. And one of the other team members disparaged her and
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  saying, you should own your testimony.
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  You should know it, be able to say it from the heart. And
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  so I put out that fire, but then the
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  next week, then the team members, she read her testimony.
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  People were in tears and, and it was
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  powerful. And afterwards, some young women coming up and
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  sharing how that was their life story. And
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  so, yeah, like you said, be who you are. And for some
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  people, they're powerful readers. For me,
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  I just put people to sleep and so I'm, I'm the animated. So
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  thank you for sharing Scott. Yeah.
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  Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you. Thank you for listening to
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  this episode of Mentoring in Ministry.
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  You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube @
• 7:29
  the Catechetical Institute or join our
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  online community of catechists at franciscanathome.com/guild.
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  link to all of
• 7:36
  those in the show notes. This podcast is an outreach of
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  Franciscan University of Steubenville's
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  Catechetical Institute.