Confessions of a Confirmation Catechist: the Post-Mortem

I went down to the parish yesterday and had an end-of-year interview with the DRE. It's helpful, mostly, to look back at the year and see what went right and what went wrong, and what can be done better next year. I had a trying year, myself, for reasons that are obvious: large class, single teacher, technology that failed me at every turn. That my year was not harder was thanks to my gracious DRE, who shielded me from what would certainly have demoralized me at my low point: it seems a group of parents got together and complained to the bishop about my class, particularly that there should have been more teachers. The bishop, bless him, doesn't care for channels being bypassed and sent the complainants back to the parish level where they should have taken it first, where it went nowhere because there's nowhere for it to go.

I told the DRE that I couldn't even take offense at that, and as I was driving home, I said aloud to myself, "I am not going to process this right now," but I'm processing it here. I had a single volunteer during my tenure this year, a fellow teacher who had taken a well-deserved year off and graciously stepped in during the last month of class. She lifted a great burden off my shoulders, bringing in craft projects and just being another adult in the room. She was the only parent who offered to help me and followed through.

We are not a tiny country parish. We have over 2000 families. Even so, volunteers are are few and are spread thin, too thin. We do not have hidden reserves of PSR teachers we are locking away so that I can lord it over the Confirmation program. I do not teach for my own amusement, or because I think I know everything, or to ward off other teachers encroaching on my territory. I teach because God has called me to it, and I teach alone because no one else is doing it. There were no offers of volunteer help I rejected; I gratefully accepted the only offer I received. I never heard from parents unless they wanted to ask me if we had class instead of looking at the class schedule or bulletin, or check if their child could get out of class because sports, or was it okay if the form was turned in late.

A criticism I made of myself in my exit interview was that I wasn't good at communicating. I never sent out a parent email or added anything to the official office communications. I didn't have a list of parent emails or phone numbers, but I never asked for one.

It is taking all my filters and my critical thinking skills not to write in bitterness or to extrapolate from sketchy details. Perhaps many parents feel that they aren't qualified to teach religion. Perhaps they were genuinely concerned with their child's education and safety, and thought that the diocese could just send in backup at will. Perhaps they never contacted me as I never contacted them, because it felt like just one more thing. Likely it wasn't about me at all.

I felt rather at loose ends yesterday afternoon and unable to concentrate on any one thing, as I often do in moments of stress. I considered whether I should talk about this with Darwin, as I didn't want him to be annoyed on my behalf. But I recalled that nothing is worse than feeling like I can't talk to Darwin, so we discussed it that evening. I still don't feel entirely settled about it, but there's not anything I can do about an incident in the past about which I had no knowledge and over which I had no control.

I'm still on the roster to teach next year, this time with the help of a dear friend. We're having turnover in staff, so there will be a new DRE next year, who has the final say about who teaches what class. I'm perfectly fine with that -- if she finds someone more qualified and willing to teach confirmation, then God be praised!