Primary Educators
Catechism I believe is the most important subject we can teach our children. Homeschooling parents always have that pressure over their head of worrying whether their kids are up to par with public school or other homeschooling peers. This is food for another post, but I like to keep the realization that we are training our children first for Heaven, secondarily Harvard.
How do I teach Catechism? Because I have spent many hours reading Catholic theology, I felt it was my responsibility to teach my children this subject. Due to my work schedule, I usually do not have the opportunity to lecture a class during the daytime; therefore, when I get home in the evenings, if I'm not to worn out, I will spend about an hour lecturing to the kids.
My goal is to spend about a half hour to 45 minutes with the older kids, and 10 -15 with the younger; but I don't set a strict window for that.
What material do I use? Primarily, I use the Baltimore Catechism. This is a time tested cheap resource for children. I suppose when we get through this, we will advance to something a bit more weighty. Hopefully, in high-school years we can dip into Aquinas in the Summa.
I ad-lib a fair portion with analogies to clarify some points, but we pretty much just go through about one or two pages a day. I catch myself going on rabbit trails due to questions and expounding on certain points. The Baltimore Catechism however, is a great tool and is so well organized, so its easy to get back on track.
The main point of this post is to encourage other homeschooling Dads out there to perhaps think about doing something similar. If you home-school and only one of you is teaching all the subjects, then I would imagine both the children and the other spouse are missing out on some great quality time. I would not take back a single lecture with my children; it is a great bonding experience.
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