Observation 1
Date: Sep 17th, 2006 12:45:14 am - Subscribe
A childhood curiosity was laid to rest, or at least that is how I felt as I walked into the Catholic church on Sunday September 10th. I have spent my entire life driving by the Catholic church every day on the way to school. From the outside it looks like every other church in town, but I have always wondered what went on inside those walls. What are the services like and most importantly what are their beliefs? Many of my questions were answered after completing this observation. I certainly felt I had stepped outside my religious boundaries as I sat through this service. I even asked a colleague of mine after the service to explain a few things that I did not understand.
I had many misconceptions about the Catholic religion. I grew up Methodist, which some people say is the closest denomination to Catholicism, but in my small town our Methodist services are very similar to a Baptist service. A huge misconception of mine as I was growing up was that all Catholics were Hispanics. Of course as I grew older I learned this wasn’t so, but in my community a huge percentage of Catholics are Hispanic. During the service I attended I observed that the congregation was approximately 70% Hispanic and 30% Caucasian. During my time spent in the Catholic Church I observed many rituals of which I was previously unaware. Walking into the church I saw people dip their hands into holy water placed in a ceramic bowl attached to the wall, and before turning into their pews, they would make the sign of the cross. I later learned this is done out of respect. During the service the congregation uses missiles instead of bibles. These missiles have all the important bible versus for the upcoming Sundays placed in them. The service began with the priest entering the sanctuary. Next, a lay person read the scripture. This was followed by the sermon and then communion. I learned Catholics take communion every Sunday, whereas Methodists take communion the first Sunday of every month. During this time I was very uncomfortable, because I did not know what was expected of me. I wondered how many times my students feel this way in my class when they are put in an uncomfortable or unknown situation. As I sat through the service I looked around the building taking in my surroundings. In the front of the sanctuary are pictures of the Stations of the Cross that represent what Jesus went through prior to crucifixion. There are statues of saints placed on podiums in the front as well as a cross with the likeness of Jesus hanging from it. The service concluded with a time of reflection.
I learned many things during this observation. At the beginning of the service, I saw students from my classes sitting in the congregation. I had previously assumed some of these students did not even attend church. This was an opportunity for me to realize that there are things about my students of which I am unaware. As the texts explains, there are many groups in society that an individual can be a part of and as a teacher I need to be able to identify and understand characteristics of these groups to better relate to my students. Second, I learned to be more respectful of different denominations. Even though the Catholic service was very different from my Methodist services, I could still pick up on basic similarities, such as people joining together to fellowship with one another, the enjoyment of music, the valued sermon, and the belief in Jesus Christ. The most important conclusion I came to was that people, groups, and religions are misconstrued because individuals simply do not take the time to ask or observe things that are outside their cultural beliefs or values. This observation really did help me to integrate what was written in chapter one of our multicultural textbook about multicultural education. For teachers to implement multicultural education in their classrooms, we have to be willing to learn and experience other cultures and groups.
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