Teaching ninth grade confirmation was definitely something that I would not have pictured myself doing, but when a fellow parishioner (also the CCD program director) approached me, I skeptically agreed. My church, St. Albert the Great (a Catholic church), never had a large group of teachers, but the few that were involved took it to heart. I thought to myself how hard teaching might be, especially to ninth graders, but decided to accept the challenge with an open mind, and give back to the church what they had given to me in the past years. Community service through the church would also give me a good opportunity to strengthen my leadership skills.

My thoughts for the year were to help make the classes interesting so that the students would not dread Sunday nights. Also since we were close in age, I could relate to situations and problems they were having.

The first class was awkward for me. I came to the conclusion that the kids thought of me as another classmate and not as a teacher. The class consisted of about 35 boys and girls, which were then split up into four groups of about eight and nine, mine consisting of four boys and four girls.

The students I had were interested in why I had decided to teach, and they asked questions about me, such as how old I am, where l lived, and where I went to school. This opening conversation worked well as a get-to-know-each-other type game. I enjoyed myself during the first class, the second and now into my third, though there are a few kids who don't participate and doodle their way through class time. But our director told me something that I will never forget, "We are here to plant seeds, some will grow, others won't, but at least we planted them and tried to help them grow." fl