Creator of the popular website The Religion Teacher, Jared Dees shares practical, easy-to-use teaching strategies and exercises for spiritual growth in his book 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator. These components are designed to improve the effectiveness of any busy religious educator.
Volunteer catechists and professional religion teachers are responsible for two unique and challenging tasks: sharing (and assessing) information and the spiritual formation of their students. This succinct, practical resource helps busy catechists and religion teachers with both tasks and is designed for use either over consecutive days in one month, or by specific themes that encourage personal improvement in areas of discipleship, service, leadership, and overall teaching. Each of the thirty-one days includes a clear title that gives the lesson theme, a quotation from Scripture, an introduction to the exercise, step-by-step actions to take for the day, and spiritual enrichment ideas for the educator.
Order 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator
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Endorsements for 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator
Lee Nagel, Executive Director, NCCL
“Dees offers practical ideas and simple exercises for deepening your faith and improving your performance as a teacher/catechist. It’s boot camp basics for a new teacher and offers new and improved techniques for veteran catechists. You won’t be disappointed.Two pages a day for a month and if you only make one change, I guarantee you will be happier and so will your students. Read it, start exercising the idea, and it will become part of your DNA of teaching. It’s simple but essential on the road to being a great catechist who connects head, heart, and hands—both yours and theirs. Dees has taken our basic desire to improve, combined it with the essentials of good teaching, mingled in the core elements of a good spiritual life and added a dose of servant leadership to create a self-help book for both initial teachers and long-time catechists. It’s an easy read with practical exercises to maximize your potential for success.”
Lisa Mladinich, Author and Creator of Be an Amazing Catechist
“Jared Dees has created an exciting and superbly practical field guide for those who love the Catholic faith and have a passion for effective teaching.”
Joe Paprocki, Author of The Catechist’s Toolbox
“You can always spot someone who is a natural teacher and Jared Dees fits the description. Dees understands the ins and outs of the religious education classroom and offers tried-and-true strategies for helping religious educators more effectively share information with and spiritually form their students.”
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Supplemental Resources for 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator
If you read the many endorsements for 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator, you will find a recurring theme: practical.
At its core, The Religion Teacher is about sharing practical resources and teaching strategies. Knowing the challenges of time and energy in the religious education classroom, “practical” is an essential component to everything I try to offer here. The 31-day framework is a very practical approach to creating improvement in your life and in your classroom, but I decided to go above and beyond the book and invest a significant amount of time and energy into additional practical resources to help you implement the principles in the book.
The following resources are freely available to supplement the book:
31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator Leader’s Guide
Are you a DRE/CRE or religion department chair who wants to lead your volunteers or staff through these thirty-one days? The 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator Leader’s Guide includes extra resources and handouts to use for each day. Download it here and print it out for your staff. This resource is perfect for workshops, in-services, and ongoing professional development to be used in conjunction with the 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator book.
Download the 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator Leader’s Guide.
The 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator Daily Email Reminder
We all need reminders when we’re starting something new. Sign up for to get an email each day during your 31 day period to remind you to carry out the exercise in the book. Sign up and get access to extra resources and worksheets to help you implement each exercise in your life.
Just enter your name and email, then choose the date you wish to start your 31 days below.
31 Days of Extra Resources
Want more? At The Religion Teacher you will find additional tips and resources for implementing each exercise in 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator. Check them out:
Become a Better Disciple
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7
Become a Better Servant
Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13
Become a Better Leader
Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19
Become a Better Teacher
Day 20 | Day 21 | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 | Day 26 | Day 27 | Day 28 | Day 29 | Day 30 | Day 31
