Bernard Lawrence Potvin

Old Ideas, New Practices Bernard Lawrence Potvin

This book is an upstream solution to the problems, issues, and questions young people struggle with downstream--alienation, boredom, and mistrust of religion. It includes over a hundred teaching strategies, tactics, logistics, and relationship builders that teachers in homes, schools, and churches can use. This book is a treasure chest of old ideas cast into new and proven teaching practices, each to be mined for the gem in it. Potvin's interest in writing this book, however, is not to focus on what is broken and ineffective in Christian religious education (and a lot of education is broken and ineffective) but on what he has learned to be proven to be effective. He has drawn from his PhD studies, parenting with its perturbations and insights, and over forty years of teaching in universities, public, and faith-based schools. Jesus gave us our program of studies, with much to think about and practice what could work--to bring us to our true self, friendship with the Creator, love for others, and justice for all. And given the unprecedented trend towards home education and online teaching, designed for and led by parents, new practices based on old ideas may be just what the doctor ordered.