Teaching For Discipleship doesn’t just focus on certain content; there are also pedagogical distinctions.

Remember the jingle to the TV show “Cheers” from back in the day? It spoke—or sang—of a place where everyone knows your name and is glad you came, a place that’s a refuge from worry.

This old jingle could well be the anthem of today’s young people and your religion classroom can be “Cheers” to them. Where else can high school students find this kind of place? This kind of experience? Teaching For Discipleship requires a religious educator to be fierce and crazy about creating, maintaining, and insisting on a “Cheers” environment when young people are gathered in her or his midst.

Teaching For Discipleship employs rules of engagement, and many religion teachers visibly post the ones they want students to play by. Here are four that every religion teacher should insist their students follow:

• Say Anything (as long as it’s appropriate)
• One Person at a Time
• No Putdowns
• Participate, Participate, Participate

Teaching For Discipleship requires that we enforce whatever rules of engagement we establish. For the sake of educating justly, this means that we stop everything and remind our students of those rules of engagement every time one is broken. This ensures young people that your classroom will be safe, honest, respectful, and engaging.

Cheers!

What rules of engagement have you established? Which one(s) do you want to reinforce as you begin a new semester?