Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School Teacher Mick Mominee relies heavily on modern technology and popular media to drive home age-old concepts to his religion students. Some of his juniors, (seated, L to R): Taylor Joiner, Nick Nevius, and Georgia Albino.
As far as Mick Mominee is concerned, if television and film were a couple millennia older, Jesus would have used them to get his points across.
Popular media is a powerful way to make lessons stick, says the religion teacher at Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School—and he uses everything from TV sitcoms and commercials to PowerPoint and YouTube to teach his students such concepts as baptism, forgiveness, and moral development.
“Jesus was radically using the medium of the day—parables—to teach gospel lessons,” he says. “I do the same thing today in terms of morality and social justice,” drawing from such movies as “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” and such sitcoms as “The Simpsons” and “My Name is Earl.”
Mr. Mominee also encourages his students to research blogs, online videos, and podcasts for modern perspectives on these timeless issues. He posts assignments on his class web site and asks students to share and review each other’s work on Google Drive.
Former teacher and VARtek Classroom Technology Coach Annette Alex says some teachers might think religion is too conventional for tech-based teaching methods. She doesn’t agree. “Even the Pope has a web site,” she says.
Dr. Mominee says Annette has been really supportive of his efforts to make his classes as connected as possible—even helping him with his personal Mac laptop, which he uses for some projects. “She’s extremely responsive,” he says. “She’s very open. She’s like, ’Hey, if you need anything, let me know.’”
Both educators believe technology is critical to keeping students motivated to learn.
“If I stand up there and talk at them, it just doesn’t work,” Dr. Mominee says. “With the culture that we’re in, if I’m not engaging students, I might as well be talking to myself.”
Students respond well to Dr. Mominee’s approach.
“Technology makes learning a lot easier,” says Michelle Henderson. “If you leave something at school, nine times out of ten, it’s online. It makes it easier to communicate with teachers and other students for projects and help.”
Michelle and her classmates appreciate that Dr. Mominee sees technology as a learning tool, not a distraction. “Dr. Mominee lets us use our phones to look at notes and other things that are class-related,” says Charles McKenzie.
Dr. Mominee sees technology becoming more and more integrated in his classroom—especially next year, when his students will be getting Chromebooks. “We’ll be sitting in a circle and talking and we’ll have some discussion boards going—maybe at home continuing the discussion on a Facebook-style page,” he says. “Trying to get them thinking about this material beyond the classroom.”