It was 11 a.m. on a Sunday, and while most Northwestern students slept off a night of partying, Weinberg sophomore Meghan Althoff showed five second-grade boys how to twist three pipe cleaners to symbolize the Catholic concept of the Holy Trinity.
Althoff, along with Education junior Norma Ramos and McCormick sophomore Nikki Guevarra, has taught the same group of children for two years as a student teacher at Sheil Catholic Center.
A substantial number of NU students teach at local synagogues and churches, using their weekends to pass on their faith to the younger generation instead of just sleeping, studying or partying.
“I was taught by this old priest,” Ramos said of her Sunday school experience. “I thought it would be cool to have a fresher approach.”
The trio tries to prepare its class of 11 boys and one girl for their first communion in a fun way, Ramos said.
Staff members at some of the religious organizations where students teach expressed appreciation of the students work.
“The families really like it, and the kids respond so well,” said Peg Duros, director of the religious school at Sheil, where three-fourths of the teachers are college students.
Students who rouse themselves out of bed early to teach children cited different reasons for wanting to reach out into the community beyond campus.
McCormick senior Scott Mitchell teaches preschoolers twice a month at Evanston Bible Fellowship, 1702 Sherman Ave., a church that serves a large population of students. He said his job was a chance to pass on his religious beliefs as a calling as well as a great opportunity to interact with the Evanston community. He has gotten to know his students and their parents — linking him to a part of Evanston outside the “NU bubble,” he said.
Evanston Bible Fellowship administrator Nathan Carter said he was very happy with college students’ involvement at the church.
“We think there’s something special (and) important about the role of the local church,” he said.
Carter said he felt it was important for students to get involved with a community organization rather than rely only on campus religious groups such as Campus Crusade for Christ. “Some parents even develop friendships with students,” he said.
Churches and synagogues close to campus have the largest number of NU volunteers, but some students look outside Evanston. Glencoe synagogue Am Shalom has one student volunteer, Michal Berkson, an Education senior. Berkson started teaching Sunday mornings after the synagogue’s religious director, Sharon Morton, met Berkson at a conference.
“I said to her that she was such a dynamic young woman that I would love to have her at Am Shalom,” Morton said.
She also said a teacher’s personal magnetism and potential for connection with the children was more important than a teacher’s age.
But some student teachers said their students do not always look at them as authority figures because of their youth.
“The younger they are, the better,” said Simcha Singer, a McCormick senior who teaches at Beth Emet Synagogue, 1224 Dempster St. “When they get older, they misbehave more.”
But just because kids could be “rambunctious,” as Duros said, did not mean they had not learned from their teachers.
“They don’t look like they’re paying attention,” Ramos said. “But they hear everything you say.”
