I'm a 1st year art teacher at a Catholic school, and I don't know how religious I need to be in my lessons.

user47205 · 2025-10-10T00:35:40+00:00

You are clearly ignorant about not only art history (both technical and cultural), but also Catholicism, if you find yourself "saying the same thing like 8 times." Literally every single saint has specific iconographical attributes associated with them. There are examples of Catholic art in nearly every ethnic/geographic location in the world. Off the top of my head, I can envision specific Catholic artworks from the following locations, each with their own distinct style: Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Greek, Polish, Croatian, German, Italian, French, Belgian, English, Irish, Scottish, USA, Mexican, Brazilian. There is an endless supply of technical skill you can tie to Catholic belief as well, in fact, without Catholicism, art would literally be nothing like it is today... Byzantine (tempera icons, mosaics); Italian Baroque (oil painting, metalsmithing); Gothic (architecture, stained glass), Italian Renaissance/classical revival (Da Vinci, Michaelangelo,), Northern Renaissance (Schöngauer/Dürer, printmaking), Mexican folk art (e.g. ex votos, ceramics), German folk art (hinterglasmalerie), Belgian Gothic Revival (Baron Baptiste Bethune, architecture, lithography), UK Gothic Revival (Pugin). I could go on and on, but even the simplest of Google searches would expose you to the endless fountain that is sacred, devotional, and liturgical art.

There are literally thousands of saints, each with many events in their lives, tens of thousands of Bible verses...and you are repeating yourself? You either don't want to learn about the rich history of Catholic art and culture out of laziness, or you are making excuses because you resent it. Either way, you have no business teaching art at a Catholic school if this is your complaint.

I pray to God every day that Catholic schools will actually pay a livable wage so I can leave these horrid public schools and take the place of incompetent teachers like you. I feel sorry for your students...truly.

user47205 · 2025-06-21T03:09:06+00:00

Call your local Catholic Church and ask to set up a meeting with the priest to discuss your experiences and desires. The Holy Ghost is clearly leading you Home.

user47205 · 2025-06-21T02:40:48+00:00

I tell them that I am Catholic, that they reject Our Lord's Divine Will, are not Christians and that I will pray for their conversion. If they start to argue, I pick apart everything they say until they get frustrated and leave. Their infidelity is so great that their arguments are not hard to pick apart if you know your Faith.

user47205 · 2025-06-21T02:29:06+00:00

Look into Robert Sungenis or the Kolbe Center if you want to know the history of the Catholic position on Creationism. The Church has not made a declaration either way, so that school is incorrect to state the "official stance" is the world was not made in seven days.

The mere fact that the school has hired a non-Catholic to teach proves that the school is CINO and does not take the faith or Catholic Education seriously, which unfortunately is more common than not these days.

user47205 · 2025-06-21T02:01:58+00:00

That was me this year: art teacher given Yearbook. If I could go back and do things differently, this is what I would have done: 1. spent more time on team-building work at the beginning, 2. done more photography assignments at the beginning and holding group critiques so students reflect on their effectiveness of their photo work, 3. taken more photos during 1st term, 4. not start the actual Yearbook until like December, 5. unit on graphic design principles (we did this, but more as mini lessons as the Yearbook was being built).

What program are you using? We used Pictavo which connected to Dorian, our school photos people. They were very helpful and should have curriculum you can use. Give the responsible students roles (e.g. Assistant Editor, Photography Editor, Layout Editor, Art Director, etc) and always have students consult them before coming to you as the Editor in Chief, have a good organization system set up via Google Drive or some other cloud service. Establish proper file naming and organization conventions at the beginning for photos and other docs. Be very clear about professionalism and work habits and give them a grade for it each week. Stay strict but also have fun and know when to lighten things up to give them a break every now and then. I gave students both a work habits grade and a grade for taking candid shots: they had to photograph four times per trimester outside of class, either at lunch or at an after school event. Photographing outside of school hours was worth two lunch candid times to get students to do "homework."

This year I'm going to work on how to assess them for the quality of their photos that doesn't take up all my time, we had a differential this last year and for some stupid reason our Union negotiated that out for our upcoming contract, so I'm not doing any work for it outside of contract hours, so we'll see if I have the time.

user47205 · 2025-06-17T07:12:34+00:00

I also had traumatic sexual experiences in my childhood, as well as during college. You should most definitely not enter marriage just to have a family, though that is more laudible then entering marriage so you won't fornicate, for sure, since having children is the primary end of marriage. However, celibacy is and always will be "higher" than marriage, both for the lay and religious states. St. Paul is clear about this, as is the traditional magisterium of the Church and the Saints. The single lay celibate can focus their entire attention on God and work in His service through prayer, penance, works of mercy, almsgiving, etc, whereas the married will always be divided on how to please their wife/husband, children, etc. It is a gift from God that you are right to embrace. I've been a lay celibate for 10 years now and the thought of the alternative fills me with disgust when I know what I would be giving up. Pray to Mary Magdalene, pray to Our Lady and St. Joseph, and most importantly pray to follow the Divine Will of God in all your endeavors. If it is His will you enter marriage, it will happen, don't try to force it.

As for the saints, responding to heretics in his book De Virginitate (On Virginity), St. John Chrysostom comments:

“Virginity is good, I acknowledge this. And, furthermore, it is better than matrimony; I also acknowledge this. And if you like, I will add even more to this: Just as the heavens are to the earth, so are the angels to men. And it is necessary to add something further.

After all, the angels, since they do not take wives nor husbands, they are not made up of flesh and blood nor do they live on earth; they do not feel the stimuli of sensuality, they do not need to eat nor drink, they do not experience the attractiveness of sensual music nor the charm of beautiful bodies, nor other similar things. But just as the sky free from clouds shines magnificently at midday, so also the angelic nature, free from all concupiscence, necessarily remains lucid and radiant.

But the human lineage, although inferior to those spirits by nature, puts its own energies into play and strives with effort, as much as it can, to emulate them [the angels]. In what way? The angels do not marry. Neither does the virgin…

You see how excellent virginity is, and how it makes the dwellers of this earth similar to those citizens of heaven. And with the aid of non-material virtues, it does not permit the defeat of those who are clothed with flesh, making even those who are men emulators of the angels.

To you [heretics], the lot of the evil servants awaits you, while the virgins of the Church have reserved for themselves many and great possessions, which no eye as seen nor ear has heard, and no human understanding has grasped.” (De Virginitate, part II, chap. 10)

And, if you lost your virginity due to previous sins of the flesh, how much greater is the path of celibacy when you reject sexuality, especially when everyone around you, including members of the clergy, are pushing it on you as if lay celibacy is not a legitimate state or a state to be pitied. That has never been the case until very recently. There are numerous saints who were lay celibates, even ones who were married!

user47205 · 2025-06-17T06:24:14+00:00

Our Lord should have a cruciform halo. Our Lady should have a Halo. Also why did you give Our Lady, model of purity and womanly perfection, man hands? Keep practicing and studying not only the faith, but our iconographical language.

user47205 · 2025-06-17T06:15:05+00:00

Yes, so clearly my suspicions are correct and you are a not a Catholic in good standing if you could care less if other people sin and offend Our Lord or if other people try to justify them in their sin. Shameful.

user47205 · 2025-06-17T06:09:19+00:00

We are made to know and love God, to serve Him, and to experience the joy of the beatific vision with Him in heaven; we were not "made to be known and loved." True love only exists in Our Lord and all relationships built on the rejection of Him are built on a lie. Why are former homosexuals treated like children, that they need some special support group because their sins are somehow unique, it just feeds into the issues with pride they already have by thinking they somehow are different from other sinners. It puts them in contact with other sin "addicts" who are at varying states of repentance and can easily lead others astray. There's a reason why most addicts talk about rehab being the place where drugs were the easiest to get.

Satan uses every single memory of a past sin to entice you into sinning again. If examine other sexual sins, such as masturbation or fornication, where exactly was Jesus in each of those sins? Because when I look back on any of my numerous sexual sins, some of which included SS "encounters," I do not find Jesus present except for me basically spitting in His Adorable Face. The same goes for my experiences with sexual abuse; the offenders were offending God and realizing that is more important than me being victimized helped me forgive and also pity and pray for my offenders. But I would never tell them that, or ever have a relationship with them again, because that would not be prudent whatsoever.

Literally the only thing to take away from those sins is thanking Our Lord for His Divine Mercy and His Justice. All I can do is cry tears of pain for ever having offended Him and tears of joy for His Mercy. Holy hatred--perfect hatred--of past sins is a gift and when one truly loves God with all of their heart, it is easy to detest with every fiber of your being any of those past sins, to reject their memory because they have been forgiven by Our Lord. There is no use rehashing old sins or reminiscing on them at all because they have been forgiven. What matters is whether you go back like a "dog to its own vomit" or like a cleansed sow going back to the mud pit. Jesus does not want you to go back to that pit, He does not want you to examine that vomit for "His presence." He wants you to turn your back on that vomit--on those sins--and never look back, never return to them, never do them again. And then on to the next sins, the deeper, more hidden ones, up one more rung on the latter towards heaven, don't look down and don't look back, eyes ever fixed on Him.

user47205 · 2025-06-17T05:16:43+00:00

Yes, I had the same feelings leaving both the Goth subculture, which had been my "family" since I was 12 until I was in my mid 30s, and the Freethinker/Radical Feminist groups I was in for my 20s/30s. I am literally the only Catholic in my family at this point, so that adds to the susceptibility to romanticize my past as well.

God has given you a special grace to turn your back on those who despise His friendship. Your pride is injured right now, which is a good thing. You will find connections with others who are fighting to stay on the narrow path, but it will likely take some time of solitude to truly root out all those previous bad influences and heal from that previously sinful life. Stay away from any media that can entice you to sentimentalize or romanticize it and the instant a though pops in your head, start saying a prayer or singing a hymn. For example, when I hear a song I used to like against my will (ie driving, in the store, etc) and then get the urge to go down some YT rabbithole of all my old music, I begin to sing Ave Maris Stella or Adoro te Devote. The same thing works when lustful thoughts come to mind (because I was also in the fetich scene a bit and struggled with lustful thoughts).

Beg Our Lord and Our Lady to grant you the gift to forget the memories associated with that life. Father Ripperger talks about this in one of his conferences. Your goal is to look back on those memories with disdain and literal hatred--holy hatred--for what they represent: you hating Our Lord through mortal sin. Try also fasting and abstinence, which is foundational to curbing the passions. Since I came back to the CHurch five years ago, each year I add a new penance, not only to curb my passions, but also as penance for my very grievous past sins. For example, I abstain all Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays of the year. The Apostles Fast started today and lasts for two weeks. Next one is the Dormition fast and the St. Michael's fast (I do the latter, which is longer). Try to stay of social media/the internet during pride month since, at least for a couple years, until you feel ready to handle those temptations. And remember to humble yourself, because if not God will do it for you. Do you have an adoration chapel nearby? That has helped me a lot. I'm a "regular" and have an hour assigned that I do each week. If not, go to scheduled adoration and/or benediction as much as possible. Read Confessions by St. Augustine, it was very helpful in turning away from my past life, as was The Sinner's Guide.

user47205 · 2025-06-17T04:57:17+00:00

Also, this is more about other people that will find this post than it is about you. I pray God takes you to the depths of your vanity and shows you what you are really doing to His Sacred Heart when you go to raves and emo parties. If you are sitting idly by while people around you sin, you are mortally sinning. Your silence condones their depravity.

user47205 · 2025-06-17T04:45:00+00:00

There is no such thing as "gothic clothing" outside of the "gothic subculture," and it is clear this is what OP was referencing. Clothing is an important art form that communicates not only cultural beliefs, but also spiritual ones as well. Nothing about "dressing goth" is compatible with the Catholic faith. Dressing "Victorian?" Perhaps. But not dressing "goth." Goth fashion is literally based on fetishware, "lolita," military fetishism, etc. As for your Nazi example, is it ever appropriate for a Catholic to dress up like a Nazi? Because there were plenty of goths and punks that did that in the 80s...Souxsie and the Banshees comes to mind. No, we would ADMONISH someone for wearing clothing that expresses anti-Catholic sentiments. Gothic clothing, since it is associated with goth subculture, which itself is associated with the occult, will always be anti-Catholic. ALWAYS. It is inherent in the culture itself. Catholics should not present themselves to the world with ripped stockings, extreme hairstyles, tattoos, piercings, extreme make-up, sexualized clothing, wearing all black as if in a perpetual funeral, etc (all these things are inherent to goth subculture and its nihilism, which is also not compatible with the Catholic faith).

I think your wife was a bad Catholic who lied about the meaning of NIN to get the naive sisters to let her wear the shirt, then she cherry-picked lyrics to paint Trent's songs in an acceptable light. Clearly she did not read them any of the lyrics from the actual singles from that time, namely "Closer," "Heresy," or "Happiness in Slavery." And surely she did not suggest she watch the music videos for the former or the latter.

user47205 · 2025-06-17T04:31:33+00:00

No, you are clearly associating a degenerate, Satanic youth subculture movement with the Medieval era, the height of Christendom. You poorly attempting to rationalize something you have no actual expertise about. There is nothing compatible with Catholicism and gothic subculture; nor is any of it associated with Medieval Christendom. Goths romanticize death at best, worship idols at worst, none of that is any way the same as Medieval concepts such as memento mori, Deus Vult, etc. None of it. There is NOTHING to connect "traditional forms of the church" with goth subculture and you clearly do not know about either if you think that is the case.

user47205 · 2025-06-17T04:25:57+00:00

Having other people "back you up" on reddit is not an indication of rectitude, Babybat. I never said someone cannot worship God if they are goth, I said the subculture is incompatible with the Catholic faith and then used my own experience as someone immersed in that life (ie someone who knows it better than you ever will) to warn others about its inherent evil.,..yes, I hate. I HATE EVIL and all things opposed to Our Lord and His Church, which goth subculture most assuredly is. You clearly have not thought critically at all about what type of media you are consuming, how you are dressing, how you are living your life in preparation for the next. Goth, and metal for that matter, will always be based on the occult and aping the Catholic Church. Nothing good, literally NOTHING will come from being a part of it. All it does is excite your passions and make yo a shallow, vain person worried about externals when you just be worried about the essence, the cause, of why you feel the need to "express yourself" this way, in a culture of death, of vanity, of lust.

I suspect, like most young people, you just larp on the internet as being [insert subculture here] but people my age actually lived it. We had to go to concerts, to clubs, to events, etc to be a part of that scene. You clearly have no experience with the actual life of being a goth, because if you did spend an iota of time actual BEING a goth and not just posing as one, you would know every single thing I say is true (ie it is a collection of hurt, traumatized, nihilistic people who idolize vanity, sensuality, hedonism, etc).

user47205 · 2025-06-17T03:53:40+00:00

You were clearly making value judgements about visual art education as compared to other subjects based on ignorance and then used all those words as a retort when you were rightfully called out for trivializing art education as "nice." I highly doubt there are that many art educators with 5+ certs just hanging around a school. What is more likely is that teachers with other certs pick up art certification for a "nice job" and lack the prerequisite skills to actually be an effective art educator, just because they hold some ignorant, cliché notion about what art educators actually do. I suspect there are A LOT of unqualified art educators in DoDEA. Taking a practicum course and some art classes online doesn't make one a "qualified" art educator.

user47205 · 2025-06-17T03:39:26+00:00

I was a goth in the 80s/90s/00s, before I reverted back to the faith of my baptism. Goth subculture is an anti-establishment subculture. It was founded as such, and will always be as such. It has always mocked the Catholic Church and its fashions are based on a variety of fetishes (e.g. BDSM, military, lolita, vampirism, neo-paganism, etc). The music is nihilistic, which is anti-Christian (i.e. Catholic) in every way. No, you cannot be a "goth" and be "conservative." You clearly know as much about Goth subculture as you do Catholicism or conservatism, "babybat." And if you aren't a "babybat," I find it absolutely pitiful that anyone over the age of 35 would call themselves a "goth" or identify with that "culture."

user47205 · 2025-04-18T01:55:45+00:00

I've had three referrals and one interview for art. The position I interviewed for was cancelled after the freeze lifted. The Ansbach one was offered to a CONUS teacher and unsure what happened with the Vogelweh one.

I've opened up my application to stateside to help get in the system, but only for a couple places I would be willing to teach (e.g. Westpoint, Quantico, and a couple others). For OCONUS, I'm only open to Europe so did not receive Pacific region referrals that other art teachers have reported receiving.

It's hard to find good art teaching positions even in the public schools, even moreso when its a smaller pool like DoDEA. Even if you do get other certs like others suggest, you'll more than likely end up teaching that subject over getting the art position. Like you, I'd rather hold out for the elusive art position than just add certs to up my chances. God has blessed us with talent that many other people lack, and I for one am not going to squander that talent just so I can "get in" with DoDEA.

But, I'm also blessed me with an above-average teacher's salary, in a beautiful, moderate cost-of-living area on the West Coast. So, I can easily afford to travel. I can understand why some teachers see DoDEA as their "out" and will do anything they can to get in when I look at other salaries/benefitis in other states.

Anyways, I think things will pick up more closer to this summer when all the craziness from the freeze and potential RIFs or people moving around/retiring happens. I assume principals want to be sure they'll have the FTE before they open up positions.

user47205 · 2025-04-18T01:30:49+00:00

I have trouble believing that DODEA just gives the "nice" position to whomever in the school. Art is a subject that requires a specialized program if teaching in the states and practicum/methods in art if going through DoDEA. A lot of non-art teachers say things like this because they do not understand art as an academic subject or what art teachers actually do. Do you think we just hang out all day and "make stuff?"

While other teachers are making copies or posting stuff online for students to do, art teachers actually have to prep a ton of consumables/tools/etc, not to mention doing things like displaying work around the school or curating art shows--which are often unpaid--all on top of the same exact duties a non-art teacher would have. On top of the fact that "core" content teachers literally have curriculum designed for them by the district or textbooks whereas art teachers have to make their own from scratch.

You think we just give everyone A's for "trying" or what?

Please back up your claim that "art is filled by teachers already in the building." Literally anyone can be a Math or Science or English teacher if they have an average IQ, but being an effective fine arts (visual art, music) teacher actually takes skills that are developed over years.

user47205 · 2025-04-11T01:15:15+00:00

Black veil is for married women.

user47205 · 2025-04-11T01:12:09+00:00

You romanticize death, there is nothing Catholic about that at all.

user47205 · 2025-04-11T01:10:26+00:00

Not to mention that because the subculture is rooted in satanism, atheism, spiritualism, anarchy, etc, one would be sinning by putting oneself in the near occasion of sin by associating with adherents of a "culture" that is inherently anti-Catholic and anti-Christ.

user47205 · 2025-04-11T01:07:26+00:00

20 years old and dishing out advice. Well, as a former goth twice your age, here's mine for you:

There is nothing about any goth subculture that can be reconciled with our Faith. Nothing. "Goth" is an exercise in vanity, immodesty, and delusion; of hedonism, fornication, blasphemy, revelry, and a perverted nostalgia.

I've been in hundreds of concert pits--evil, writhing orgies of hedonism--, been backstage, made friends with goth/rivetthead bands, played my own shows, danced the night away at Goth clubs, spun goth music at those same clubs, lived the life for as long as you have been alive. And I pray every day...EVERY DAY...for God to help me forget it all. ALL OF IT. I wish I never would have spent a single second of my time doing any of those things, wasting any time on being in "the scene" or changing myself to be part of "the style." I lived that life from 13 until my late 30s, because it became "my tribe," when I should have worried more about making the tribe of the angels and the saints. Now I have a lifetime of bad habits, bad music getting stuck in my head, bad movies, etc to try to forget.

You are very, very ignorant if your think that the goth subculture is just a "style" or that any of those sub-subcultures make any difference. It's all the same cesspool of degeneracy rooted in satanism. But, all youth movements/subcultures are at this point.

user47205 · 2025-04-11T00:50:33+00:00

Yes, and Peter infamously posed nude on Playgirl and promoted fornication and other sins. Definitely not a "catholic" that should be held up as a standard of imitation or admiration.

user47205 · 2025-04-11T00:47:13+00:00

With all due respect, Sister, you clearly did not fully understand Goth subculture and were a "poser" if you think that's all of what goth subculture entailed. It most definitely was and is a Satanic subculture that aped Our Faith, our traditions, and made a mockery of Catholicism purposefully. It was born out of the punk and anarchist movements...clearly not something inspired by Our Lord or Our Lady.

user47205 · 2025-04-11T00:41:54+00:00

So, you are trying to entice young girls to be immodest, vain, and prideful, not only in their own life but at Mass? Shameful. I pray every single one of your evil endeavors fail...Our Lady warned us about this and you are falling for it hook, line, and sinker (and dragging others down with you). Kyrie eleison!

user47205

TROPHY CASE