25 May 2015

Elevator Pitches: Unschooling and Faith


I did a lot of the household chores this morning, but before you feel sorry for me, I’ll confess I hardly noticed what my hands were doing because my mind was busy.  I was listening to The Catholics Next Door podcast as I vacuumed floors, sorted washing, dried dishes… I am weeks behind with the episodes, not that it matters. I quite liked finding myself back at Easter Sunday, instead of in ordinary time.

Anyway, this morning Greg and Jennifer were talking about why we are Catholic. What would we say if we only had a very short period of time to tell someone what draws us to the Catholic faith? What would our ‘elevator pitch’ be?

I’ve been thinking about this. What would I say if the person next to me in the elevator suddenly said, “You’re wearing a crucifix… Why on earth would you want to be a Catholic?” Now hopefully we are at the ground floor of a very tall building when he asks me this question. I hope we are both travelling to the very top because it’s going to be hard to explain in a few words…


I never meant to become a Catholic. In fact, when my Catholic fiance proposed to me, I immediately said, “Andy, I’ll marry you, but I will never be a Catholic.” But despite those words, after the birth of our first child, I began thinking about faith matters. Should we get our daughter baptised, and if so, baptised into which faith? I’m not the sort of person who does something just because it’s expected. I don’t like being told what to do. I need to go looking for information and then make up my own mind about things. By the time I’d done all that, I was hooked. God gave me such a longing to belong to the very Church I hadn’t wanted to consider. Two baptisms (we had two children by this time), one wedding renewal, one First Holy Communion and confirmation later, we were a Catholic family.


What keeps me here? I know I couldn’t get through life’s difficult times without God. I did try to be self-sufficient even though I was a Christian, right up to the point of our son Thomas’ death. Then for the very first time ever, I realised I couldn’t help myself. I was stuck at the bottom of a pit of grief unable to get out, but God reached out and saved me. I gave in. He is now in charge of my life. So that explains the God bit. But why Catholic? There are lots of reasons but here’s a big one: Where else can I receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord? That’s an act of love I cannot get my mind around. (Of course there are other churches such as the Orthodox Churches which also have the Real Presence but that would take far too long to discuss!)

I wonder if I’m standing in the elevator talking to myself by now. Even two paragraphs contain quite a few words. (Years ago I would never have imagined I’d become the kind of person who could write such words.) But faith wasn’t what I intended to talk about. It was the chore part of my morning, I wanted to share.

Chores have been on my mind because I spent most of yesterday playing around with a video clip in which Sophie talks about doing chores. (I stole it from my video: An Interview with an Unschooling Teenager.) I have this idea for making a video series about unschooling. I could call it Unschooling Bites. Small snippets of information about unschooling presented in very short videos. Unschooling elevator pitches, perhaps!


I started my experiments at Powtoon where I made a slideshow presentation which I liked. But then I discovered I couldn’t convert my slideshow into a video. (Do you think videos are better than slideshows?)

READ  Healthy Eating and Unschooling Kids


Next, I used PowerPoint to make a similar slideshow presentation, and then I exported it as a Youtube video.


And this morning I tried a third way of sharing the clip. I published some Powtoon slides as videos and then added them to my chore video, using the Corel video software program on my computer.

I’m not sure which method I like best, but I do know I need to do more experimenting with design and perhaps re-record segments of video to get better sound quality. Podcasting has tuned my ear into every unwanted hesitation and um!


Now all I need are some simple unschooling ideas to make videos about. If you were standing next to someone in an elevator, and had only a short time to say something about unschooling, what would it be? (Or what would you like to hear?)


PS: In Australia we usually use the word ‘lift’ instead of elevator, at least we do where we live!


Photos: They haven’t got much to do with my story. I just needed something to make my post look pretty!


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Sue Elvis

I'm an Australian blogger, podcaster, and Youtuber. I write and speak about unschooling, parenting and family life. I'm also the author of the unschooling books 'Curious Unschoolers', 'Radical Unschool Love' and ‘The Unschool Challenge’. You'll find them on Amazon!

4 Comments

  1. Sue. I really enjoyed the topic discussion and found the animation and slides on the second presentation very hip and engaging. What fun you must be having working on these publication tools. Very professional. Looking forward to more creativity from the Elvis family. Thank you for the inspiration.

    • Kim,

      Thank you for your feedback on my videos. I appreciate your encouragement! I have been having fun playing around with these videos. I tried a 4th version today. I'm learning a lot as I try different things. I'm hoping to take other excerpts from my longer videos and make them into videos of their own. I thought I might also try using audio clips from my podcasts too. Bite sized pieces of unschooling!

  2. Apologetics unfortunately are not my forte at all. I don't think I can explain adequately to anyone why I'm Catholic and why I wish they were too. I pray for those who don't know and who often misunderstand the church (that was me once too) that they open their hearts just enough for God's radiant light to shine on them, that they then might understand.
    I already mentioned to you that I like your short video format, but want to encourage you again to make more! I can imagine a lot of the FB unschool members (particularly newbies) would be interested too.

    • Kelly,

      I know what you mean: Our faith is more about the heart than the head, so it can be hard to explain to other people why we are Catholic. I've had a bit of practise though, putting things into words because I've talked a lot with my Jehovah's Witness friend!

      Thank you for your encouragement about the short video series. I've been doing some more experimenting and learning a lot about video editing! I like the idea of using material I have already produced in a new way.

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