My Open Classroom for Religious Education This year teaching the faith brings a new challenge for me with my religious education class for 3rd graders at my parish. Our newish, growing parish is housed in our first building, a Parish Life Center which consists of a worship space, two cry rooms, one classroom and a meeting room. For the last several years, I've been blessed to teach faith formation in the meeting room due to the large size of my 3rd grade classes. This year the fourth grade class is larger which pushes my third grade classroom into a corner of the worship space. All together, there are four religious education classes spread out throughout the worship space. That's about 65 kids, four teachers and four aides within the same four walls making noise for class. To top it off, my classroom space is situated in front of the cry room window where we can see the kindergarten class throughout our lesson. The situation sounds a bit crazy, I know,