In early 1999, I decided to keep a journal every time I taught in the Sunday school. I was taking a class in teaching practices and principles, and one of the options for that class was to keep such a journal.
Why did I decide to keep a journal? Quaker religious educator Parker Palmer writes about a “culture of fear” in education:
“To avoid a live encounter with subjects of study, teachers and students alike can hide behind a pretense of objectivity …faculty can say, ‘Here are the facts — don’t think about them, just get them straight.’ To avoid a live encounter with ourselves, we can learn the art of self-alienation, of living a divided life.” Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), pp. 37-38.
I was struck by these words because of my experience of what I call “teacher burn-out.” Teaching engages not just your intellect, but your emotions and your spirit as well. Yet all too often, those of us who teach ignore the emotional and spiritual demands of teaching, and I think that leads to what I call burn-out, and what Palmer calls “self-alienation.”
Teaching can be scary — both teacher and students expose themselves during the teaching act, make themselves vulnerable. You can either embrace the vulnerability, or hide behind your subject matter. I don’t want to hide behind my subject matter, but it’s really hard to make yourself so vulnerable week after week! Palmer and other educators recommend keeping a teaching journal as a way to come to terms with the vulnerability you experience in the classroom as a teacher.
Keeping a journal of my teaching not only helped to keep me from burning out, it served to enrich my teaching experience, helping me to embrace the emotional and spiritual sides of teaching.
Since then, I’ve kept a teaching journal on an irregular basis. I’ve also come to have a greater appreciation for other people’s teaching journals. I’ve been especially touched by “36 Children” by Herbert Kohl (1967) and “Exploring Religion with Eight Year Olds” by Sophia Lyon Fahs and Helen Firman Sweet (1930); I’ve also been touched by the stories of her own teaching that bell hooks offers in Teaching To Transgress (1994).
I cannot measure up to the standard of these books, written by amazing educators who are also excellent writers; I’m neither an amazing educator nor can I write as well as they. But because I’m more of an ordinary person, I felt that some excerpts from my teaching journals might be of interest to others.
All names of the children and adults have been changed, and identifying characteristics have been altered, to preserve privacy. All the material below has been previously published, either on one of my blogs, or as printed handouts to give to volunteer teachers. There are many instances where I would no longer teach as described in these journals; in some cases I’ve added notes to explain why.
— Dan Harper, 2026
A Sunday School Teaching Journal (1999)
In a Sunday school with roughly 100 children registered, First Parish in Lexington, Massachusetts (Unitarian Universalist). All names of the children and adults have been changed, and identifying characteristics have been altered, to preserve privacy.
7 February, gr. 9-10 group
The adult leaders of the Sunday morning Coming of Age class asked me to visit the class this morning (a Coming of Age class is a Unitarian Universalist equivalent to a confirmation class). The leaders and I decided that I would present something with some theological content.
I decided to do a brief introduction to humanism — they already had had introductions to a little Ch–tian theology. I decided to read out loud one or two pieces of age-appropriate literature that exemplified humanist ideas: a poem by Margaret Atwood, “Marrying the Hangman,” and three very short stories by Ernest Hemingway from In Our Time.
Six youth (out of a class of eight) were present: Ch–, Pe–, Li–, Je–, Ja–, and Me–. Three adult leaders besides myself were present: Ch–, Marianne, and Tony. At the beginning of the class, there is always a “check-in,” where each person present has a chance to talk about what they did in the past week.
After check-in, I gave a two-sentence introduction, and began reading the Atwood poem. I allowed almost a full minute of silence at the end of the poem, and then asked for reactions. People had strong emotional responses — it is a difficult poem to listen to — and I did not try to fill the silences. As we got further from the poem, some of the youth began to talk more freely. The discussion faltered, and began to veer off on tangents, so I asked the class if they wanted to hear the poem again. They did. I asked Li– to read it for us.
After the second reading, the discussion flowed more freely. All the youth participated in the conversation this time, and began to ask some serious and fairly searching questions about humanism.
Je– said, “If this is a humanist poem, what does humanism have to do with religion?”
Me– said, “It sounds kind of depressing — does humanism just look at the depressing side of life?”
I gave some brief, factual answers: like all major religions, humanists are dealing with the big questions of life, death, and so on; humanists have been accused of being depressing, but there is more to humanism than that. I then asked if they would be willing to hear from another humanist — “Sure, why not?” said Ja– — and I read some pieces by Hemingway where his characters explicitly disavow God in one way or another.
I had not reckoned with the emotional impact of the Hemingway pieces. They were disturbing enough that the group did not want to talk much about them. In retrospect, I should have chosen pieces with somewhat less emotional impact. But we were running out of time anyway, so I gave about a three-sentence summary of literary humanism. Me– and Ja– asked for photocopies of the poem.
There was enough time for me to do a short informal evaluation with class members. They said they liked hearing literature read out loud, and they liked having a chance to talk about it. However, they found it hard to concentrate, and some class members would have preferred it if they each could have had a copy to read.
I felt the session went well, although forty-five minutes was not enough for an introduction to humanism. I managed to cover one basic concept: in answer to the question “why do bad things happen?” many humanists say there is no particular reason why, and a reason isn’t necessary. I also felt that I managed to show that it’s possible to read literature from a religious standpoint.
14 February, preK group
The assistant teacher for the preschool group called this morning to say that he was sick and would not be able to teach. I filled in for him.
It has been some time since I worked with three and four year olds. I had forgotten how fast the pace can be: while an individual child may wish to stay with an activity for ten or more minutes, usually the group as a whole is ready to move on to the next activity in about five minutes. Fortunately, I was able to follow the lead of La–, the head teacher, filling in where necessary. Eleven-year-old Mo– has just begun working as an aide with this group.
This class always begins with an opening circle on a big carpet in the room. First they sing a song. Each person (whether child or adult) says his or her name, and then the whole group says hello to him or her. After the opening circle, La– read a story to the group. We played a game in the circle, and then moved to the nearby tables where we had snack. After snack, the children stayed at the tables to make Valentine’s Day cards.
La– left books on the carpet where the class has circle time. When the first child finished making her card, she went to look through the books. I began to read a story to her, and one by one, as they finished their cards, the other children came over to hear the story. Mo– read the next story to the children, and by then La– had finished cleaning up, and parents began arriving to pick up their children.
I felt off-bDavidce today — it has been a long time since I worked with this age group. But it helped being able to follow the lead of an experienced teacher, and on the whole, I found I enjoyed the class. What I enjoyed most, I think, was witnessing the sense of wonder that children of this age have. That made up for the fact that I felt deficient as a teacher.
21 February, gr. 7-8 group
The junior youth Sunday school class (gr. 7-8) will be visiting an evangelical Christian church next week, part of a series of visits they are making to different faith communities. Usually, the week before the visit, the adult leaders of the group arrange to have someone from that faith tradition visit the class. But this week, they couldn’t find a visiting expert, and they asked me if I could give the class some background about evangelical Christianity.
To get back to the class: Ar– and Gi– didn’t say much beyond that they liked the story (whatever they meant by that), and Gr– didn’t say much of anything. I then elaborated on the story a little, pointing out that when he was fourteen my great-grandfather was considered to be an adult in his religious community, capable of being converted — capable of making his own decisions about his faith. This resembles our own faith tradition, where youth can decide whether or not they wished to become Unitarian Universalists. Silence from the youth — though I thought I could read in their expressions that this idea had made an impact. The adult leaders gave their opinions, and it was time to move the group on.
I asked if they knew what evangelical meant. Gr– had a cousin who is an evangelical Christian, and Gr– thought it meant that you believed in the literal truth of the Bible. Gi– said she didn’t know. Ar– started to say something, then said “Never mind. I don’t know.” Ri– and Su– weighed in with their ideas. I said that my understanding was simply that an evangelical Christian wanted to spread the Good News of Christianity.
The youth were starting to fidget, so we stood up and stretched for a minute or two.
We returned to the story, which involved an outdoor revival meeting. I described camp meetings. No response — the youth really did have low energy today! I felt I was working very hard to reach them, and not getting anywhere. I wanted to just let things sit in silence, but I couldn’t do that because I hadn’t shared my silence strategy with Su– and Richard. The youth were just sitting and watching, but not participating.
I mentioned the Chronicles of Narnia, and asked if any of them had read the books. Gr– had, and he and I discussed how these were evangelical books. This was the first time he had showed any interest in the class.
I asked if Unitarian Universalists could evangelize — could we spread the “good news” of our faith? Ar– was wearing a representation of a flaming chalice as a necklace (the flaming chalice has become one symbol of Unitarian Universalism), and I asked her why she wore it.
“Because the other kids in school wear crosses, and I wanted to show that I was a Unitarian,” she said.
I said, “Does anyone ever ask you about it?”
“Yes, and then I tell them what church I go to. But then they ask me what I believe, and I don’t know what to say.” She paused. “What do Unitarian Universalists believe, anyway?” she said. “I know this isn’t what we’re talking about, but I really want to know.”
This was just at the end of the class period. But rather than rushing for the door, they all sat and waited for an answer.
I asked her what she thought we believed.
“That you can believe anything you want.”
“Could you be a racist, or believe in killing people?” I said.
“Well, no.”
Gi– started to sit up and grow more interested. Ar– and I continued our Socratic dialogue. I turned to Gi– and asked her what she believed, and she tried to articulate her beliefs; Gr– got involved, too. Su– and Ri– also chimed in. By this time, we were becoming equal participants in the discussion.
Finally Ar– said, “Wait — you’re not saying what you believe.”
“That’s true,” I said. She had mentioned a friend who was Catholic. I said, “If your friend asked the priest, would she get a firm answer of what to believe?”
“Yes,” said Ar–. “But it would take an awfully long time.”
“But she’d get an answer?” I said.
“Oh, yes,” said Ar–.
I said, “And Gr–, your cousin could tell you what he believed?”
“Sure,” Gr– said.
“Maybe you can tell your friends this about Unitarian Universalism. When you come to me, I would not tell you what to believe. Instead I made you search for your own answers.”
Soon after that, the discussion wound down. I think everyone felt quite satisfied with the results. By common accord, we decided it was time to go.
At the beginning, I thought this was going to be another dull class, that the youth were just not going to let themselves get drawn in. Ar– and Gi– were at least sympathetic, and once we got to the “Narnia” books, Gr– was, too. While it didn’t feel productive at the time, I’d say the earlier part of the class set up the space at the very end for Ar– to ask her question — which in turn led to a discussion that really engaged the youth. In retrospect, the fifty minutes of hard slogging was worth the ten minutes at the end.
28 February, preK group
I haven’t been able to recruit enough teachers for the growing preschool group class, so I help out with this class again today. (I’m beginning to wonder if I’m delaying my recruiting because I enjoyed teaching in this class last time.)
Ad– was the lead teacher today. I was assistant teacher, and eleven year old Mo– joined us again as a helper. Ni–, a seventh-grader, decided to help out today. Another adult, Si– was on hand to observe the class.
There were seven children present: Le–, An–, Ri–, Al–, Be–, Da–, and As–. The opening did not go very well. The children were very easily distracted. Ri– talked happily at great length about anything at all (but I think he is beginning to learn how to let other children talk, too). As– had brought a toy monkey, and the monkey had to be included in every activity. Ad– was trying to show the children interesting things from around the world, but the children began to squabble over who got to hold what. They even began throwing things at each other. I suggested we could put everything back in Ad–‘s box, and let Ad– take things out one by one. The children liked this idea, and put everything back in the box.
Next, Ad– had a game for the children to play. Le– was feeling shy and a little grouchy. She decided to sit out. Ad– said that was fine, but then Al– wanted to sit out, too. Wisely, Ad– just started playing the game at this point, and pretty soon Al– joined in, though Le– did not.
Ad– asked me to read the story to the children. It took us quite a while to get the children settled down to listen to the story. I asked Ri– if he really wanted to sit still and listen, or if he would prefer to do some active play (we had enough adults to allow him to go off in another corner of the room). He decided to stay with the main group.
After the story came time for snack and drawing. Ad– managed the logistics of passing out crayons, etc. Mo– sat at one table of children, and I decided to sit next to Ri–. He is so good-natured, but wasn’t sure about how he wanted to be a part of the group. He piqued my curiosity, and I wanted to get to know him a little better. I talked with him, and with Da–, who sat on the other side of me. There were enough adults that each of us could give our full attention to only two children (what a luxury). I enjoyed getting to know these two children better.
Class ended. While the children waited for their parents, I read them another two stories. As, Ri–, and Al– were the last children left, and they were very energetic.
It was an exhausting hour and a quarter. The children were a little edgy and slightly out-of-sorts. Yet I finished with a feeling of satisfaction. Parker Palmer writes that “kindergarten teachers often understand the craft [of teaching] better than those of us with Ph.D.’s,” that with young children it is perhaps more apparent that the “selfhood of the teacher” is what’s really important (Palmer 1998, 7). I do know that when I work with young children, my mastery of teaching is more important than the content that I teach. It’s a good way to improve my teaching skills, and with that improvement can come a feeling of satisfaction.
14 March, Gr. 5-6 group
The fifth and sixth grade group in Sunday school had been averaging about five children. This Sunday, Jo– was the lead teacher, and none of the others in the teaching team could help out. She thought it wouldn’t be a problem because of the small size of the group. Then ten children showed up! She asked me to join her at the last minute as her assistant teacher.
Jo– and I have very different teaching styles. She is more organized, and tends to work from a carefully-prepared lesson plan. I prepare with a general understanding of the topic for the day, and tend to improvise in class. She remembers to take attendance every class — I often forget. As her assistant, of course, I was going to follow her lead, and help her to teach the class her way.
The session went very well. Jo–‘s teaching style remained in effect the whole time. I did things like taking the attendance, running on an errand for her to get supplies. I followed her lead, and helped her set limits with the children. Basically, I made sure that I took care of the little details so she was free to teach her lesson.
At the same time, since I was able to step back from the pressures (and undeniable pleasures) of leading the class, I could concentrate on something I particularly enjoy — listening carefully to what the children in the class have to say. One of the things I like most about teaching is getting the chance to listen to the worries and fears, the beliefs and confusions, and the joys and wonderings of children. JoAnn was so effective with the other details that I found myself freed up to simply listen.
At the end of the class, Jo– told me she felt that she had accomplished her goals for the session, she told me that she had enjoyed teaching with me, and she said she liked the way I listened to the children. And I told her how much fun it was to work with such a well-organized teacher.
21 March, gr. 2-3 group
I had promised to teach the second and third graders this week. I had a miserable week at work — the church administrator was out sick all week, so nothing got done — and I completely forgot to prepare a lesson plan. Fortunately, I worked six summers in a day camp where the philosophy was: “don’t create lesson plans, act as a resource person and follow the interests of the children.” Then, too, I have been rereading the 1928 book Exploring Religion with Eight Year Olds by Sophia Fahs and Helen Firman Sweet, which describe a fully child-centered curriculum, and that is much the same approach they used. So that is the approach I used today.
I had done no preparation, but I knew what resources were available. There were plenty of magazines in the store room that could be cut up into collages, and there was also glue, scissors, and construction paper. So I began knowing more or less what the main activity could be.
We began with an opening circle and time to share what we had done this past week, something this class always does (and something I always do when I teach). La– asked if she could begin, and told about her past week. La– is getting ever more articulate, and what used to sound like rudeness is now tempered by an increasing ability to listen to others and to have deep concern for others. I particularly noticed during the opening circle that when other children were talking, La– is perhaps the most attentive. I think she has learned a great deal from the sharing at opening circles.
After everyone had shared something about their past week (except Ta–, who chose to “pass” and not say anything), I said we were going to make collages. Great enthusiasm: “We love making collages!” But what were the collages to be about? Since this was the last session of this term, I wanted the children to make a collage about something they liked about Sunday school, as a sort of closure to the term. But Te– said, “That’s hard, this is only the second time I’ve been to Sunday school.” The others weren’t crazy about the idea, either.
Everyone in the class had gotten a part in the congregation’s spring musical production about the rain forest, rehearsal for which would replace Sunday school after Easter. “Let’s make posters for the musical!” “Yeah!” It was decided that anyone who wanted could have their collage put up on the bulletin board in the Parish Hall.
We all went into the store room, and everyone got a job to do. Three children, Al–, Ca–, and Be– carried the biggest, very heavy box of magazines out together. La– helped Go– carry the other box of magazines out. La– worked very well with Go–, who is developmentally disabled. Quickly, children started on making collages. Ca– got frustrated because “I can’t find any good magazines to cut pictures out of.” But I persuaded the children at the other table to give Ca– some of their magazines.
After clean-up, we had time for a closing circle. I set the rules: show what you had done, say whether or not you wanted to see it on the Parish Hall bulletin board, and then everyone would say together: “Wow! Cool! Awesome collage!” Four children wanted their collage on the Parish Hall bulletin board. La– wasn’t done yet, and took hers home to work on (I told her we could put hers up later). Go– wanted her drawing (she decided to draw) to go up on the downstairs bulletin board where children’s art usually goes. Ch– wanted to take her collage home.
The session went fifteen minutes over its allotted time. Neither children nor teacher complained, and in fact all thought the time too short. While there wasn’t much explicit content in this session, I felt the children learned a good amount about how to respect and support each other, and how to be together in a group.
“EcoAdventures”: RE in a camp setting
In a week-long children’s program for Religious Education Week, Ferry Beach Conference Center (Universalist). All names of the children and adults have been changed, and identifying characteristics have been altered, to preserve privacy.
10 July 2006
Here at the annual religious education conference at Ferry Beach Conference Center, I’m one of the adults leading the children’s program. Along with Li–, I’m doing nature and ecology with the elementary age children.
At the end of the morning today, we had the third and fourth graders for an hour. The plan was to play a game for half an hour that would teach about cycles of life, and then going out into the woods and giving the children some alone time. As can happen with children, we went astray from the plan.
The children were feeling active today. We started playing the game, called “Foxes and Rabbits,” and the children got so excited and were having so much fun I had trouble getting them to transition from one round to the next. I didn’t want them to descend from excitement into chaotic lack of structure, so I really worked hard to get them to stay focused. I was getting a little frustrated with them. Fortunately, they’re a cheerful group so they tried hard focus a little more even though they were getting a little frustrated with me. It was one of those teaching situations where the children were pulling in one direction, and I was pulling in slightly different direction.
But we were all having fun, in spite of the frustration. I looked at my watch and fifty minutes had gone by — we had to wrap things up pretty quickly. So I asked the children to sit in a circle, and we talked about the game. And they came up with some wonderful insights about the cycle of life, about what might happen if humans destroy part of the web of life, about birth and death, just a wonderful free-for-all discussion. It was one of those times you sometimes get while teaching:– with the whole group, kids and adults, soaring together.
Fifty minutes of frustration for ten minutes of soaring. That’s the way it goes in teaching.
11 July 2006
Today we had the fifth and sixth graders first. We played the “Foxes, Rabbits, and Leaves” game that we did yesterday with the third and fourth graders — I learned from yesterday’s mistakes, and the game went much more smoothly today. After half an hour of play, the children didn’t want to stop, but Li– and I ended that game anyway because we wanted to give them some alone time in the woods.
So we lined them up single file, and walked out into the woods. One by one, Li– seated each child along the trail, so they were all spread out — within sight of one another, but too far away to talk. After about seven minutes of quiet time, Li– and I circled around and picked the children up one by one, and we all walked back single file, in silence, to a comfortable place in the woods, where we sat in a circle.
I asked: What did you do with your time alone in the woods?
“I picked up a big stick and I hit it against a tree again and again until it broke.”
“I sat and meditated for a while, then I opened my eyes and looked around.”
“I let an inch worm crawl on me, but then I squished it by mistake so I buried it.”
“I picked up a big stick and hit it again a tree too.”
“I swatted mosquitoes. Oh, and I listened to a bird that was nearby.”
I said: I love to spend time outdoors, and I’ve done all those things myself.
One of our goals is to give each group plenty of unstructured time more or less alone in the woods. A big part of our goal is to help children feel comfortable outdoors, in a natural environment — we want kids to like Nature and the outdoors. If they feel some spiritual connection with Nature, great, but just liking it is enough at this point.
12 July 2006
Today we had the 5/6th graders for nature and ecology in the hour just before lunch. “What are we going to do today?” “Can we do alone time again?” “Yeah, where we walk single file and you tap us on the shoulder.” “Yeah, and spread us out so we can’t see each other this time!” [See below for instructions of how we set up alone time two days ago.] Alone time wasn’t on our lesson plan for today, but since one of our primary learning goals is to have the children spend time alone in the woods, Li– and I were actually very pleased that they asked to do more alone time.
So we said: Sure, we can do alone time again. Do you want to do it as long as half an hour? “Longer!” “Yeah, the whole hour!” Well, we can’t go that long because we have to be at lunch by noon. “OK, but be sure to spread us out so far that we can’t see each other.” Then a worried look: “What if something happens, though?” Well, Li– and I will spread you out so you can just see each other.
We actually let them go a little longer than thirty minutes. Then I asked what they did with their alone time. Some of them couldn’t quite spend that whole time alone and six of the eleven children wound up hanging out with a nearby child: “We built a fort together,” said one pair. Of the ones who spent the whole time alone, some spent time just looking at what was around them: “I wound up in exactly the same spot as the last time, so I finished looking at the things I started looking at last time we had alone time.” One or two just sat and enjoyed being quiet: “I just sat there on the ground and didn’t really do anything.” I mentioned that being alone in the outdoors is one of my spiritual practices (just so they would know that it can be a legitimate spiritual practice).
Later today, one of the girls in that group made a point of stopping me and saying that she really liked being alone in the woods. Don’t let anyone tell you that kids today only want to play video games.
Note
Leading “alone time” (with a group of children) — Give these instructions before beginning: “We’re all going to keep walking single file along the trail. One at a time, the Sweep will indicate to each child that he/she is to sit down in the trail, until everyone is spread out along the trail. Then we’ll all sit in silence of a time. When the time is up, the Sweep will start walking slowly, slowly, and gradually we’ll rejoin in a single file line again.” Sweep circles back around to be at rear of line again. Have children sit in silence for one to five minutes (depending on age and group chemistry). Older children can spread out quite far. Younger children will be more comfortable if they are closer together.
13 July 2006
With the heavy rains last night, everything in the woods was soaked. We had planned an activity where the third and fourth graders would be crawling around on the ground, but it was too wet for that.
As we walked over to the Grove, we passed a running stream of water that had been a dry ditch yesterday. I said: Let’s clean out some of these sticks so the water flows better. Some of the active boys jumped down and started pulling out sticks and even small logs. The girls and other boys weren’t far behind. We dropped sticks and watched how fast they raced downstream.
I asked: Where does the water go? “Down there!” Let’s follow it and see. They all ran off downstream, stopping to clean out a few more snags. “It flows into this hole!” That’s called a culvert. “It keeps going over here!” We ran over to a ditch by the side of the main road. The children discovered that the water seemed to disappear under the road.
We carefully crossed the road to see if we could follow the water down to the ocean, but there was no water on the ditch on the other side of the road. We crossed back over to look again. Where does the water go? The children imagined all kinds of things that might happen to the water. But what really happens to the water? Who could we ask? The children thought about that, and one of the children who has returned year after year said, “We could talk to the guy who runs the campsite.” So we walked over to the garage, where we found Ed.
I said, Ed, the children want to know where the water goes. Ed explained that it runs into a sewer under the road, and then is pumped up to the sewage treatment plant where they process the water to make it clean. “They take all the poop out of it!” “Yes,” said Ed, “and at the end the water is so clean that you can drink it.” That was a novel concept to the children, and we talked about that for a while. Then it was time to follow the water upstream, to see where it came from. “THerbie you, Ed!”
We ran back to the stream, and followed it the other direction this time. “I know where streams start, they always start in a spring in the mountains.” Well, let’s see how far we can follow this stream.
We came to a place where the bottom of the stream was sand. The sand looked orange. The children and I pulled sand up off the bottom, but when we pulled it up the sand was white. That means the water is orange: why? “It’s the leaves, they make it orange.” “And the pine needles.”
The stream got wider and wider, and flowed more and more slowly. Soon there were interconnected puddles everywhere in the woods — in the same part of the woods where we had walked dry shod yesterday. I suggested that maybe the stream started with all the puddles. But the children weren’t yet sure. So we kept going deeper into the woods.
“We should go this way!” said one child. “No, this way!” said another child. I asked, Which way does water flow? “Up — ” “No, it flows downhill.” So which way is uphill? We figured out which way was uphill, and went that way to see if we could tell where the water started flowing. There was water everywhere. If you slipped on a root, you’d get wet. All of us got our feet at least a little bit wet.
Finally we got to a place where there were no more puddles. But there was no stream, either. Finally the children figured out what was going on: The woods turn into a swamp when it rains, and the streams drain the water out of the stream. I told them that the streams were actually ditches that people had dug in order to drain the swamp.
We stood in a circle, and went over what we had figured out. At the end of that, one child said, “I think we should always learn like this — being outdoors, and not having someone just tell us.” I said that I believed that children could figure things out for themselves (with adult help and direction).
It was time to head back. I said I’d try to find a dryer path for us to follow back. But there was water everywhere. Eventually, we had to turn around and head back the way we came. We got a little wetter, and we were fifteen minutes late for lunch. But the children had learned a lot more about the woods, and water, and what happens when it rains, and where water goes. They’ve learned about the water cycle in school, but this time they really got to see it in action.
And this was completely unplanned: spontaneous programming, arising out of the interests of the children, and their interactions with their surrounding environment.
Mixed age Sunday school (2009-2010)
In a Sunday school at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto. About 90 children were registered for the 9:30 session. But the 11:00 session, which this teaching journal comes from, always had fewer than 10 children registered. All names of the children and adults have been changed, and identifying characteristics have been altered, to preserve privacy.
20 September 2009: “On the first Sunday the adventure is launched”(1)
At 11:00 a.m. this morning, children and teenagers and adults from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto (UUCPA) gathered together in the Main Hall for the first fifteen minutes of worship service. Some of the teenagers didn’t quite make it into the Main Hall; they had cooked dinner for the homeless people who stay overnight in the church each night in September, and then they had stayed overnight at one family’s house. But when the children from our Sunday school group had gone into the Main Hall, some of the teenagers were there, and lots of adults of all different ages. The Parish Minister had welcomed everyone, and invited everyone to stand up and greet each other. Then the pianist played Chopin’s Prelude no. 6 in B minor; from where I sat in the back of the Main Hall, I could see the children settle down and relax. A family with children lit the flaming chalice while one of the worship associates, led the congregation in saying some words together. The parish minister read Eric Carle’s story The Mixed Up Chameleon, introducing it by saying that although the story is aimed at young children, older children are the ones who really understand the story. Then the parish minister led the congregation in singing the song “My Roots Go Down” while the children gathered to go off together to the newly-established 11:00 Sunday school class, called “Expanding Circles of Faith.”
By 11:15, nine children and five adults had gathered in Room 6 on the UUCPA campus. The children ranged in age from Diana, who was 6 and in first grade, to Sara and Peter, both 11 and both in sixth grade; the other children were Oliver and Bill, both in second grade, Heather, Zach, and Andrew, all in fourth grade, and Ari who is in fifth grade. The adults included Melanie, and Sondra, and me, three members of the teaching team who will be teaching this group this year, and two parents who were visiting the class.
We sat around the low circular table in Room 6, and after attendance had been taken, it was time to light a flaming chalice. I asked Sara, as one of the oldest children in the class, to light the candle in the flaming chalice, while the rest of us said some words most of the children knew from other Sunday school classes at UUCPA: “We light this chalice, a symbol of Unitarian Universalism, the church of the open minds, the helping hands, and the loving hearts.”
Usually I like to allow time in Sunday school classes for the children to talk about one good thing and one bad thing that had happened to them in the past week. But things were a little bit awkward, since most of the children and adults did not really know each other, so instead we took the time to play a name game called “The Grocery Store Game.” First we moved the table out of the way. “Pick an item that you can buy in the grocery store,” I said, “the name of which begins with the same letter or the same sound as your name. So I’m Dan Dog food.” Everyone smiled at that, and we went around the circle as the children and adults chose grocery store names for themselves: Sara Saran Wrap, Zach Zucchini, Melanie Marshmallow, Diana Doughnut, and so on. “Now one person stands in the middle of the circle with a pillow,” I said, demonstrating what I meant, “and one person, let’s say Oliver Olives, starts us off by saying ‘I like…’ and then someone’s grocery store name.” Oliver got it, and said, “I like Bill Berries.” I continued with my instructions: “At this point, I will try to tap Bill Berries with the pillow before he can name someone else.” Bill berries said hurriedly, “I like Ari Asparagus,” who in turn said, “I like Heather Hair Spray,” who didn’t respond before I tapped her with the pillow, so she went into the center of the circle.
The children and adults enjoyed playing this game together. This is one of those games where, as long as you understand the rules, your age doesn’t make much difference in how well you can play — some people, no matter what their age, are good at thinking on their feet and calling out someone else’s grocery store name before they get tapped by the pillow; and others of us are easily distracted, or don’t concentrate as well, and we get tapped by the pillow before we can call out someone else’s name. Diana was one of the best players; I was in the middle of the pack (even though I’ve played this game many times); and others just couldn’t seem to think quickly enough. There was no winning or losing (and because some people actually want to be in the middle of the circle), no one got left out, and we all had fun. After about ten minutes, I decided it was time to stop playing. We had two more rounds, just enough so that Bill Berries, who hadn’t yet been in the middle of the circle, could be in the middle.
I then told the story “John Murray’s Miracle.” After I told the story once, we acted it out together. Zach took the part of John Murray. Heather took the part of the baby, and Pete took the part of Eliza (they both said they wanted the chance to die on stage). There were parts for everyone — the captain of the ship, the ship itself, the sandbar, ship’s crew, Thomas Potter, the church, people who came to listen to John Murray preach — there were enough parts that all the children and adults who wanted a part had at least one part, and in the end I think Sara wound up with three different parts.
We had a short discussion about the story. “Do you think this is a miracle?” I asked. “John Murray told us this story, and maybe he didn’t remember how long it was that the ship was stuck on the sandbar; maybe it wasn’t several days, but only one day. What are your thoughts on this story?” One child said that he thought that the ship was probably only stuck for a day. One of the other adults pointed out that the miracle was only that the ship was stuck on the sandbar for so long. Another child asked if the story was really true, and I said that we know John Murray came to America at about this time, and we knew he had preached in Thomas Potter’s church. Another child thought that John Murray had told a true story, because the ship could have been stuck that long. We talked a little longer, trying to sort out what each of us wanted to believe about this story.
After the story, I said that I wanted us to start a project together. Our class shares Room 6, which is used by many other groups over the course of the week, but I said I thought it would be nice to make it our own. I explained that over the next few weeks we would be making a quilt together, a quilt with blocks designed and painted on fabric by the children. The theme, I said, would be symbols of our Unitarian Universalist faith — we would paint different designs of flaming chalices on the quilt blocks. David, one of the adults visiting the class, said he had grown up as a Unitarian Universalist, but that when he was a kid his congregation didn’t use the flaming chalice. I said the same was true for me, and Laila, the other visiting adult, said she had also grown up Unitarian Universalist and she too had not seen a flaming chalice as a child. The children seemed interested to hear that the flaming chalice is a relatively new symbol.
I showed the children a variety of flaming chalice designs, and explained where the designs came from: the old chalice logo of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, a flaming chalice used by Interweave (an association of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Unitarian Universalists), the old off-center cross used by Universalists, and so on. “We’re not going to actually paint on fabric today,” I told the children. “We’re just going to draw, and later we’ll figure out which of the drawings we want to put onto fabric.”
We brought out a table, and the children sat around it (there wasn’t room for the adults — we had more people than we expected). We had markers and crayons, and I provided some sample chalices for children who didn’t feel confident enough to draw their own; Andrew was unsure about what to draw, so I gave him one of the sample chalice drawings. Diana, on the other hand, knew immediately what she wanted to draw, and drew a detailed and colorful chalice design that was quite remarkable.
It was almost time to go; we could see the adults coming out of the worship service in the Main Hall. We did a perfunctory clean-up, and then all stood in a circle. Each child had a chance to show the drawings they had made. We asked the children to leave their drawings at UUCPA until next week.
Then we all held hands. I explained how to hold hands in a circle: “Hold your hands out like this [both palms down]; now turn over your left hand — let’s see, I get my left and right mixed up sometimes [Heather tapped my left hand] oh yes, like this — now take your right hand and put it over your neighbor’s left hand [demonstrating as I say this] and hold hands. Now, as you can see, everyone’s thumbs are pointing left!” Often at least one child refuses to hold hands with the person next to them, but this group simply held hands without any complaints or hesitancies.
“Now it’s time for our closing circle,” I said. “What did we do today?” “We drew!” “We acted.” “What did we act out?” “Um, the story about that guy, ah, John…” “John Murray.” “And that other guy, the guy with the church!” “Don’t forget the baby!” “Thomas Potter you mean?” “And John Murray’s wife!” The children remembered little bits and pieces of the story, but had a hard time remembering the whole thing. I didn’t prod them, simply helped them remember what they could. “OK, now it’s really time to go,” I said. “I’ve had so much fun with you this morning, and I look forward to seeing you all next week.” Most of the children went out to social hour in a burst of high spirits; one or two stayed long enough to put their names on their drawings before they left.
Notes
One of our primary interests in teaching this class is to mix age groups. Our hypotheses is that the younger children will learn much from the older children, and that the older children will learn by having to be role models for the younger children. What also came out today is that younger children may perform above their age level in one area — as today Diana drew one of the best and most delightful drawings — and older children feel relieved that they don’t have to perform at a high level in all areas of competency — as happened with Andrew when he was unsure what, if anything, he wanted to draw, and he was relieved when he didn’t have to produce a masterpiece.
I have been working closely with the parish minister, our parish minister, to make sure the first fifteen minutes in the worship service works well for children. This Sunday, I felt the children came out of the Main Hall feeling centered from the calming music and the chalice lighting) and also joyful (from the fun story). That first fifteen minutes made all the difference — we had no behavior problems in Sunday school, and I give lots of credit to the calm and joy experienced in worship.
Footnote
(1): This is the title of the first chapter of Exploring Religion with Eight Year Olds by Helen Firman Sweet and Sophia Lyon Fahs (New York: Henry Holt, 1930). Exploring Religion with Eight Year Olds serves as an inspiration for this experiment in Sunday school. I hope, too, that my experiment will serve as something of a corrective to the problematic aspects of the book — the too-closely-graded classes, the paper-and-pencil tests used as assessment, the lack of a congregational affiliation and consequent lack of multiple adult role models, etc. — problematic aspects of liberal religious education which continue to haunt us 80 years after Sweet and Fahs’s marvelous experiment.
27 September 2009
As is our new custom, all of us — children and adults — began together in the worship service in the Main Hall at 11:00. The parish minister taught us a song called “Thula.” It’s a Zulu song, in 3-part harmony, and “thula” means hush — it’s a lullaby, but it’s also a great song for helping people become peaceful.
We gathered in a bigger room this week, and it was a good thing we did because we had twelve children this week instead of nine. Pete and Ari were not here this week, but Rawley and Chad (brother and sister) and Perry and Monty (brothers), and Lily joined us today (for privacy, I use pseudonyms for the children). All four of use teachers were present — Lee, Sondra, Melanie, and me — as well as two parent visitors — Laila from last week and Abbey.
It took us a while to settle down. We did not have enough space for the children to sit in a circle, so some of the adults and children moved tables around. I asked two children, Lily and Oliver, to put carpet squares down in a circle for our opening circle. They started to do so, got distracted by their friends, and then we realized we were going to have to move the circle again, by which time everyone was helping. While this was going on, Sondra was taking attendance.
Most of the children got in the circle, but we were still settling in, and Sondra was still trying to take attendance. I talked a little bit about regional accents — I had to explain what an accent was, because some of the children didn’t know — and then I had the children learn how to say some words in a generic eastern Massachusetts accent. “There’s a red thing that you eat, and it has claws, what would you call it?” I said. Rawley got it: “A lobster!” “Exactly,” I said, except that where I come from we’d say ‘lobstah.’ ” The children and adults all said, “Lobstah.” “And then where I come from we like to eat clams. Did any of you ever have clams?” Several people nodded. “We like to steam clams, and we call them ‘steamahs.’ And we like to dip our steamahs in buttah — you’d say ‘butter’.” All the children said “steamahs” and “buttah,” and most of them were smiling or even laughing by now. All this had nothing to do with my lesson plan, but it served to cover over the chaos of rearranging the room, and it also served as an icebreaker activity.
At last we were settled in our opening circle. “Who are the sixth graders here today?” I asked “One of you can light the chalice.” Monty, Sara, and Chad held up their hands. “Sara, you lit it last week, so Monty, why don’t you do it this week, and Chad, we’ll have you do it next week.” Chad lit the chalice, and in another digression from my lesson plan, I talked to the children about how hair burns really easily, so those of us with long hair have to keep our hair away from fires. I snipped a little hair from my pony tail, and demonstrated how quickly it burns. Some of the children had stories about people whose hair caught on fire: Sara told about a couple who were friends of her family, how they were having a romantic dinner, and the man asked the woman if she wanted to get married, and she leaned forward to say yes but she got too close to one of the candles on the table and scorched her hair which caused her to say ‘No!” (when she really meant “Yes, I want to get married.”) Another child told about someone her family knew whose hair caught on fire, and her face was badly burned; she still has a scar from it. Several other children spoke, too, and this discussion proved to be of some interest to all present.
“What is it we say each week when we light our chalice?” I asked. “Say it really slowly because I’m still learning it.” Together, the children and adults said, “We are Unitarian…” “Hold it right there,” I said, writing it down. “So why do we make a ‘U’ shape with our hands [I demonstrated]?” Diana, the youngest in the group, said, “That stand for ‘Unitarian’.” “OK,” I said, “what comes next?” Everyone said, “…Universalists…” “Hold it,” I said, “let me write that down… and why do we make a ‘U’ with our other hand?” “It stands for ‘Universalism’!” We went through the rest of the words we say each week when we light the chalice, with me writing them down, and discussing the meaning of each hand motion we use as we went along.
This week, I wanted to give the children time to do “check-in”; that is, to share a little bit about their lives. “Let’s go around the circle,” I said, “and each of us will say their name, and then you can say one good thing and one bad thing that happened to you in the past week; or you can pass, and say nothing.” Three or four of the children chose to pass, but most of the children and all the adults told briefly about a good thing and a bad thing that had happened to them in the past week (although one child told about two good things, and two other children had a good thing to talk about but no bad thing).
Had I looked at the clock at this point, I would have seen that we were way behind schedule. I often forget to look at the clock, and I forgot this time; I was so engaged with talking with the children and getting to know them that I did not pay attention to time.
“Now it’s time for the story,” I said. “The story today is a continuation of last week’s story. Does anyone remember last week’s story?” The children tried to remember the story: “I was the baby,” said Heather, “and there was a priest…” “A preacher, actually,” I said to her, “but yes, and can you remember his name?” She remembered his name. Andrew remembered there was another guy, “that church guy,” and I said, “You mean the man who built the church,” and then Sara remembered he was named Thomas Potter. Then Diana raised her hand, and I pointed to her, and she gave a truly excellent summary of the whole story, right up to the point where John Murray got married.
After we remembered together last week’s story, I told them the story of John Murray and the Rock. My notes for the story included some passages from John Murray’s autobiography because I wanted to be able to read them some of Murray’s actual words; when I got to those passages, I had to explain several of the words and phrases. Someone asked what a “debate” was, and Andrew came up with a pretty good definition, drawing on his memories of his father watching the presidential debates. When the story got to the point where Mr. Croswell tried to interrupt John Murray, I had two adults, Laila and Sondra, act this out: Mr. Croswell (Sondra) kicked at John Murray’s (Laila’s) legs, pulled at Murray’s clothing, shouldered Murray, etc.
When I got done with the story, I said, “So what happened in the story?” I had thought about having the children act out the story the way we did last week, but I thought I’d take a chance and try to lead a straight discussion of the story. We went over the story, and got the facts straightened out. I asked the children whether they thought that people should have been allowed to stop John Murray from talking about Universalism. Rawley thought that it should be OK to say whatever you want in your own home, but maybe not in public. Gradually, we refined that idea, and we talked about how in America we do have freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression — in fact, this is one of the things that John Murray gives tHerbies for in his autobiography. We talked about the limits of free speech, and of religious expression. These ideas are prevalent in our schools and in our society, so the children seemed to already have a good understanding of them. We talked a little bit more about whether John Murray’s opponents should have thrown rocks at him, and some of the children did not think that was a good thing: Murray should have been allowed to speak.
I was moving towards wrapping up this conversation, when Rawley raised her hand. She asked a question about the recent teen suicides in the area, where over the summer three teenagers have committed suicide by jumping in front of trains. Somehow — perhaps the talk about the violence that John Murray had faced up to? — got her thinking about this. “Well,” I said, a little taken aback, “that’s a little off topic. Maybe we could talk about that later.” But it quickly became apparent that many — perhaps most — of the children were very interested in this topic, and I realized it was not just Rawley, and that I should not pass over this lightly. So i told the children the story of how last week I had been on a train, and a man had jumped under the train to commit suicide, and how the police and EMTs had had to come, and we sat on the train for an hour and a half. Both adults and children listened attentively to what I had to say, and one of the adults added some additional information. We also talked a little bit about how one of the teenagers had been part of our church, and some of the children seemed to have known who she was. “We should talk about this more next week,” I said. And it seemed that everyone was content to wait until next week to talk about this subject.
At this point, we were supposed to continue the project begun last week: drawing chalices on squares of fabric, later to be painted with fabric paints and then assembled into a quilt. But as I started to turn to that, Melanie pointed out that it was close to noon, close to the end of our time. So instead of working on the quilt project, we stood in a circle, and sang “Thula”: we split into three groups, each group with an adult who knew one of the parts, and and we sang the song in three-part harmony. I felt a little rushed, and would have liked to work more on the song so that we really sounded fabulous; but we did pretty well.
We had our closing circle, and I reminded the children how to hold hands in our closing circle (right plam down, left palm up, join hands, everyone’s thumbs point left). “What did we do today?” I said. “Sang ‘Thula’!” “Heard a story.” “What was the story about?” At about this point, a parent came into the room to pick up her children, and I invited her to join our closing circle. We went over the story (mostly i reminded the children of what the story was about), and then I said how much fun I had had, and that I hoped to see them next week. This week, I did not notice the children rushing to leave class quite so much as they did last week.
14 October 2009
It was Columbus Day weekend, and to give the volunteer teachers a break we decided that I would hold a “chapel service” this past Sunday. As a result, many families decided not to come to church at all. Attendance at the 9:30 service was 22 children, compared to 45-60 children on the previous three Sundays. And attendance at the 11:00 service was 2 children, both of whom were children of Sunday school teachers (there were also 5 teens and a couple of toddlers at this service, but they were in other programs).
The first fifteen minutes of the worship service this week were particularly welcoming to elementary age children. This week’s worship associate made sure to mention that one of the children in the family who lit the chalice was having her fourth birthday today (the children in that family had already come to Sunday school at 9:30 and left right after they lit the chalice). The guest musician was a folksinger, and he sang a song that many children know, “A Place in the Choir” by Bill Staines. And the first hymn was an easy-to-sing “zipper song,” an African American hymn titled “There Is More Love Somewhere.” I thought to myself, Too bad only two elementary-aged children came this week!
Through a communications glitch, all four of the teachers showed up this week. Melanie brought all the materials for painting quilt squares, and although I had a lesson plan ready, we decided that the best thing to do was to have a non-structured session during which we simply worked on painting our quilt squares. In addition to Zach and Oliver, Melanie’s teenaged daughter L— also joined us.
Zach finished painting a quilt square he had started last week; we all admired how well it turned out. Oliver worked on his quilt square, but he did not feel as good about it as did Zach; perhaps he felt he couldn’t live up to Zach’s quilt square; in any case, he wanted to stop working on his even though it seemed to the rest of us that if he worked a little more he would have a really good-looking quilt square. Oliver dabbed a little with the paint, and goofed around in a very charming way, but didn’t add much to what he had already painted. L— and I worked on our respective quilt squares; the other adults mostly observed or helped out Zach and Oliver, but did not work on quilt squares.
It was a very informal session. Even though Zach finished his work fairly early on, and Oliver wasn’t enthusiastic about painting, the time passed quickly in idle conversation. We didn’t talk about anything important or notable; we just enjoyed a pleasant companionship together.
Towards the end of the hour, as we were starting to clean up, I mentioned that this was the first time all four of us adults had been together, and maybe we could do some scheduling. “I’ll take the lead next week, and do something on Theodore Parker,” I said. “who wants to teach with me?” L— said she would, and although I suspected she wasn’t serious, I told her that I have co-taught Sunday school with high-school-aged youth before, and I would love to have her as one of our co-teachers. But L— decided not to join our teaching team just yet. The four of us who are on the teaching team came up with a rough plan for what we will do between now and THerbiesgiving: 2 weeks on Theodore Parker, and then 3 weeks on the history of our own church.
Note
It should be obvious by now that we do not spend a great deal of time on planning. We have a broad curriculum plan — we will spend the fall on Unitarian Universalist identity, the winter on Jewish and Christian heritage, and the spring on wisdom from world’s religions — but within that broad plan, we are choosing specific topics to teach based on our interests as teachers. We also remain aware of our four big educational goals — community-building and fun, religious literacy, religious skills, and raising kids whom we hope will become Unitarian Universalist adults — but at this point in the year, we have found ourselves concentrating most on the first educational goal.
18 October 2009
The children went to the first fifteen minutes of the worship service with the adults as usual. It took a long time for the worship service to get going this week. We started three minutes late, the announcements went on for four minutes, and we wound up taking about five minutes to greet the people around us and introduce newcomers, so it was 11:12 before the worship service really started. Fortunately, this week’s worship associate, Callie, told a wonderfully effective children’s story. She started by saying that the story took place “far, far away, ten thousand miles away, in the land of India, where I was born.”
The story was about a man who made his living by selling caps (Callie put a baseball cap on her head to show the kind of cap she meant). He carried around some 50 caps in a big basket calling, Who wants to buy a nice cap? Red ones, green ones, all kinds of caps! Then the man walked under a tree in which some 50 monkeys lived. The monkeys saw the caps and wanted them. They climbed down out of the tree, and each took a cap. They liked the red caps best, said Callie, “because the red caps matched their red rear ends.” The man called to the monkeys to return his caps, for if he could not sell the caps, he would earn no money and his children would starve. He pleaded with the monkeys, but the monkeys just laughed. The man grew sad, and then angry, and when he realized the monkeys would not give his caps back no matter what he said, he grew disgusted and threw his own cap on the ground (Callie demonstrated this with the cap she was wearing. Lo and behold, all the monkeys imitated the man and threw their caps on the ground where he could pick them up. “The moral of the story, parents and children,” Callie said in conclusion, “is this: children will do what adults do, not what you say.” (I can’t remember the exact wording of Callie’s moral, but it was something like this.) I found it to be a very satisfying story — it was a familiar story told in a personal way, it was fun for children, and the moral was not simplistic. I liked that the moral was really two morals in one: it told adults that words are not enough; and it alerted children that they should pay more attention to what the adults in their lives actually do, as opposed to what those adults say. I thought to myself that I might want to take some time to talk about this story with the children in class.
We went off to our regular room. I was surprised to find that several of the things I had set up had been put away — the candle we were going to light was gone, the markers and crayons I had ready for the project were gone, the snack was gone. We found the candle and the markers had been put away in the closet in our room. I went off in search of matches and snack while Melanie said the opening words with the children. I grumbled a little bit, but there wasn’t much we could do. This is always one of the challenges of teaching Sunday school: things move around when you’re in shared space.
I got back to our room in time for check-in. There were just four children today: Diana, Andrew, Perry, and Monty (attendance was light in most age groups at the first worship service as well). There were five adults today: Lee, Melanie, Laila, the parish minister (our parish minister) and me. Laila is Diana’s and Andrew’s mom, and she said, “Is it OK if I come to class? I like it in here.” Of course we said it was OK for her to come to class. the parish minister has been wanting to visit the Sunday school for a while, and since we had a guest speaker today she was able to come.
After we had each checked in, Diana asked if we could play “Zip, Zap, Zoop.” Andrew, Laila, and the parish minister had not played the game before, so Diana (with help from me and others) explained the rules. We played for a good five minutes or more, and had quite a bit of fun. Finally I said, “Last round!” We played one last round, and Diana wound up making a mistake (she “zapped” with the wrong hand) and had to do the Funky Chicken. “Peck, peck,” she said, sitting there and rolling her eyes and smiling.
I brought out some strips of paper, each strip with a question printed on it (here’s the list of questions). With the questions face down, I asked each person present to choose one strip of paper. Monty didn’t like his question and asked if he could choose a different one; when he didn’t like that question either, I said you only got to reject one question. When everyone had a question, we went around the circle and answered the questions. Perry read the first question: “How do you feel about living forever?” and he answered it by saying, “Good. I’d like to live forever.” Andrew’s question said, “What is one thing that you could say about death?” and he said, “Sad. Death is sad.” When Melanie’s turn came, her strip of paper read “My friends and I really have fun when…” and she said, “When we sit around and talk about our children.” One of the boys — I think it was Andrew — asked if we could play “Questions” again, and I promised that we would play again next week, but right now I had a short story to read. (It was already 11:35 by this time.)
I told the children this story was written by a man named Theodore Parker. I asked the parish minister to tell us who Theodore Parker was, and she said he was a Unitarian minister who lived many years ago. Here is the story I read to the children:
One fine day in spring, before I was four years old, my father led me by the hand to a distant part of the farm, but soon sent me home alone. On the way I had to pass a small pond in the field. A rhodora flower in full bloom drew me to the spot. I saw a little spotted turtle sunning himself in the water at the foot of the flower. I lifted the stick I had in my hand to strike it, but all at once something checked my arm, and a voice within me said, clear and loud, “It is wrong!”
I held my uplifted stick in wonder at the new feeling. Then I ran home, and told the story to my mother, and asked what it was that told me it was wrong. She wiped a tear from her eye with her apron, and, taking me in her arms, said, “Some people call it Conscience; but I like better to call it the Voice of God in the soul of humanity. If you listen and obey it, then it will speak clearer and clearer, and always guide you right. But if you turn a deaf ear, or disobey, then it will fade out little by little, and leave you all in the dark and without a guide. Your life depends on your heeding this little voice.”
[A version of this story may be found in the Unitarian collection The Little Child at the Breakfast Table by William Channing Gannett and Mary Thorn Lewis Gannett (Boston: Beacon, 1915), p. 16.]
I asked the children what happened in the story, and they remembered the most important information: a little boy, walking home, about to strike turtle, voice tells him to stop. “What did Theodore Parker’s mother say the voice was?” I said. “Anyone remember?” And the children remember that the voice could be conscience, or God. I thought I heard one child tentatively wonder aloud what “conscience” meant, but at almost the same time Diana asked a direct question about God, and that got us talking about God. I said a little something about God, and then Diana asked me if we believe in God (meaning whether we in our church believe in God or not).
I pointed out that it depended on what we meant when we talked about God; that if God was supposed to be a man with long white hair and a beard sitting on a cloud, then I definitely did not believe in God. But if we meant something else by “God,” then maybe I believed in God. “How many of us believe in God?” I said. “Raise your hands if you do.” Not quite half the people there raised their hands. “I’m raising my hand halfway up,” I said, “because I sort of believe in God, depending.” The parish minister said she felt the same way, so both of us raised our hands halfway. “Now how many of us don’t believe in God?” I said. Slightly fewer people raised their hands. “And now, how many people aren’t sure?” I said. About of third of us raised our hands. Diana wasn’t all that happy with my answer so far. “Diana, there’s another way to answer this question if you’re a kid,” I said. “You can ask your parents whether or not they believe in God, and then you can say, ‘I’m going to believe what you believe for now, and when I get old enough, I’ll make up my own mind.” (1)
I wanted to make sure everyone knew what “conscience” meant, so I asked if everyone knew. Not everyone was entirely sure, and I asked the parish minister to define conscience for us, which she did. Andrew added a nice comment: “Conscience is just plain old common sense.” I then pointed out that many people think that conscience seems to come from inside, while for some people the voice of God would come from outside you; but for some of us, conscience also comes from outside, because conscience comes from other people. The children grasped that idea: one child mentioned that we are influenced by what other people think of us, another child said we learn how to act from other people, and so on.
Somewhere in the conversation (I’m not sure I have the exact chronology), Monty asked what “Universalism” means. I think this came up because we were remembering an earlier story about John Murray, the Universalist minister. “That’s a good question,” I said. “I’m glad you asked it. Let’s ask the adults here what ‘Universalism’ means.” Melanie went back to one of our stories about John Murray, and reminded the children that John Murray preached that there was no hell, and that one of the stories about John Murray said he believed that love was the most powerful force in the universe. Laila spoke compellingly about the seventh of the Unitarian Universalist principles, that we respect the interdependent web of all existence, and that she thought about Universalism as reaching out to all beings. the parish minister and Lee added slightly different definitions of “Universalism.”
“You notice that all these adults say something a little bit different,” I said to the children. “And I have still another definition.” I explained about the idea of universal salvation. It seemed that none of the children had any firm conception of what people meant by “hell,” so we adults had to explain what some Christians believe about hell: that if you’re bad when you’re alive you go to hell after you die, but if you’re good you go to heaven. “So the Universalists were going to let everyone do whatever they want and be bad?” said Monty. “Good observation!” I said. “That is exactly what other people said about the Universalists — that if you didn’t believe in hell you’d go around and do lots of bad things. But the Universalists said that the regular Christians had lots of people who did really bad things, so obviously believing in hell didn’t stop them from being bad.” the parish minister said that the Universalists believed that you would be punished in the here and now by doing bad things, that you feel bad when you act badly. All this was new territory to the children. (In other regions with a strong conservative or orthodox Christian presence, I have found that children are quite aware of what hell is, and have a much easier time understanding the concept of universal salvation.)
After this digression, we talked about whether any of us had had an experience like the one Theodore Parker told about. Had any of us heard a voice telling us to stop doing something bad? No one had heard an actual voice, but everyone one of us had had some kind of strong feeling that had stopped us from doing something bad. We talked a little about what those feelings felt like. We talked a little bit about whether those feeling might have come from God (as Theodore Parker’s mother said), or from other people.
By now, we had been talking for nearly 15 minutes. Both children and adults stayed thoroughly engaged with this conversation. If the whole group had been Diana’s age, about 6 years old, the conversation would have ended quite a bit earlier, but having older and younger children together seemed to allow use to talk longer, and in more depth; it didn’t hurt that there were five adults present, adults who didn’t try to dominate the conversation, but who were also willing to participate. But finally we were ready to do something else.
We walked over to the table where I had put out paper and markers and crayons. We all sat down, and I said there were three choices: you could draw the story of Theodore Parker and the turtle, or you could draw a design for a quilt square for our quilt, or you could draw anything you liked. Three of the children and two adults chose to draw anything they liked; one adult drew a scene from the story; and two adults and one child chose not to draw at all. Monty got the pretzels that were for our class (our other snack, some grapes someone had left for us, were gone). Melanie asked us to talk about something while we were drawing: did we want to have a special design in the central square of our quilt, like maybe the date and which class made the quilt? Andrew suggested that if one quilt square was especially good, maybe we could put that in the center. Melanie asked if we wanted to sign our names to the quilt squares, and Andrew said that he was not happy with his quilt square, and did not want us to sign our names. We did not come to any firm conclusion about what we wanted in the center of the quilt, but Melanie elicited some good thoughts from the children.
At last it was time to go. We didn’t have a formal closing circle (we were all siting in a circle around the table, so I didn’t think we needed to stand up and hold hands) — I just said that it was good to see everyone, and I hoped we’d see them next week.
Footnote
(1): This answer derived from William J. Doherty’s 2007 Fahs lecture, reprinted in the Spring, 2008 issue of UU World magazine.
25 October 2009
Earlier this week, the parish minister said she wanted to talk with me about the worship service. “We’re going to have some dancers, and I’d like the children to see them,” she said, “but we’re also welcoming newcomers, too.” “Why can’t the children stay in for both?” I said. I thought it would be good for them to see the newest members of the church sign the membership book and be recognized, and I also thought they’d like to see the dancers. We both knew that the children would be getting religious education whether they were in Sunday school or in the worship service, and I assured the parish minister that those of us who were teaching wouldn’t mind — if we needed more time we’d run late, or some teachers might just as soon have a little less time to fill.
As it happened, the worship service started late to begin with, at about seven minutes past eleven. I always like to sit in the very back during worship services so I can observe how the children respond. The prelude, “Calm As The Night (Still Wie Die Nacht)” by composer Carl Bohm, played on cello and piano, lived up to its name: it was calming. Worship associate Willow opening the service with a very short poem “written a thousand years ago by Ono no Komachi, and translated by Jane Hirschfield who lives near here.” When she lit the flaming chalice, Willow said she remembered the very first time she lit a match; she had waited after her parents said she was ready, until she herself felt she was ready to light a match. I thought what she said was short, matter-of-fact, and charming, and I wondered how the children perceived it.
When the new members were welcomed, I noticed that one boy in the very back row was busy coloring and one girl in the second to last row did not seem to be paying attention. This was not surprising: these were younger children, so most of what they could see was the back of the chair in front of them. I often think how much of what children see in church is the back of the chair in front of them. (a) Fortunately, the dancers made a point of extending their dance down the length of the center aisle; the boy who was coloring looked up as the dancers got closer to him, and once he looked up he didn’t go back to his coloring.
I walked over with the boy who had been coloring. This was his first day at church. I had met him briefly when I had talked to his father before the worship service, so I was able to greet him by name (I’ll call him Herbie) and offer to walk to our Sunday school room with him. Herbie looked a little bit anxious, and his father came walked over with us, but Herbie (who is about seven) was ready to stay on his own, so his father left.
When we got to our room, I saw that all four of us teachers, Lee, Melanie, Sondra, and me, were present; Oliver was also present, but I did not see the girl whom I had spotted in the worship service. I thought she was old enough to come to Sunday school, and wondered if she had decided to stay with her parent and younger sister this first time at church, but I thought I had best check. I opened the door, and there was a girl standing in the patio, looking rather lost, her arms stiff and straight, her hands clenching each other. “Are you coming to Sunday school?” I said. She obviously didn’t know what I meant when I said “Sunday school,” so I continued, “Are you coming to be with the other children?” “I don’t know where I’m supposed to be,” she said plaintively, her eyes big and round. “You should come right in here,” I said as reassuringly as possible, “I’ve just come looking for you.”
So we began class with just three children, two of whom were feeling a little lost because they were at church for the first time. I had planned to tell a second story about Theodore Parker that followed up on last week’s story, do some creative movement based on the story, then ask Sondra to lead the children in some beginning meditation, then have time for the children to work on our quilt project — but looking at the two new children, I threw out this lesson plan, because the most important thing was to make them feel at home.
We did attendance, and lit the chalice. Sondra asked Oliver to light the flaming chalice, but he didn’t want to. I asked him to lead us in our regular chalice lighting words, which he did with some prompting from us adults. I explained the hang gestures that go with our chalice lighting words, and then I explained how we do check-in. The parish minister, the new girl, decided to pass, but the rest of us (including Herbie) said one good thing and one bad thing that happened in the past week; actually Oliver told us two good things and two bad things.
“Now let’s play a game,” I said, and we began playing Zip, Zap, Zoop. We played for a good ten minutes. Lee was sitting in between Oliver and May, and when play came to her she would stop, look up at the ceiling and think, and then go “Zip!” to the parish minister, whereupon the parish minister would “Zap!” it back to her, and Lee would “Zip!” to Oliver, who would “Zap!” back to her, and finally she would “Zoop!” to Herbie across the circle, who would then “Zoop!” right back to her; and each time, Lee would stop and roll her eyes up and think about what she was supposed to do. The new children were delighted that Lee, one of the adults, had to think about the game just as hard as they did. Towards the end, we added in the rule that if you did one of the moves wrong, you had to do the Funky Chicken. Oliver did things wrong twice in succession, and hammed it up, doing a full-fledged Funky Chicken Dance. Then Herbie did something wrong, and felt he had to do what Oliver did; but when he had finished an Oliver-style Funky Chicken Dance, he said, “Let’s not play this game any more. I don’t like doing the Funky Chicken.” We said we would stop playing, and we assured him that he didn’t have to do a dance; we told him how Diana, when she had to do the Funky Chicken, just said “Peck, peck.” in a bored voice. That made Herbie feel better, but it was still time to stop playing the game.
I read the same story I had read last week, the story about Theodore Parker and the turtle; as I said earlier, none of these children had heard the story before. When the story was done, I told the children that we would draw pictures of the story. But the parish minister said she didn’t know how to draw very well. “I’m nervous,” she added to me in an aside. We determined that some of the children did not know what to draw, so I told them they could draw the moment when Theodore Parker was about to hit the turtle. Some of the children did not know how to draw a turtle, but Oliver did, and I said we could see what Oliver drew and then all copy it. “It’s been a long time since I’ve drawn a turtle,” said Oliver, but he proceeded to draw what everyone said was a beautiful turtle. The other children, and some of us adults, copied Oliver’s turtle. At last we were all done, and one by one we showed our pictures to everyone else.
I caught Sondra’s eye, and said that maybe we could do some meditation now? Sondra said yes, though we exchanged a look that said: Maybe this won’t work out so well this week. We all sat down on the floor (we had been sitting around a table for the rest of the session). Sondra did a simple, short explanation of how to meditate. She had us all sit comfortably on the floor, and when Herbie couldn’t quite sit still she told him that while he could not sit on her lap (she needed to be able to mediate, too) he could lie on the floor next to her. The parish minister sat cross-legged next to me. Sondra explained what to do if any thoughts came into their minds. The parish minister said, “But I can’t think of anything.” Sondra said, “That’s good, when we meditate we don’t need to think of anything at all.” Sondra wound up doing a sort of extemporaneous guided meditation, with a few moments of silence at the end.
The worship service was running late, so I decided that we would play a few name games. We played the Grocery Store Game for a while, then we played another name game. Herbie and the parish minister were feeling a little more comfortable by this time, but even so, any time there was a little extra stress they would begin to feel nervous: you could see it in their body postures.
At last it was time to do a closing circle. I showed everyone how to hold hands so that each person would have one hand up and one hand down. Then I reviewed what we had done, inviting the children to add what they remembered of what we had done. “I am so glad you were all here this week, children,” I said, “and Herbie and the parish minister, I hope you’ll come back next week.” “Oh, I’ll be back,” said the parish minister, “I’ll be back every week.” Herbie, however, was too busy finding his drawing to say anything; and when his father came in to pick him up, he was anxious to show the drawing (although by now he wasn’t quite sure what the drawing was about).
Note
We are facing two obvious problems in this Sunday school class. First, we don’t have many children who come regularly to this new 11:00 Sunday school session, so if three families decide not to come to church on a particular week (as happened this week), we lose most of our regular children. Second, because most of our newcomers seem to come to the 11:00 worship service on their first visit to church, we get children who have never been to our church before, or indeed who have never been to any religious institution before.
Church is a completely new experience for many children in our postmodern secular society; thus many children do not know how to act or what to do when they get to church. Years ago, I remember talking to one eleven-year-old boy who was so curious about religion (he had already read much of the Bible on his own, at age eleven!) that he convinced his mother to take him to church; weeks alter, he told me that one of the most difficult things he had ever done was to walk into that church with his mom. Over the years, I have seen many children react to their first visit to church the way Herbie and the parish minister reacted: Herbie was easily distracted and had a very hard time sitting still; the parish minister looked to be on the verge of tears at times; both children showed anxiety and nervousness in their body language (and I suspect that there may be gender differences in how children respond to stress: boys may be more likely to act out physically, girls may be more likely to tend towards tears).
1 November 2009
I was not able to teach, because I was preaching this Sunday.
8 November 2009
During the first 15 minutes of the worship service, the parish minister told a story about a rabbi who dreams about treasure. Then we sang “For the Beauty of the Earth,” a lovely hymn that we want the children to know. Those of us going to Sunday school went out during the fourth verse of the hymn.
Melanie was going to be the lead teacher this week, but she had sent email to Sondra and me, asking if one of us could take over for her. Sondra had replied that she’d come up with something, but when we got to our classroom, Sondra said she had been ill. She was ready and willing to lead the class in — something — unless I had something I’d like to do….
Now one of the things I’ve learned teaching Sunday school is that it’s good to always have activities in mind that you can use. Sometimes planned lessons turn into disasters, sometimes I have had to fill in at the last minute, sometimes I have planned a lesson only to find that one of my co-teachers did pretty much the same thing last week when I was off — so now I always have some activities ready that aren’t related to the formal curriculum, but which will help us work on our big educational goals. This week, I had been thinking about some theater games, and I also had a story that I wanted to tell the class….
There were three children this week — Diana, Andrew, and Oliver — and four of us adults — Sondra, Lee, Laila, and me. We started off with our regular chalice lighting and check in. When we had all checked in, I asked the children if they wanted to hear a story, or play games. “Play games!” they said. Andrew said, “I have a game! It’s like Zip, Zap, Zoop, only it’s called Boom!” Andrew explained his game to us. Someone would point to someone across the circle from them; that person would have to duck immediately, upon which the people on either side of the person who ducked would point at each other and say, “Zap!” Whoever said “Zap!” last would be out; or if the person who was supposed to duck didn’t duck in time, they would be out. I said that we probably couldn’t have people go out of the game, since there were only seven of us and games would end very quickly. Instead, I suggested that instead of going out, each time you forgot to duck or someone beat you to saying “Zap!”, you’d get one letter in the sequence B-O-O-M; the first person to spell BOOM (that is, get out four times, and get all four letters) would lose the game. Andrew said he thought that would work well.
We started playing. Lee decided to sit out, saying “This game is too fast for me!” (It’s often a good idea to have one of the adult leaders sit out of difficult games, as this gives kids who are more tentative permission to sit out as well.) Pretty soon everyone had a letter except me, and Andrew and Oliver were saying, “We gotta get Dan! We gotta get Dan!” But then Oliver got all four letters, and the game was over. Whew! it was a fast-moving game.
I said I’d like to do a theater game next, a game called Tug of War. I had gotten this game from Viola Spolin’s book Theater Games for the Classroom: A teacher’s Handbook (Evanton, Illinois: Northwestern University, 1986), p. 47. You create an imaginary rope out of “space-stuff,” and then with the help of an adult side coach, two children have an imaginary tug of war. I like theater games because to play them well, the children have to learn how to become aware of each other’s movements, and they have to figure out how to cooperate.
The children were a little uncertain about this game. I had to help them pretend that there was a rope, a big thick heavy rope, that they would both pull on. I had to explain that if one person pulled, the other person would have to move towards them — eventually, I had to tell them which child would win, after that child would first be pulled almost over the imaginary center line.
Andrew and Oliver were ready to try. Andrew had difficulty imagining the center line, so I put a piece of clothesline down to show where the center line really was. Then he reached down to pick up the clothesline; he wanted to use that to tug on. No, I explained, we would use imaginary rope. Andrew seemed to think that imaginary rope wasn’t much good, but he guessed he’d try it. Oliver said that when kids at his school do a tug of war, some of them get down lie down to tug, and he showed us. Great idea, I said to him, why don’t you try that? At last Andrew and Oliver were ready to try this theatre game. But Andrew didn’t want to even pretend to let Oliver win for a few minutes; Andrew really wanted to win this game so he just pulled on his imaginary rope, and kept walking towards the wall. Oliver lay down and pulled on the imaginary rope, and even tied it to a chair, but Andrew was inexorable. Andrew declared himself the winner. Diana tried, and one of the children wanted to do a tug of war with me, and then we were done with that game.
“Let’s play Red Light Green Light,” I said. I love playing Red Light Green Light with kids, and with some Sunday school classes, Red Light Green Light has become a favorite activity. The way I play Red Light Green Light, you’re allowed to move even when the person who’s It says “Red light!” — although if you get caught moving, you still have to go back. However you play Red Light Green Light, it’s a game that gives a lot of power to the person who is It, and one of the interesting things about the game is seeing how children handle that power.
I was It first. Andrew was very competitive, and he didn’t like that sometimes I would see him, and ignore his sister. “You’re letting her win!” he complained. And indeed, one of the challenges of being It in Red Light Green Light is being fair — sending everyone back in an even-handed manner. I made sure to send Diana back, when I could catch her moving.
Andrew won the first game, and then he was It. But he was so quick in turning around — “Green light! Red light!” — that it was hard for the rest of us to move forward. And he was so quick to see us move (sometimes when one of us hadn’t really moved) that we didn’t get very far from the starting line. I coached him about how he needed to turn around for longer periods of time after saying “Green light!”, and how he needed to be more forgiving. He got better, but he was still so good at catching us moving that he wouldn’t let any of us get more than halfway to the goal. Somehow, he failed to understand that he had to find a bDavidce between following the rules exactly, and making the game fun by sometimes ignoring people when they moved. He also desperately wanted to win, to keep on being It for as long as he could. At last, I told Oliver to not move; I picked Oliver up and place him on the goal. Andrew stared at me open-mouthed. “I win!” said Oliver. “You cheated!” said Andrew, aghast that I would cheat. “Let’s sit down and talk this over,” I said, leading the way back to the circle of chairs.
We sat down, and I talked a bit about what made that game fun, and what didn’t make that game fun. The children had their own ideas of how to make the game fun. Andrew was not pleased at how things were going, but at last he decided that he would play again. We played again, and Oliver was It. It was more fun for most of us this time around, but Andrew got mad every time Oliver sent him back to the starting line. Finally, that game was over, and we had to go back to the circle of chairs to talk this over one more time. We decided we were probably done playing the game, since class time was almost over anyway. “But I never got to be It!” Diana wailed. Andrew got up and started walking towards the door; I asked him to sit back down again, and he did, reluctantly.
We all blew out the chalice together — or rather, I counted to three, and Andrew made sure he was the one who blew out the chalice before the rest of us could. We said good-bye, and the children went off to get hot chocolate at social hour.
I chatted briefly with Andrew’s mom at the end of class. She said this was a good thing for him to experience. “We’ll be back next week,” she said.
So ended a challenging class. We made quite a bit of progress towards our goal of having fun and building community — well, maybe all of us didn’t have as much fun as I would have liked, but we learned that being a part of a community means that sometimes you get into conflicts, and some of us saw what happens when one’s personal goals and preferences don’t coincide with the group’s goals and preferences.
11 November 2009
Teacher planning meeting
Sondra, Lee, Melanie, and I met this morning to plan out the next few months of our Sunday school class. We have just about finished up the fall quarter, when we have been focused on Unitarian Universalist identity, and we’re about to move into the winter quarter, when we will focus on our Jewish and Christian heritage.
We decided that we will have to try to finish up our UU identity quilt this Sunday, the last Sunday in the fall quarter. Then we talked about the winter quarter. I suggested that we spend the weeks in December talking about the Christmas story, relating it to other miracle birth stories (the birth of Buddha, etc.). We all agreed that we like our current method of telling stories about people — it seems to work well with our wide age span — although Melanie is pushing us to bring in more of the Unitarian Universalist seven principles. So we chose two Bible characters we wanted to present. Melanie said she would like to do a unit on Esther, and Sondra suggested we do a unit on David (of David-and-Goliath fame).
We had all noticed that four children who had been attending regularly had not been to Sunday school in two or three weeks — Perry, Monty, Heather and Sara. So each of us hand-wrote a note to one of the four saying that we hoped the child would return to Sunday school, and we each signed all of the notes.
We also talked about what had been going on in class, especially this past Sunday (we had to explain to Melanie what had happened while playing Red Light Green Light). We talked about the children — how much we enjoy Monty and Perry swapping name tags to confuse us, interactions between siblings, the newcomers who started with our class then moved to the earlier session of Sunday school, etc. And we seemed to talk quite a bit about our own lives, too — jobs, and families, and so on. I find that I really enjoy working with this teaching team, and I enjoy just spending time with them — Sunday school is not just about the kids, it’s also about the friendships that develop between the teachers.
15 November 2009
Before we went into the worship service, Melanie found me and said that had something come up at the last minute, and she would have to leave before the class time was over. We had planned that I would tell a story about Theodore Parker, and then she would get the children to finish painting their quilt squares with chalice designs — but since she had to leave early, we quickly decided that she would start the children off painting their quilt squares, and then after she left I would read the story.
Four children came to Sunday school at 11:00 a.m. this week: Lily, who had come once before, was here while her parents were in a meeting; Kali, who usually comes to the 9:30 session; Diana; and Heather. Their parents told us that Zach and Andrew both play football, and both had games this Sunday morning. I learned later that Sara, Heather’s sister, decided to stay in the worship service this week. Monty and Perry, our other regulars, attended the 9:30 session this week.
We had a quick check-in time, and then Melanie started us in painting our quilt squares. Melanie brought regular acrylic paints instead of fabric paints this week, and we all found that it was easier to use the acrylic paints. I asked the children if any of them wanted an apron, but no one did — we had not had any problems in the past while using fabric paints, so I let it go.
Melanie told us that she hoped this would be the last week for painting, and that she would try to assemble the quilt over the next two weeks. There were some quilt squares left where children had outlined a design in pencil, but had never painted; we all decided that those of us who were in attendance could paint in these outlined designs. We all got to work.
We painted away, and talked about all kinds of things — no big topics, nothing important, just the idle but very satisfying chit-chat that people carry on while they’re working on a project together. Diana completed her intricate chalice design, and announced that now she had to paint in the entire background of her quilt square with light green paint. As she started painting, she sighed and announced happily, “I’m never going to be done!” Soon Melanie had to leave, so Hoa, the Religious Education Assistant, came in to be the second adult in the room. All the children were still busily painting their quilt squares, so I decided we would skip the story for this week — we wanted to complete the quilt squares this week.
Before I knew it, it was ten past noon — past time for us to end class. Kali still hadn’t finished painting her intricate design, and she asked Lily and some other children to help her paint in the last details. Diana painted madly and finally filled in the background on her quilt square, stopping once to declare again, “I’m never going to be done!” The rest of us cleaned up around them, and I began to realize that some of the children had paint on their clothing: Diana had a splotch on the front of her shirt and one on her pants; Lily had a bit of paint on the sleeve of her dress. Diana said that her mother wouldn’t care about the paint (which proved to be true). I was more worried about Lily, who takes great care in what she wears, demonstrating far more visual skill and creativity in her dress than you’d expect from a nine year old; but she managed to get most of the paint off, and didn’t seem too worried.
At the end of the class, Sara came in to get her sister Heather. “Sorry I didn’t come today,” she said; she had stayed in the worship service with her parents, which is a good thing for an eleven year old to try. I told her it was good to see her, and then I introduced her to Lily, telling them that they were the two most creative and talented dressers in the Sunday school: “Of course, Lily, you are more arty-funky, and Sara, you dress more like a fashion plate [this was a phrase I had heard Sara use about herself], but even though you have different styles, you’re both really creative.” They nodded to each other, and I think they were pleased to be recognized for their obvious talents. I looked at the other children and said, “We’re witnessing a historic moment, when the two best and most creative dressers in the Sunday school get to meet.” The children expressed extreme skepticism at this judgment of mine — “I don’t this this a historic moment” — but I assured them that I thought the New York Times would carry this story.
By the time we finished cleaning up, it was twenty past twelve. All the quilt squares were finally painted, and set out to dry in the storage closet in our classroom. There had been no time for the story, but it felt like it had been a successful and satisfying session.
Note
While there was no formal learning in this Sunday school session, we nonetheless made progress towards one of our four big goals:– we had fun and built community by working together on a group project. To a lesser extent, we worked on a skill important to our religious community – the children gained experience in working cooperatively at church, important preparation for the kind of work adults do in our church on committees, in social justice, as worship associates, etc. I would also argue that we probably made some progress towards another of our big goals, to raise children who are more likely to grow up to be Unitarian Universalist adults, but it would be difficult to say exactly how that took place.
22 November 2009
We didn’t have Sunday school today; instead we had an intergenerational worship service. Diana and her mom forgot that it was going to be an intergenerational worship service, so Diana came up to me before the service started, and said, “We made banana-nut muffins for class today!” I ahd to explain that there was no class today. Diana, being Diana, heard this news with equanimity, and we quickly figured out a way to share the muffins after the service. Heather also came this week, and I think a couple of our other regular Sunday school attendees.
the parish minister, our parish minister, and I had thought hard about how to make this intergenerational worship service both kid-friendly and meaningful to adults. We decided not to change the order of service; we wanted children to experience a normal order of service as part of their religious education. We talked with the lay worship associate, Dave, about how to communicate the theme for the worship service, which was “gratefulness.” We made sure children and young people would be part of leading the service. And we made sure that no one element of the service would last too long.
The prelude was played by a 7th grader from the morning session, who is an accomplished classical guitarist. Dave lit the chalice, and told briefly how the chalice grew out of the work of the Unitarian Service Committee in the Second World War, and how the chalice still symbolizes our commitment to living out our faith through social justice work. I told the old story of THerbiesgiving. In his reflection, Dave mentioned many of the things for which he felt grateful. The Children’s Choir sang twice, once early in the service and once at the offertory. the parish minister, the parish minister, began her homily with a reference to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and she looked ahead to the Christmas buying season telling us that while nowadays we are meant to believe that the best gifts have to be purchased, that isn’t necessarily so.
The Children’s Choir had to sit through all this twice. They were not as attentive in the second service as they had been in the first service, but they stayed calm — and they seemed to quite enjoy hearing the adult choir sing at the second service. At the beginning of the service, Heather had left her parents and gone to sit with the eight girls of the Children’s Choir. After the service, I heard that Heather was going to start singing with the Choir — since they rehearse between the two worship services, I hope that Heather will still be able to attend the 11:00 Sunday school.
Note
We have the children attend intergenerational worship services to help us reach our goal of raising children who are likely to become Unitarian Universalist adults. If children don’t get to attend worship services with a fairly ordinary order of service, if they don’t learn how to sit through homilies and sermons and reflections, I believe that when they get to be adults it will be more difficult for them to make the transition into the adult religious community.
10 January 2010
During the first fifteen minutes of the 11:00 worship service, we had a child dedication this morning. Five children from two different families were dedicated, including one baby and four older children. The godparents each brought their own children. Thus after the child dedication was over, and the children left for Sunday school, I expected to see perhaps a dozen children come out of the Main Hall — the children associated with the child dedication, plus another 3 or 4 of our regulars. At the end of the first hymn, I opened one of the sliding glass doors at the back of the church, and as the children kept coming I realized that we were going to have more like 20 children.
Melanie, the lead teacher today, was waiting in the classroom for us. She, to was surprised as the children streamed in. I rounded up a few stray children; Melanie quickly rearranged the rooms so we could all sit down in a big circle. “Let’s take attendance first,” she said, and looked at me. “Dan, do you mind taking attendance?” I didn’t mind at all. Melanie asked each child to say their name and age; we had 18 children, ranging in age from 5 to 12 years old. Of our regulars, Diana, Zach, and Heather were present (Heather’s sister, Sara, who is 12, is now staying with her parents to hear the sermon). Diana brought her friend Vi. Rawley and Carl, who usually attend the 9:30 session, had been with us before. The rest of the children were either one-time visitors, or usually came at 9:30.
After I took attendance, Melanie asked me to do our regular check-in (and in an aside to me, said that she had to run and make some more photocopies that she would need later). I said we’d go around the circle, and everyone would have a chance to tell about one good thing and one bad thing that happened to them in the past week, or they could pass. Usually when we have new children, they choose to pass. However, this Sunday, most of the children chose to say something — this felt like a real accomplishment! Melanie was so welcoming, and I think our regular children have become quite good at accepting and welcoming newcomers and visitors. The children were mostly quite attentive to each other — except for Diana, which is most unusual, but Diana was distracted by the novelty of having her friend Vi, and the two of them could hardly keep from talking to each other.
Melanie began telling the story of Queen Esther. I had to run off to gather some more supplies. When i came back, Melanie was in the middle of the story. Now whenever I’ve heard this story before, the storyteller has always had us hiss when Haman’s name comes up, so when Melanie said “Haman,” I almost started to hiss — but caught myself when no one else did. So at a break in the story, I mentioned this point, and Melanie said that was a good idea. She began the story again: “So the king turned to Haman…” — and she paused while we all hissed.
Melanie told the story very well, and the children listened attentively. (By “attentively,” I mean that there was the usual squirming on the carpet squares, but no side conversations, and no wandering eyes or heads.) At the end of the story, Melanie asked the children what they thought of the story. Rawley said she thought there might be a lesson to the story, and Melanie asked her what she thought that lesson might be. After Rawley gave her idea, Candy, who was at the 11:00 Sunday school for the first time, spoke passionately but not very articulately, saying we should stick up for our ideals. A couple of other children also said what they thought the story meant. Melanie and I said the story could mean all these things, and Melanie had a couple of other ideas of what the story could mean.
Ellie (who usually comes at 9:30) asked if the story were true, which prompted another general discussion. Carl and Zach and some of the older children said it wasn’t a true story. Candy said decisively that it was a myth. Carol (a one-time visitor) took a couple of minutes to tell us about a myth she knew. The discussion grew a little chaotic, but I think most of the children understood that while the story wasn’t factual history the way we know it today, it contained truths (it was a story with a “lesson” in it).
Rather than pursue this discussion further, we brought the children over to the tables where we had set up crayons and coloring pages that outlined the story of Esther (these were coloring pages where you could draw in faces and clothing of the main characters). Had there been only four or six children, as usual, Melanie was going to have the children color in the pages, and then use them to retell the story in their own words. I ran off to get more snacks to eat while coloring, and then went to get more chairs (I was sure I had set up 18 chairs, but there were only 16), and then parents were waiting outside the doors of the classroom. We invited some of them in, and Melanie led a brief closing wrap-up: “What story did we hear today?” Esther! Esther and the king! “Who was the bad guy?” Haman! [Hissssss!] “What did we get out of the story?” And the children repeated some of the things they had said during the discussion.
Slowly, the children and their parents drifted out of the classroom, leaving Melanie and me to put away the crayons and paper, and talk over how the class went. “More children than we expected!” “Wasn’t it great to have that many?”
Note
Melanie, Sondra, and I — the three regular teachers for this class — had agreed that we would keep the focus on stories; as happened today, the center of each class has been a story. We originally made that decision for pedagogical reasons. I don’t know how Melanie felt, but today I was glad we had made that decision for pragmatic reasons: unlike some activities, stories can accommodate large or small numbers of children. in fact, stories sometimes are better when there are lots of children present, especially if you’re as good a storyteller as Melanie happens to be.
7 February 2010
It’s been a month since I got to teach Sunday school, but finally today I was the lead teacher once again; Sondra, who had been the lead teacher last week, was the assistant. Three of our regulars came to class today — Heather, Zach, and Diana. We sat down in a circle, and Diana immediately said, “Can tell about a good and bad thing?” Zach and Heather both said, “Yeah!” I said that we would do check-in as usual, but we had to do attendance first, and light the chalice. Sondra took attendance, and when it was time to light the chalice, both Heather and Zach put their hands up.
Sondra pointed out that Heather had been lighting the chalice a lot lately. I proposed that Heather light the chalice first, then blow it out, then Zach would light it. Heather and Zach said that Diana should get to blow it out. After a more discussion, that is what we decided to do. Heather lit the candle in the chalice. Diana blew it out. Zach lit the candle, and we were ready to begin.
We were about halfway done with check-in when tow more people walked in: Bobby, and his father Wally. (Bobby usually attends the 9:30 Sunday school.) I explained what we were doing, and asked them to join us in the circle. We continued the check-in; I had to explain to Bobby that just one person talked at a time (I believe they don’t do check-ins in his regular Sunday school class). Heather had gone on a sleep-over; Zach had had a good football practice; I had seen a car accident on the way to church; Wally had gotten a good letter from a client; Bobby wasn’t ready to say anything yet. When we got done, Diana had “two more things” she wanted to add to her check-in. At last check-in was done.
“Because we have some new people, let’s go around the circle and everyone say our names,” I said. By now, our regulars are used to doing this, so we went around the circle twice and said our names. I asked who could say everyone’s name, and Diana said she could, and she did.
The children found it hard to settle down and focus today. Zach and Heather and Diana were that way before Bobby (and Wally) showed up, and with the addition of a new child, they seemed even less settled. The class has been doing a unit on King David from the Bible, and I tried to get them to review the stories they had already heard about David, but they simply couldn’t focus. So I began telling today’s story, the story of Abigail and David from 1 Samuel 25.2-42 which I posted yeterday on this blog.
As soon as I started reading, the children settled down. Pretty soon, most of them were lying down, either on their stomachs or on their backs (except Bobby, whom was probably still feeling a little unsettled by being in an unfamiliar class). I got to the end of the story, and asked what they thought. Zach opened his eyes and put his head up. “That’s a weird story,” he said.
We talked about it a little bit. I asked who was the hero of the story. Both Heather and Diana said simultaneously, “Abigail.” I asked if David did the right thing. Diana said yes, Heather said no. I asked Diana why she said yes. “Because he protected — what was that guy’s name? [Nabal.] — Nabal’s sheep and didn’t steal from him and didn’t do anything bad.” I asked Heather why she said no. “Because he was going to go and kill all those guys, and, I don’t know, he was just… not nice.” But although the children were engaged by the story, they just couldn’t seem to focus, so I said, “Let’s go sit around the table.”
I wanted to try to make a comic book about the story with the children, and I had an idea: that I would get them to create a storyboard of the story, and based on the storyboard get each child to draw one panel of the cartoon. Unfortunately, it was now five minutes till noon. Furthermore, I hadn’t really thought out how to make a storyboard with children. All year I have been talking the children through the process of breaking down a story into scenes with characters and action; but it’s a big leap to go from that process, to a process where you’re looking at a storyboard template and trying to make sense out of it. Using a storyboard is so natural to me that I hadn’t given adequate thought to how to teach the concept to children.
I began trying to show the children how to do a storyboard. They sort of got it. Wally said, “It’s just like making movies.” He obviously knew how to do a storyboard. “Do you use storyboards in your work?” I said. He said,” Oh yes. I’ve sat in on many storyboarding sessions.” And I asked him to show the children. One by one, they took a storyboard template, and either copied what Wally was doing (Heather and Diana), storyboarded later events from the story (Zach, the oldest), or drew a new scene from their imagination based on the story (Bobby).
“Can we just do free drawing?” said Heather at last. I said yes, and handed them out paper. while they were drawing, Sondra told them the story from last week: how David had come to live with Saul; how Saul had black moods where David’s music would calm him down; how he had made friends with Jonathan, Saul’s son; how Saul had tried to kill him; how David had escaped, and later spared Saul’s life. As soon as Sondra started telling the story (and she did a fabulous job, telling it from memory), the children quieted right down, focusing on their drawing while they listened.
Parents began coming in to pick up children, and it was time to go. I told the children that maybe we would try to finish the comic next week. During the bustle of leaving, Wally showed me the letterhead of the letter he had mentioned during check-in — it was from a major film producer. The children didn’t know that they had just heard about storyboarding from someone who had really worked in the movie business.
11 April 2010
Over 20 children, ages 4 through 11, at the 9:30 session; school vacation week for many kids so we expected low attendance and had all the kids together. I had my doubts about having the preschoolers in the class, but thought it was worth a try. Craig, one of the older kids, volunteered to light chalice; turns out he had never lit a match before, so I talked him through it while reviewing fire safety for the benefit of all kids.
Read aloud the story “The Sandy Road,” from Ellen Babbit’s retelling of Jataka tales (Appanna Jataka, or Appanaka Jataka, tale no. 1). The children were completely attentive while I was reading.
Then we acted it out. There were enough major roles for all the older children (gr. 4 & 5) who wanted one: the wicked demon and helpers, the foolish merchant, the wise merchant. The children were very inventive in acting the story out: the smallest children were the oxen, and they dragged chairs as their wagons; they were very focused on dragging their chairs. The children were much less attentive while we were getting ready to act the story out, and I did my usual thing and tried to talk over them — this never works well, but I have a big voice and have gotten into the bad habit of relying on it.
Finally we settled down and actually acted the story out. Still lots of giggling and silliness, more than usual; a general lack of focus. Ch– came in late, and so we had an audience who didn’t know the story; she was able to say when she didn’t understand what was going on, which also helped focus the children.
When we discussed the story, I asked whether it was true or not (consensus: No, it’s a fairy tale). Then I asked what the story meant: Don’t believe everything you hear. Don’t throw things away needlessly. Etc. Not surprisingly, none of the children came up with the interpretation that Buddha offers in the framing story, that in the wilderness of life the real refuge is the truths that Buddha teaches (“Those who have refuge in the Buddha / Shall not pass hence to states of suffering”); or, more generally, that religious truths can be a refuge from the vicissitudes of life. There are several layers to this story; and this is one story where it seems wise not to include the framing story where Buddha explains it (see, e.g., The Jataka: Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births vol. 1, ed. E. B. Cowell, trans. Robert Chalmers, pp. 1-4).
After the discussion, I told the children we were going to try meditating. Some of the older children immediately struck exaggerated “mediation poses”: lotus position, hands held palm up on knees, back stiff, head held stiffly back, big grins on faces while saying “Ommm!” So I explained the correct way to sit, showed them a real mudra. I said younger children, four and five year olds, were usually better at meditation than older kids — that of course made the older kids competitive. I asked: How long should we try to meditate, a minute? No no, said older kids, two minutes! Five minutes! We did it for a minute. I processed with kids afterwards: H–, you were really good, at about 20 seconds you started to lose it, but then you settled down, that’s the hardest thing about meditation, to come back to stillness when you start to get squirmy. I also complimented the youngest children who were indeed the best at sitting still.
The children wanted to try meditating again: Two minutes this time! Unwisely, I said we could — but we could all hear the adults coming out of the worship service, so the older kids all lost it at 20 seconds. I did a quick closing reading, and then we all left; some parents were indeed waiting outside.
Note from 2026
In light of recent research showing that as many as 20-30% of people have negative experiences while meditating, I am now quite reluctant to teach meditation to children.
26 September 2010
At about 11:15, five children and two teachers left the worship service in the Main Hall and gathered in Room 4/5 here at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto to begin a new Sunday school year together. Two of the children were returning from last year’s 11:00 Sunday school class for grades 1-6. The other three children were in class for the first time: two of them were new to our church, and all three had older siblings attending the meeting of the senior high youth group which meets at 11:00.
As soon as we sat down around the table, I took attendance. My friends Diana and Lisa were back, both looking older and taller. The newcomers were the twins Ian and Ellen, both of whom just moved here from Rhode Island, and Bert, who used to come at 9:30. Laila, my co-teacher, who teaches high school for a profession, sat directly across from me. I lit the flaming chalice, and read some opening words. The class is open to any child in grades 1 through 6, and in case there were older children, I had chosen somewhat challenging opening words, and put them on a handout.
Zi gong [one of Confucius’ students] asked: {Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?” The Master said: “Is not RECIPROCITY such a word: what you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others?”
As it happened, the children in the class were all in second through fourth grades, so I wanted to make sure they understood something of what the words on the handout meant. They had never heard the word “reciprocity” before, so we practiced trying to say it together. I told them that in Chinese it was a short word, “shu,” and they could all say that (though I explained that we probably weren’t pronouncing it quite right). And I said that what the word means is “what you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”
“The Golden Rule,” said Ellen. I asked her to tell us the Golden Rule, and she said, “Do to other people what you want them to do to you.” This led to a discussion about the Golden Rule.
During the opening sharing circle, we went around the circle twice. The first time, you could say the best thing that happened to you over the summer, or you could pass. The second time around, you could say one good thing and one bad thing that happened to you in the past week, or you could pass. The first time around, Ian and Lisa both passed, and Bert had little to say. By the second time around, the children were feeling more comfortable, and four of the five had something to share.
I had another handout for the children: a sheet of paper with the phrase “Under the sky all people are one family” written in English and also translated into fifteen other languages. We tried to figure out what all the languages were. “I don’t know any of them,” I said. “I do,” said Bert, “this one is in English.” We all laughed, and realized we all did know at least one of the languages. After we had made some guesses, I showed everyone the answer key, and we saw that the phrase was written in Aramaic, Italian, German, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Hebrew, Urdu, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Czech, Burmese, Baganda, Tamil, and Arabic.
“Now I’d like to read you a story,” I said. Laila and I got markers and paper so the children could draw while I was reading. I read “The Picture on the Kitchen Wall” from the book From Long Ago and Many Lands, an old Unitarian Universalist curriculum book by Sophia L. Fahs (Boston: Beacon, 1948, 1st ed., p. 3). The story centers on Chang Kung, who lived in China in ancient times, Chang Kung’s very large household was a very happy household in which no one ever quarreled or scolded. The point of the story is that any household that has kindness as its governing principle will be a happy household, with very little quarreling or scolding.
The story led to a good discussion. All the children said that there was quarreling at their house, particularly with their siblings. Lisa is an only child, so I asked if the children had ever been scolded by their parents, and they all said that they had (Ian said he got in trouble “lots”). They were interested to think of a household in which there was no quarreling, a household in which not even the dogs fought each other over bones. Ellen thought that “kindness,” as it was meant in this story, was like the Golden Rule.
“Do you think this is a really true story, or a fairy tale story?” I said. There were mixed opinions, so I asked those who thought it was a really true story to raise their hands. Three of the children raised their hands. Then I asked who thought it was a fairy tale story, and Laila and one of the children raised their hands. Bert muttered, “Maybe…” so I quickly said, “Who thinks it’s maybe true?” Laila said that when she heard Bert say “Maybe,” she changed her mind, and now voted for maybe, and some of the other children changed their votes, too. I pointed out that the book said that Chang Kung was a real person, but we all agreed that the story took place so long ago that no one could be sure if it had all happened quite the way it was in the story. “Maybe they quarreled once in a while,” said Diana, “but not very often,” and everyone seemed to agree with that.
I told the children that we are going to be together in Sunday school class for the rest of the year, and I said we might want to think about how we are going to treat each other. If Chang Kung’s household was run on kindness, could we do the same? Would one word be enough?
Ellen brought up the Golden Rule again, and we spent some time talking about the Golden Rule. We thought about different ways of saying it, and finally Ellen summed it up best: Treat other people the way you would like to be treated. I asked who had good handwriting, and Lisa and a couple of other children raised their hands. I thought Lisa’s hand went up first, so I asked her to write down our version of the Golden Rule, and she did. We all watched as she wrote. Then we all went over to our class’ bulletin board, and put up our version of the Golden Rule. Some of the children also were willing to have the drawings they had done put up on the bulletin board.
I had hoped to spend some time doing meditation with the children, but we were running out of time. So I suggested that maybe they could show their parents the sheet with all the languages on it, and see if their parents knew any of the languages besides English. That meant they had to copy down the answer key, and Bert and Ian, both eager to stump their parents with such a difficult puzzle, did so.
We had our closing circle. I asked the children what we had done today. We were a little rushed, and I ended it quickly. “It was good to see you all,” I said. “See you next week!”
Note
Traditionally, Confucius’ birthday is celebrated on September 28. However, I decided I was trying to pack enough into this lesson as it was, so I did not bring this up with the children.
Note from 2026
The Chang Kung story in the Fahs books combines two quite different stories from the Chinese; I would no longer use it with children.
10 November 2010
This past Sunday, I read the version of Duddubha Jataka tale (no. 322) in From Long Ago and Many Lands by Sophia Fahs, for which Fahs supplied the title “The Nervous Little Rabbit.” We made simple puppets — drawings on cardboard which we cut out and mounted on popsicle sticks. One seven-year-old boy chose to make a puppet of “hundreds of rabbits”:
If you look at this puppet from the point of view of developmental psychology, you can look for ways in which this boy sees the world somewhat differently from adults; you’ll also look for how his fine muscle coordination is developing, etc. If you look at this puppet from the point of view of an artist, you might think this is a compelling design with satisfying organic shapes arranged in a pattern that implies movement. I’m most likely to look at this puppet from a teacher’s point of view and remember how involved the children were when we read the story again and had the puppets act the story out. The resulting puppet show wasn’t much to watch, but the children were drawn into the mythic world they helped co-create — even the fifth grader who read the story, and who was a little ambivalent about hanging out with younger children, got drawn in.