baha’i children’s class ideas.

learning concepts

The Baha’i teachings condemn all forms of gossip and backbiting.We need to avoid gossip and backbiting at all costs.

activities

story: Feathers in the wind – a traditional story about gossip. There are many versions of this one.
dirty water: An activity to aid understanding of the damage done by gossip and backbiting, found at RuhiResources.org.
drama: accompany the children through two skits based on the same situation: one that shows what gossip looks like, and the other that shows how to avoid gossip.
scavenger hunt: described below. many strips of paper are prepared and scattered around the classroom or a designated area; some of them have virtues written on them, while others have faults written on them. the children must look for and bring back the strips of paper with virtues on them, and ignore the ones with faults.

reference

" … backbiting quencheth the light of the heart, and extinguisheth the life of the soul." (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh, CXXV, p.265)

"Breathe not the sins of others so long as thou art thyself a sinner." (The Hidden Words, Arabic, no.27, p.10)

"Speak no evil, that thou mayest not hear it spoken unto thee, and magnify not the faults of others that thine own faults may not appear great…" (The Hidden Words, Persian, no.44, p.37)

"O Son of Being! How couldst thou forget thine own faults and busy thyself with the faults of others? Whoso doeth this is accursed of Me." (The Hidden Words, Arabic, no.26, p.10)

"…If any soul speak ill of an absent one, the only result will clearly be this: he will dampen the zeal of the friends and tend to make them indifferent. For backbiting is divisive, it is the leading cause among the friends of a disposition to withdraw. If any individual should speak ill of one who is absent, it is incumbent on his hearers, in a spiritual and friendly manner, to stop him, and say in effect: would this detraction serve any useful purpose? Would it please the Blessed Beauty, contribute to the lasting honour of the friends, promote the holy Faith, support the Covenant, or be of any possible benefit to any soul? No, never! On the contrary, it would make the dust to settle so thickly on the heart that the ears would hear no more, and the eyes would no longer behold the light of truth." (‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, pp 230-31)

"…Thou hast written regarding aims. How blessed are these aims, especially the prevention of backbiting! I hope that you may become confirmed therein, because the worst human quality and the most great sin is backbiting; more especially when it emanates from the tongues of the believers of God. If some means were devised so that the doors of backbiting could be shut eternally and each one of the believers of God unsealed his tongue in the praise of the other, then the teachings of His Holiness Bahá’u'lláh would be spread, the hearts illuminated, the spirits glorified, and the human world would attain to everlasting felicity.

I hope that the believers of God will shun completely backbiting, each one praising the other cordially and believe that backbiting is the cause of Divine wrath, to such an extent that if a person backbites to the extent of one word, he may become dishonored among all the people, because the most hateful characteristic of man is fault-finding. One must expose the praiseworthy qualities of the souls and not their evil attributes. The friends must overlook their shortcomings and faults and speak only of their virtues and not their defects." (‘Abdu’l-Baha tablet to Dr. M. G. Skinner, August 12, 1913. Star of the West, Vol IV, No.11, Pg 192)

experience

October 18, 2008: 1.5 hours, 7 children, ages 5 to 9. This class went well; after an unpleasant attempt at going solo two weeks ago, I ensured we had another teacher present, and things went much more smoothly.  We had two new children present, and their mother stayed for the class to help them feel more comfortable.  The parents of one of our regular children also informed us that their child had been having behavioural problems at school, which was reflected in the class as well—but at least he didn’t melt down, and we found ways to encourage him (for reading a prayer beautifully, for example).  Anyway!  After prayers (I suspect we really have to assign prayers rather than let everybody flip through the books), we started on the lesson, about avoiding backbiting.  Some of the kids had a tough time maintaining their focus—that’s actually pretty normal.  (I also have to learn not to waffle as much when I present the lessons.  More about that in a forthcoming post.)

Next, we all stood up together and played Simon Says, which seemed to help them focus.  Next, we presented the day’s game—a scavenger hunt of virtues.  Strips of paper were hidden throughout the Baha’i Centre with qualities written on them: some good, some bad.  The kids were instructed to ignore the strips with "bad" qualities written on them, and to bring back the ones with "good" qualities.  In that way, we demonstrated how to "overlook" the faults of others—which, itself, just happened to be one of the "good" qualities they had to find.  The game was a success, and it was different enough from a usual scavenger hunt to challenge the kids.  They couldn’t just pick up any old strip of paper; they had to read it and analyze whether it was worth bringing back!  Once all the strips (9 of them, of course) were found, we incorporated them into a textured collage, where they glued one of the virtues onto a paper backing along with several other types of material (like aluminum foil, crumpled paper, old denim, yarn, and so on) to remind them of how we should focus on the "good" qualities even if they are surrounded by not-so-good ones.

Lessons learned from this class?  Make sure all your activities support one central theme, so that the kids have the entire class to soak up the lesson (even if they’re not listening at the start!)  Also, it pays to have teaching support.  It pays big time!  That makes me think—I should start rewarding volunteers with donuts or something… 

May 26, 2006: ~2 hours, 2 children, ages 6 and 10. Due to amazing weather conditions, most of the class was held outside, with a healthy dose of walking around. We started off by reciting prayers together (along with a few other adults), after which we continued memorizing Blessed is the Spot with the kids, accompanied by gestures to help with memorization. We had a good walk down to a nearby park in search of feathers, to help tie in with the ‘Feathers in the wind’ story. We didn’t find any – just some young leaves – so we headed back home for a break and continued along with the story. The children seemed to understand the story quite well; we asked a few questions to help some of the main concepts sink in. Afterwards, we went back outside and did about fifteen minutes of skits showing how to avoid gossip and backbiting. Afterwards, we took another walk outside to play some soccer (and tag, and marco polo).

We tried a few new things this week. One was to invite some of the adults into the opening prayers and readings. Another was to provide prayer books so that children who wanted to could read new prayers from books if they wanted to – we usually read the prayers we’ve already memorized or recite them from memory. We also put more of an emphasis on practice this time around. Much like participants in the local institute process are devoting more time to the practice included in the Ruhi curriculum, we took a little inspiration from Counsellor Scott’s talk and tried teaching some concrete skills instead of just learning what we "should" be and "should" do. I think it made a difference in the children’s understanding of how to avoid gossip. We’ll bring it up again next week and see what the reactions are. In any case, I think we’ll be using this skill-building angle more often – it seems to be much more in keeping with the spirit of the Baha’i teachings. Thoughts?