baha’i children’s class ideas.

today was supposed to be yet another day of class, but all our usual participants had to cancel—other commitments, car trouble, or whatever—so the day just turned into a break for me instead, which is actually quite welcome.  I was scrambling this morning, rushing out of the house after sleeping in a bit—it’s been a long week, what with a public transit strike in Ottawa with a snowstorm on top. I managed to put together the bare minimum for today’s intended lesson on consulting experienced physicians when ill, and then forgot it at home when the taxi came to pick me up. :P oh well. so finally, I guess I became the recipient of God’s mercy—or maybe just the victim of circumstance? anyway, I figured I’d jot down a few notes while I had some time to do so. overall, the situation in the class isn’t all that different from the last time I updated—still without a co-teacher, although one of the parents has been attending the class with her children. I am beginning to wonder whether it will be realistic for the class to continue past the early spring, seeing as I will be taking time off for pioneering/travel teaching beginning in March, as I mentioned earlier. well, that’s just one of the things I have to think about, anyway. and again, like I wrote before, there’s no sense in worrying too much about it—if God wills, others will step up and take my place.  lots of things are starting to happen at the Baha’i Centre—monthly firesides being a prime example, ones that are advertised in the local papers. There’s a nice new sign for the outside, too, for people who are out walking in the street (although there are fewer of them now that the weather’s so cold).

I read up on memorization games over lunch, since that’s one thing we always seem to struggle with; apart from the usual repetition games, I found a few new ideas, including a kid-friendly version of Charades—kids are split up in teams and given a quote to act out that the others have to guess. Dialogue is permitted, but they’re not permitted to use any of the words in the quote.  Seems like it might be difficult for the younger children, but the older children should enjoy a game like that.

OK, post over for now as I catch up on more emails.  Class is still on for next week, and then another, real break (I’ll be away during the Christmas vacation period).

 we just had another class this morning, on cleanliness this time. I still haven’t explained the project that we’ve been working on over the past few days, so I figured I’d spend a little time doing a regular blog post to keep everybody up to date (I have another lesson plan to post as well, but I haven’t got all the references I need for it).  the week before last was Unity in Diversity week, and I thought it might be appropriate if we put together something special to commemorate it, so we’ve been working on masks that we made using papier-mâché on balloons. it’s been a great activity so far; the kids love using paint and decorating their masks in fun ways that show off the diversity of the human family. I’ll post photos of the masks along with the lesson plan (once it’s ready to post!)

I had a conversation with a friend the other night about how I felt like the class hasn’t really been going anywhere, mainly because of my lack of energy. the fact is, right now, I’m pretty much teaching this class solo, and have been since… well, basically the past year.  Maybe that’s been what’s made me feel a little down and discouraged lately; despite Baha’u'llah’s reassurance that we should not get discouraged even if we perform a certain service alone, I feel like it would be so much easier, and the class would be so much better, if I had a committed co-teacher. right now, I’ve got some of the parents sitting through the class with the children, and a few other people (including family members) on standby.  But I don’t really feel comfortable yet asking any of them to step up and take a stronger role in the class.  This is going to be more and more important for this class in the near future, mainly because I’m making plans to do some service overseas in the spring of 2009, which means either someone else steps up to the plate or the class is no more.  I suppose I’m blowing things up a little too much; if God wills it, brave souls will arise to help if the situation becomes too dire. We are, after all, committed to the core activities as a community, and the sudden unavailability of one teacher should be easily remedied by bringing in new people as teaching resources.  We’re fortunate in Ottawa, too; there are lots of people who are trained as teachers.  It doesn’t always feel that way—because there are so many classes to teach that we get spread pretty thinly—but really, we are blessed to have a strong, growing Baha’i community where people are becoming involved more and more.  So basically, I shouldn’t worry, or as Baha’u'llah says, "be not grieved if thou performest it thyself alone."

just a little note to let you all know that the new year of children’s classes has begun here, so I’ll be posting reflections again after an unjustly long hiatus. as always, go nuts with leaving comments! I’d really love to see as many people posting their thoughts as possible, so that we can all learn from each other. one interesting feature this year will be that I’ll be going over the curriculum we used a few years ago—so you’ll see a lot of old lessons popping up with new reflections added to them. hopefully this will help me (and you) better reflect on how children’s classes change as the children get older.  Since most of the lessons are already somewhere on this blog, I’ll be bumping them up in advance so that people can have a chance to look at them and leave comments—for instance, this week’s class was on obedience to parents (I’ve added some wrap-up comments to it already), and next week’s class is on kindness to animals, which you’ll find below. if you’re up to follow the whole curriculum as it happens, you may also want to check the class calendar in the sidebar, which will give you a glimpse of what’s coming for us in the next few weeks—surprise me by looking ahead and leaving comments on upcoming lessons!

the past week, I’ve been involved with a neighbourhood teaching/outreach project that’s endeavouring to offer all of the core activities in tandem to the local community. some of us are looking after junior youth activities, home visits with local residents, and study circles; I’m helping to look after a children’s class. After teaching a couple of classes to an enormous ring of kids the first few days, we split the class into a younger (5-9) and an older (10-11) class, with the younger children studying lessons from Book 3 of the Ruhi curriculum and the older children studying lessons from Book 3A (aka the old Book 5). As reported tonight, we’ve had an average of 8 children in both children’s classes together, and an average of 5 junior youth—and that’s only in one part of the neighbourhood.

these are informal notes from Counsellor Scott’s talk and should not be construed as being 100% accurate by anybody—especially given the way I take notes! take ‘em with a few grains of salt.

so Counsellor Scott graciously took time out of his busy schedule to visit with us in Ottawa tonight, and share with us progress happening in the Baha’i community. He started out by reminding us that “being” and “doing” are inseparable—you cannot change your own self or change your community in a vacuum; both will always change in tandem, and in order for our own hearts to change, we must teach and serve humanity. The image reminded me of the “two movements” we sometimes hear about: the movement of people from one course in the institute process to the next, and the movement of communities (“clusters” maybe—or even neighbourhoods?) from one stage of development to the next. The two must happen simultaneously, no?

He peppered his talk with colourful stories of amazing strides that have come about in places like Toronto, with its “Pebbles to Pearls” program, in which individuals arose to offer junior youth groups (studying books like Breezes of Confirmation, which is Bahá’í-inspired and seeks to build capacity and raise consciousness in 12-year-olds); how a children’s class grew naturally out of the first junior youth group; how a prayer meeting with the parents soon followed; and how more and more of the participants, as their capacity increased, became trained to offer these kinds of service to others. We’re talking about people who met their first Baha’is maybe a few months ago, and are now being trained to help teach Baha’i children’s classes. Uhhhh cool?

He stressed the notion that these “core activities”—be they children’s classes, junior youth groups, study circles, and prayer meetings—are not just fun little activities or “get-togethers” or “events” as we may think of them. They’re civilization-building activities, activities that create communities. He emphasized the fact that every human being has the inalienable right to participate in the process of building civilization. (consider how many people waive that right throughout the world every day.) that being said, he challenged us to involve more and more people in that process by committing to long-term action with receptive communities—committing to offering these “core activities” to people around us who might really need them. With respect to children’s classes, he cited the cases of families throughout the country who’ve been left behind by an educational system that fails to respond to their needs—who’s going to offer spiritual education to a child whose parents work 12 hours a day and barely make enough to make ends meet? Whose teachers can’t use the word “God” because it’s been legislated out of existence?

So much meat in that short span of time—so exciting to feel that we’re able to contribute to the building of a new civilization! I only hope that we can rise to the occasion and be fully ready for our talk. Please feel free to share thoughts as comments to this post—there’s far more to tell, but it’s late and I need sleep.

This post was also blogged at doberman pizza.

well it’s been an intense week for sure. the Ottawa Baha’i community held another reflection meeting last Saturday, launching the eighth cycle of its intensive program of growth.

JARGON WATCH: basically what this means is that a bunch of people got together to reflect on and discuss the growth, vitality and vision of the Baha’i community, to share their best practices and to set goals. An "intensive program of growth", which is composed of many "cycles" marked by these "reflection meetings", is basically a way for Baha’is (and those who throw their lot in with them) to manage the growth of the Baha’i community and channel their efforts to bring the Message of Bahá’u'lláh to those who are out there waiting for it.

it was a blast, as usual; there were lots of young people there, junior youth (12-14 yrs) and youth (15+ yrs) alike. That was awesome and really encouraging. we put someone on a table and lifted them up with only our fingers. apart from that, of course, we had time to knock heads together and make plans for the next few months: how we would help the core activities grow and evolve, etc.

MORE JARGON WATCH: there are four generally recognized "core activities" of Baha’i community life, all of which are, in essence, open to all people no matter what their faith: (1) "devotional meetings", which consist of shared prayer and readings that bring a group closer to God / a Higher Power; (2) "study circles", in which groups use the study of principles found in the Baha’i Writings to understand how they apply in real-world situations of service; (3) "children’s classes", which are classes for the moral and spiritual education of children; (4) "junior youth groups", in which 12- to 14-year-old youth use spiritual principles to understand the world around them and to bridge the gap between childhood and adolescence.

I spent a bit of time sharing the plan for our children’s class… it’s a complicated animal. So far it looks like we will be moving towards splitting the class into two groups: one for older children (say, 9-11) and one for younger children (~5-8). We’ve also discussed holding a devotional meeting open to parents, family and friends – we’re looking for ways that parents and family can naturally become more involved in the children’s spiritual education, and sharing prayer time with them in the format of a devotional meeting may just be the thing. also on the map are home visits with parents and family to follow up on the parents’ meeting we had last October – they haven’t had much regular communication from us and it’d be about time to bring them each up to speed no?

just a few words about the difficulties inherent in teaching a class with a wide age spread. we’ve always advertised our class as open to kids from around five to ten years of age. for the first little while, that wasn’t a big problem; most of our kids ended up being around the same age—five to seven—with only a few outliers. Lately, however, we’ve been seeing a more diverse range of ages. At one of our latest classes, we had three distinct clumps of ages: 5-6, 7-8, and 10-11. Any teacher worth his or her salt knows (or so I’m told) that the needs and capacities of each of these groups is vastly different. When we plan a class, we plan specific activities that appeal mainly to our core group, which is, let’s say, around age seven. Unfortunately, we often see the older children sitting off to the side and getting bored because the material is too simple for them, while the younger children stare blankly and get bored because the material is too complicated for them. There doesn’t seem to be a simple solution to this problem besides splitting the class into different age groups. We’ve often raised this possibility for our class, but we’ve never done it simply because of logistical reasons (do we feel ready to run two or more classes simultaneously?)

I don’t have a conclusion to this post, since we’re still living with and dealing with this situation. Any comments or from experienced children’s class teachers out there would be greatly appreciated.

so after an evening of consultation about the children’s class, we’ve come up with a plan of action to help the class mature and grow. it’s simple, and, if we pray for confirmation and put the effort into it, it’ll be effective. in short:

1. Oct. 14: first class. welcome to new students, etc. parents are given written and verbal invitations to Open House on Oct. 21, taking place after the class (3:30-4:30PM).
2. Oct. 21: second class, 1:30-3:30PM. open house from 3:30-4:30PM. time to chat with parents, explain the class, answer questions, and ask if anyone is interested in helping out (teaching, logistics, or whatever). notice will also be given regarding other upcoming core activities organized by the Baha’i community (study circles, devotional meetings).
3. Oct. 22–Nov. 25: as classes continue, home visits begin with parents as follow-up, where we can create bonds and gauge their interest in deeper involvement with the class. if families are receptive, they can also be directly invited to participate in devotional meetings or study circles.
4. Nov. 25–Dec. 2: classes continue, and first devotional meeting begins, to continue monthly throughout the year.

What do we hope to achieve? Well, here’s a sample:

• Stronger relationships with parents and families whose children attend class.
• Increased parent/family involvement in the children’s class, through:
  • preparing snacks
  • preparing activities
  • giving rides
  • co-teaching or assisting
  • etc.
• Increased parent/family involvement in related core activities (study circles, devotional meetings, junior youth groups)

One interesting concept that’s been suggested to us is that if we get to a point where the class has grown so much that there aren’t enough teachers, interested parents and family members can be trained as children’s class teachers by taking them through the sequence of Ruhi courses. That’s what we’re hoping to explore in the long run—whether such a model of growth and human resource development could possibly work in creating a self-sustaining children’s class.

Étoiles Brillantes, our francophone children’s class, is shaping up well for the year ahead – although there’s still a whole lot left to do. I talked with Julie (co-teacher and co-organizer) and she says that all of the families from last year now know that we will be starting again on October 14th; that’s one hurdle crossed. Now our goal will be outreach. How are we going to grow our class and increase the number of kids (and parents) involved? One suggestion, which we’ll be discussing tomorrow night, is to assemble a small group of people to canvas the neighbourhood where the class will be held, asking parents if they’d like to send their children to the class. Now, if what we’ve already experienced in other settings holds true, we can expect massive interest – and a proportionate strain on human resources. So far, Julie and I have been the core of the class, resource-wise; if the class grows beyond a certain point – as it may very well do in the coming season – we’ll have to bring in more people to help. We’re even toying with the idea of having several concurrent classes for different age groups: for example, 5-7, 8-11, and even junior youth study circles for ages 12-14.

more on that tomorrow, when we’ll meet together to take some next steps, make some calls, and put together a quick-n-dirty plan of action. also, more about curriculum soon.

Even though children’s activities have been a part of past Plans, these have fallen short of the need. Spiritual education of children and junior youth are of paramount importance to the further progress of the community. It is therefore imperative that this deficiency be remedied. Institutes must be certain to include in their programmes the training of teachers of children’s classes, who can make their services available to local communities. But although providing spiritual and academic education for children is essential, this represents only a part of what must go into developing their characters and shaping their personalities. The necessity exists, too, for individuals and the institutions at all levels, which is to say the community as a whole, to show a proper attitude towards children and to take a general interest in their welfare. Such an attitude should be far removed from that of a rapidly declining order.

Children are the most precious treasure a community can possess, for in them are the promise and guarantee of the future. They bear the seeds of the character of future society which is largely shaped by what the adults constituting the community do or fail to do with respect to children. They are a trust no community can neglect with impunity. An all-embracing love of children, the manner of treating them, the quality of the attention shown them, the spirit of adult behaviour toward them—these are all among the vital aspects of the requisite attitude. Love demands discipline, the courage to accustom children to hardship, not to indulge their whims or leave them entirely to their own devices. An atmosphere needs to be maintained in which children feel that they belong to the community and share in its purpose. They must lovingly but insistently be guided to live up to Bahá’í standards, to study and teach the Cause in ways that are suited to their circumstances.