baha’i children’s class ideas.

hi all,

if you so happen to be subscribed to doberman pizza, my personal baha’i blog, you probably know that I’ve been busy over the past few months planning a voyage to Vietnam. I just so happen to be blogging from a Hanoi café (wireless internet café) at this very moment. With my usual children’s class safely in the hands of Baha’i friends back in Ottawa, I’ve turned my attention to such exotic projects as developing a national Baha’i website in Vietnamese for the community here. as well, seeing as I have a fair bit of experience holding children’s classes, I’ve been asked to put together a skills training workshop for prospective teachers of children’s classes, to be held in Ho Chi Minh City in July. A number of youth have eagerly signed up for the training, which will happen as part of a week-long intensive training session aimed at mobilizing Vietnamese youth into service, especially to support the growing intensive program of growth (IPG) in Ho Chi Minh City (previously known as Saigon) and two burgeoning IPGs in Da Nang and Hanoi, both to be launched soon.  I imagine that if the training session in HCMC is successful, it’ll be replicated in the other two places.

I’ll probably blog more about what the training workshop will look like, but just to give you a quick idea, I’m planning four days’ worth of sessions, with each day focusing on a particular aspect of children’s classes: arts and crafts, songs and memorization, storytelling, and games/drama. Each day will consist of an introduction / theoretical portion in the morning, followed by practical advice on how to plan for the day’s activity, and, after a lunch break, an afternoon of group work and presentations in which participants practice planning the different activities: telling stories, memorizing songs, and so on.

Has anyone had experience offering these kinds of workshops or training sessions? How about Book 3 refreshers in which lesson planning played a part? I’d love to hear from Baha’is who have tried this out before.

many thanks to those of you who’ve left comments in the past few weeks and months with so many encouraging words. it really makes a difference! just about to head off to bed right now, with a children’s class tomorrow morning, about how "God knows the secrets of our hearts". I’ll have to blog this lesson since I don’t think I’ve added it yet. We were slated to do that one on the first weekend of January, but nobody showed up that week. the next weekend (last weekend), everyone was off to Toronto for the regional conference (which was amazing). So the lesson’s left over for this week.  Later in the day, I’ll be helping run the children’s program for our local reflection meeting. I have an idea of what I’m going to do for that one; since our city’s World Religion Day celebration is the next day, we’ll be doing a related art project from our oneness of religion lesson to decorate the Baha’i Centre. busy day huh? I’ll let you all know how it goes.

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."

learning concepts
Cleanliness is an important part of baha’i life.
One thing we must do to keep clean is to wash our hands, face and feet every day.
When we grow up (reach the age of 15), Baha’u'llah asks us to wash our hands and our face before saying our obligatory prayers every day.

readings/prayers for study
Be ye the very essence of cleanliness amongst mankind.
(Baha’u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas)

…[I]n all conditions, cleanliness and sanctity, purity and delicacy exalt humanity…
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Abbas)

artistic activity
mirror flowers: children cut out five-petalled flowers from foam sheets, and use adhesive to stick the flowers onto a bathroom mirror. (similar to fun foam frames)
drawings: children divide a sheet of paper into two halves. On one half, they draw a person who exemplifies the Bahá’í standard of cleanliness (combed hair, clean face, neat and clean clothes, etc); on the other, they draw the same person, but who lacks cleanliness (dirty, smelly, smudged, dishevelled, etc.) Children could draw in ink (ball-point pen) first and then use water-based paint over ink, and could thus be taught how to use paints cleanly.

reference
"It hath been enjoined upon you to… bathe yourselves each week in water that covereth your bodies, and to clean yourselves with whatsoever ye have formerly employed…. Immerse yourselves in clean water; it is not permissible to bathe yourselves in water that hath already been used. … If the bather, instead of entering the water, wash himself by pouring it upon his body, it shall be better for him and shall absolve him of the need for bodily immersion." (Bahá’u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, pages 57-58)

"…Although bodily cleanliness is a physical thing, it hath, nevertheless, a powerful influence on the life of the spirit…. The purport is that physical cleanliness doth also exert its effect upon the human soul." (`Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of `Abdu’l-Bahá, pages 146-147)

Ablutions are specifically associated with certain prayers. They must precede the offering of the three Obligatory Prayers, the daily recitation of ‘Alláh-u-Abhá’ ninety-five times…

The prescribed ablutions consist of washing the hands and the face in preparation for prayer. In the case of the medium Obligatory Prayer, this is accompanied by the recitation of certain verses.

That ablutions have a significance beyond washing may be seen from the fact that even should one have bathed oneself immediately before reciting the Obligatory Prayer, it would still be necessary to perform ablutions.
(this above stuff is from Wikipedia – Ablutions)

experience
November 22, 2008: 1.5 hours, 4 children, average ages 9 and 5. the lesson itself was very short today. we had a quick conversation about cleanliness, pointing out several different ways of keeping clean (showers, baths, wearing clean clothes, brushing teeth, washing hands, trimming nails, and so on), and then looked at one of the quotes above: "…Although bodily cleanliness is a physical thing, it hath, nevertheless, a powerful influence on the life of the spirit." – ‘Abdu’l-Baha.  We set a 16×16 grid on the floor and used it to play a game sort of like hopscotch – words of the quote were placed in order throughout the grid and the children had to hop on each of the squares in order to complete the quote. After that, we continued with the masks we were working on last week.  I was going to encourage them to observe cleanliness during that activity, but we still got paint and glitter all over, because my mind was everywhere trying to keep everything else going.  You know, one kid needs help cutting while the next one wants more paint and the next one says he’s starving and wants a snack. And so on. Overall, a short lesson, the delivery wasn’t perfect, but at least we made some effort to examine a quote – which we’ve been lacking so far this year.

November 4, 2006: 2 hours, 8(?) children, average age 6-7. (…) 

March 11, 2006: 2 hours, 5 children, average age 6-7. during the fast. worked out all right. The children could relate to the topic. We managed to convey the idea that Bahá’u'lláh asks us to wash our face, hands and feet each day. This will be a useful reminder for the children in future classes. Many of them seem to have learned basic hygiene at school and/or at home. The craft was a good idea but was difficult to execute without a proper plan. note to self: refine this craft! the children liked sticking the flowers onto a mirror and seeing their faces reflected inside. when they saw an example they giggled and were quite impressed. didn’t mention the connection with the Fast, but there’s still another week for that.

• explain the purpose of the craft – what is this going to be for?
• have an example of the craft already done, so that the kids know what they’re working towards.
• write out the steps beforehand, so you know how to explain it to the kids.

learning concepts
Bahá’u'lláh tells us to care for the poor. To do this, we can look to the example of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who served and took care of the poor all His life.
We must also remember not to encourage mendicancy—that is, people whose profession is begging.

activities
story: Stories of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá are very effective in conveying His kindness to the poor.
game: "Giving"—described below.

reading/prayer for study
"O YE RICH ONES ON EARTH! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease." (Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Words, no.54)

reference
"Know ye that the poor are the trust of God in your midst. Watch that ye betray not His trust, that ye deal not unjustly with them and that ye walk not in the ways of the treacherous. Ye will most certainly be called upon to answer for His trust on the day when the Balance of Justice shall be set, the day when unto everyone shall be rendered his due, when the doings of all men, be they rich or poor, shall be weighed." (Bahá’u'lláh, Summons of the Lord of Hosts, p. 189)

"O SON OF MAN! Bestow My wealth upon My poor, that in heaven thou mayest draw from stores of unfading splendor and treasures of imperishable glory. But by My life! To offer up thy soul is a more glorious thing couldst thou but see with Mine eye." (Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Words, no.57)

"O SON OF MY HANDMAID! Be not troubled in poverty nor confident in riches, for poverty is followed by riches, and riches are followed by poverty. Yet to be poor in all save God is a wondrous gift, belittle not the value thereof, for in the end it will make thee rich in God, and thus thou shalt know the meaning of the utterance, “In truth ye are the poor,” and the holy words, “God is the all-possessing,” shall even as the true morn break forth gloriously resplendent upon the horizon of the lover’s heart, and abide secure on the throne of wealth." (Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Words, no.54)

experience

November 1, 2008: 1.5 hrs, 3 kids: 9, 9, 5.  Revived the poverty card game from previous years. it was a hit, just like last time. this time, was able to make them a bit nicer (backed the printouts with card stock); still, was a little hectic–didn’t have same amounts of each six "essentials"; took a while to figure it out for the game.  the kids didn’t mind though, because they just kept on playing it and loving it. made for quite a few good conversation points, and we discussed lots of the concepts behind the elimination of the extremes of wealth and poverty. had lots of help, especially considering the fewness of the kids who came. the rest must have been sick from eating all the halloween candy, dunno.  All in all, a good class, even though I overshot our time a little and ended up having no time to work on the craft I had planned (masks, for Unity in Diversity week that comes in two weeks).

November 17, 2006: 2 hours, 5 children, average age 6-7. The key to this class was conceived at the last minute. We were missing the lesson plan we needed for this class, and I had few ideas about how to make it happen (I must admit, sadly, that I don’t know much about caring for the poor). Lacking a plan for activities, my co-teacher and a few visiting friends brainstormed until they came upon a brilliant idea for a game, which I’ll only describe in its most basic form here. Cards are prepared before the class; there are several categories, and in each category there should be enough cards for all the children. Each category describes a necessity of life: food, clothing, shelter, etc. Cards are given randomly to each child, and they must "give" away their extra cards by pairing up with other children and offering them cards. This continues until everyone has one card from each category. The game was a little complicated at first (we had no idea whether it would work!) but once we got into it, it was pretty fun. It probably needs some work, but it’s undoubtedly got a bright future. Watch this space for more news.

All in all, I think this class needs some work—we muddled through, but seeing as few of us actually have much experience caring for the poor, it’s hard for us to convey this clearly for the children. How can you explain something you’ve never done—apart from leaving a dollar for the guitar man in the market, or even washing dishes at the soup kitchen once? Comments and feedback on this class would be greatly appreciated!

learning concepts
We should not do anything that will cause someone’s heart to be unhappy.

activities
story: Feathers in the wind – a traditional story about gossip. There are many versions of this one.
drama: accompany the children through the skits outlined in Book 5, Lesson 13 (sin-covering eye). OR: dramatize the "Feathers in the wind" story. Have the children continue their skit after the end of the story by imagining what happens after the woman learns how not to spread gossip. What does she talk about? What has she learned about hurting people’s feelings? How do her friends react to her change of heart? How do they feel?
craft: wreaths; seasonally-themed, with feathers included to tie in with the story.

reference
Section 19.4, Book 4 of Bahá’í Education for Children, is about not hurting people’s feelings.

The Golden Rule [2] is a universal principle that kids can understand and apply in their lives every day.

O son of man! If thine eyes be turned towards mercy, forsake the things that profit thee and cleave unto that which will profit mankind. And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbour that which thou choosest for thyself. Humility exalteth man to the heaven of glory and power, whilst pride abaseth him to the depths of wretchedness and degradation.
(Bahá’u'lláh, Kalímát-i-Firdawsíyyih (Words of Paradise), Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed After the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p.64)

Verily I say, the tongue is for mentioning what is good, defile it not with unseemly talk. God hath forgiven what is past. Henceforward everyone should utter that which is meet and seemly, and should refrain from slander, abuse and whatever causeth sadness in men. (Bahá’u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Ahd (Book of the Covenant), Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed After the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p.269)

"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)

experience

October 25, 2008: 9 kids(!), ages 6-9. 1.5 hrs.  Class was not too bad at all. we took the extra step this class of putting up a poster with the ground rules that we defined during last week’s class.  if nothing else, this helped the children remember the rules, and in the long term it should help the class become a little more manageable ("what’s rule #4?")

we played a number of games today, and it worked out just as well, because I didn’t have the time to prepare the craft real well. a very bright spot was that the same parent who stayed for her children’s first class stayed again today, and indicated her desire to continue staying in the class throughout the year, in order to have some extra time with her children (being a single mother, she doesn’t have the chance to be with them all the time). having her in the class made it much more livable; otherwise, I would have been alone, and it would have been a lot more difficult to handle everyone.  the class built on the previous week’s theme of backbiting, and focused on gossip, using the "scattering feathers" story, which seemed to have an impact on the kids. (yay!) for some reason, toys seemed to start drifting into the classroom as the lesson continued; new rule required, perhaps? after we ended up with a squeaky ball on our hands (which I confiscated, along with a sort of LED taser/flashlight), we got in a circle and played a game of catch, where we had to say our name (to introduce the new children) and state a good quality (a virtue), without using the same ones more than once.  That worked well for a while, and then we switched to "telephone", which we used to illustrate how someone’s words can be twisted during the process of gossiping.

by the time we finished the games, it was nearly time to finish, so since I didn’t have my other craft idea prepared on time (feather wreaths), we just busted out the stamps that were used for the greeting cards we made during the class on obedience to parents. the kids seemed to enjoy that; one of boys, however, figured he didn’t need to play with the stamps since he was there when we did it last time, so he busted out the legos instead. i didn’t notice this until it was too late, and soon all the other boys were following his lead.  whoops.  oh well, it happens.

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?

learning concepts

We must be fair and just at all times, even to animals.

activities

story: The Lion and the Mouse – Aesop’s fable. "Even the weak and small may be of help to those much mightier than themselves."
song: "God’s Creatures" from Ruhi Book 3.
drama/skits: Divide the children into teams of two. One team at a time, have the children improvise activities depicting kindness or unkindness to animals. (They may need to be cautioned about not acting too roughly.) One child is to be the animal and the other the person. Then have them reverse the roles.
drawing: have the children draw one of the scenarios depicted in one of the drama activities they did. Alternatively, have the children draw one scene each from the "Lion and the Mouse" story, and then bring the drawings all together in order to retell the story in pictures.
origami animals: One of the children showed us how he had learned to make origami animals last year, so I figured it might be a good activity for all of us to take part in. I guess I have to learn origami first :O

reading/prayer for study

"Do not be content with showing friendship in words alone, let your heart burn with loving kindness for all who may cross your path."’Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks

reference

Because animals do not have the power of speech, `Abdu’l-Bahá states that they are to be treated with even more consideration than are people: ". . . ye do worse to harm an animal, for man hath a language, he can lodge a complaint, he can cry out and moan; if injured he can have recourse to the authorities and these will protect him from his aggressor. But the hapless beast is mute, able neither to express its hurt nor take its case to the authorities. If a man inflict a thousand ills upon a beast, it can neither ward him off with speech nor hale him into court. Therefore is it essential that ye show forth the utmost consideration to the animal, and that ye be even kinder to him than to your fellow man." (Source?)

"The world of existence is an emanation of the merciful attribute of God. God has shone forth upon the phenomena of being through His effulgence of mercy and He is clement and kind to all His creation. [...] Consequently man must learn the lesson of kindness and beneficence from God Himself. Just as God is kind to all humanity, man also must be kind to his fellow creatures. If his attitude is just and loving toward his fellow men, toward all creation, then indeed is he worthy of being pronounced the image and likeness of God." (‘Abdu’l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p.79)

Then, O ye friends of God! Ye must not only have kind and merciful feelings for mankind, but ye should also exercise the utmost kindness towards every living creature. The physical sensibilities and instincts are common to animal and man. Man is, however, negligent of this reality and imagines that sensibility is peculiar to mankind, therefore he practices cruelty to the animal. In reality what difference is there in physical sensations! Sensibility is the same whether you harm man or animal: there is no difference. Nay, rather, cruelty to the animal is more painful because man has a tongue and he sighs, complains and groans when he receives an injury and complains to the government and the government protects him from cruelty; but the poor animal cannot speak, it can neither show its suffering nor is it able to appeal to the government. If it is harmed a thousand times by man it is not able to defend itself in words nor can it seek justice or retaliate. Therefore one must be very considerate towards animals and show greater kindness to them than to man. Educate the children in their infancy in such a way that they may become exceedingly kind and merciful to the animals. If an animal is sick they should endeavor to cure it; if it is hungry, they should feed it; if it is thirsty, they should satisfy its thirst; if it is tired, they should give it rest.Man is generally sinful and the animal is innocent; unquestionably one must be more kind and merciful to the innocent. [...] This sympathy and kindness is one of the fundamental principles of the divine kingdom. Ye should pay great attention to this question. (‘Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’i World Faith, p.374)

experience

October 4, 2008: Argh! This class was a disaster, mainly because of me being completely unprepared for it, and being the only teacher for a class of five rowdy kids didn’t help either.  the idea of doing origami animals may have been a good one, but it was a whole lot harder to learn than I had originally thought.  most of the children just broke out the legos as I tried to wrap my head around making a crane with the one or two who actually wanted to stick with it.  In any case, I’m not sure it’d be very useful for me to report any further on this one x_X Maybe next time.

November 11, 2006: 2 hours, 7 children, average age 6-7. By now we’ve had some good experience with this lesson, so it wasn’t too hard to give. We used a nice new quote from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to go with this lesson: "Do not be content with showing friendship in words alone, let your heart burn with loving kindness for all who may cross your path." It goes along with the subject, and it’s general enough that the kids can apply it to animals, people, and whatever else – so the kids could add it to the prayer book they’re creating. We told the story of the lion and the mouse again – many of them remembered it – after which the kids drew pictures of different parts of the story. We collected them all at the end so that we could stick them on the wall in order – a nice way to show off the kids’ work and a good way for them to remember the lesson later on. Many of the children had quite a few comments and questions about animals – including how to handle dangerous or poisonous animals, and so on. Their curiosity is really heartening. On the spur of the moment, we suggested that maybe we could dedicate a future class to learning about different animals of the world… maybe when we review the topic – either November 26th or January 6th (I love having a class calendar all planned out!)

June 24, 2006: 2 hours, 2 children, ages 6-7. This was a weird class! We were going to focus on another topic for this week, but one of the children brought his new pet hamster to the class so it seemed logical to switch topics. We had quite a lot of fun interacting with the hamster and talking about how we should treat animals with respect and do our best not to scare them. It was a bit disorganized and unfortunately, I didn’t have appropriate quotes with me to go over with the children. Should I put together a binder with materials we’ve used in the past, so we can go back to them at a moment’s notice? Or perhaps a small notebook with quotes we’ve studied? I guess I’m not really satisfied with my level of preparation for this class. Oh well, it’s done. One of our more difficult children (a 6-year-old boy) sang a prayer with the other boy who was present, of his own accord – usually we struggle to get him to say prayers. God bless these children – I can become so confused with them sometimes. Before going outside for the day, we worked on a craft we started last week – paper-people chains. OMG they loved this to pieces. One of them drew clothes and faces on his people, the other cut out pants and shirts from different-coloured paper. AWESOME activity (although not strictly in line with the topic).Another note – I was mostly alone in teaching this class today, which I found more difficult than usual. There were only two children present, so it wasn’t a major disaster or anything. I find that when I’m alone with the children, though, I get easily distracted. Me being easily distracted means that I lose control of the class easily. That’s why I prefer co-teaching to being on my own. I’m not sure what I can do to build up my ability to stay on top of things – maybe to build my own confidence, I just need more practice, more experience.

June 3, 2006: 2 hours, 5 children, average age 6-7. Apparently, the class went quite well – I was out of town for the weekend, so I wasn’t there to take part. We had two versions of the story available to read (our class operates in French, so we had to find translations). The versions we found used language that was a bit difficult for the children to understand, so the story was read once more in paraphrase to make sure everybody got it. Once the story was done, we made time for drama – we started by miming animals and having the rest of the kids guess what animal was being mimed. Afterwards, the children broke into groups and performed the skits as described above. It seems like they did well with these – I was afraid that there might have been problems with the kids being too rough, but that doesn’t seem to have been an issue. Once the skits were done, it was colouring time – we had prepared two drawings, one of a lion and one of a mouse, to go along with the story. Everyone in our class seems to love drawing and colouring time. They love getting their hands on the pens and colouring in different images.There seemed to have been two main problems during this class: first was that the materials we prepared didn’t last long enough, leaving us with jumping and screaming kids rampaging around inside at the end of the class (it was raining, so we couldn’t take them outside); second was the uncooperative attitude that some of the younger members of the class displayed. The first is relatively easy to take care of – we just have to be able to come up with more activities to have on hand during the class (potentially crafts, which are popular because of the hands-on aspect). The second isn’t so easy to resolve and has been a challenge with our class from the get-go. To be honest, it’s difficult to conduct a class for a wide age range (our oldest member is going on 11 (almost a junior youth!), and our youngest member is still 4 years old). Perhaps we need to split into several groups at some point in our class, so that each group can take part in age-appropriate activities that may better stimulate them and allow them to develop the capacities they’re struggling to develop. But what’s the difference? That’s what I’m wondering. I’ve become comfortable dealing with the older children (say, 7 to 10), but I admit that I still have a lot to learn about dealing with the younger children (4 to 6) in ways that really support their development. Any comments from readers?