baha’i children’s class ideas.

learning concepts
A person who is humble before God realizes the greatness of God and his own smallness. He gives himself up entirely to God’s Will. When we give our will over to His, God fills our hearts with joy.
One way we can show humility is to serve others. When we do things for others in a spirit of service, this is like worshipping God.

activities
story: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the “crystal water”: Ruhi Book 3, p.55
song: Be Like the Earth, Ruhi Book 3, p.54
drama/skits: Act out situations that show humility / lack of humility. Discuss the difference with the children. (need more details here… need to flesh this out. we may not actually do this this time.)
drawing: Picture 8 from Ruhi Book 3. Also: have the children draw a situation that demonstrates them performing an act in a spirit of service (ie. doing a chore, helping a parent/sibling…) Have the children talk about their drawing.

reading/prayer for study
O Son of Man! Humble thyself before Me, that I may graciously visit thee. (Bahá’u'lláh)

reference
“Be a breath of life to the body of humankind, a dew upon the soil of the human heart, and a fruit upon the tree of humility.” (Bahá’u'lláh)

Question. — “Should Prayer take the form of action?”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá. — “Yes: In the Bahá’í Cause arts, sciences and all crafts are (counted as) worship. The man who makes a piece of notepaper to the best of his ability, conscientiously, concentrating all his forces on perfecting it, is giving praise to God. Briefly, all effort and exertion put forth by man from the fullness of his heart is worship, if it is prompted by the highest motives and the will to do service to humanity. This is worship: to serve mankind and to minister to the needs of the people. Service is prayer. A physician ministering to the sick, gently, tenderly, free from prejudice and believing in the solidarity of the human race, he is giving praise.”
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks, p. 176-7)

It is enjoined upon every one of you to engage in some form of occupation, such as crafts, trades and the like. We have graciously exalted your engagement in such work to the rank of worship unto God, the True One. Ponder ye in your hearts the grace and the blessings of God and render thanks unto Him at eventide and at dawn. Waste not your time in idleness and sloth. Occupy yourselves with that which profiteth yourselves and others. Thus hath it been decreed in this Tablet from whose horizon the day-star of wisdom and utterance shineth resplendent.

The most despised of men in the sight of God are those who sit idly and beg. Hold ye fast unto the cord of material means, placing your whole trust in God, the Provider of all means. When anyone occupieth himself in a craft or trade, such occupation itself is regarded in the estimation of God as an act of worship; and this is naught but a token of His infinite and all-pervasive bounty.
(Bahá’u'lláh, “Bishárát” ["Glad-Tidings"], Tablets of Bahá’u'lláh, p. 26)

experience

learning concepts
Naw-rúz is a celebration of the Bahá’í New Year.
Naw-rúz is the end of the month of fasting and the first day of the month of Bahá (Splendour). Note: Bahá’í children and junior youth (i.e. below the age of 15) do not fast.
Naw-rúz happens on the day of the spring equinox, which is usually March 21.

activities
naw-rúz cookie workshop: everybody loves cookies!
naw-rúz bags: to hold naw-ruz gifts, etc. take regular brown paper bags and have the children decorate them with paint, glitter glue, stickers, or whatever else.
naw-rúz tags: cut out paper tags and punch holes in them, thread string through the hole. tie knot to secure string, and then attach to naw-rúz cards or gifts.
springtime: make the connection to the first day of spring, renewal…

reference
Naw-rúz Flash presentation

“Praised be Thou, O my God, that Thou hast ordained Naw-Rúz as a festival unto those who have observed the fast for love of Thee and abstained from all that is abhorrent unto Thee. Grant, O my Lord, that the fire of Thy love and the heat produced by the fast enjoined by Thee may inflame them in Thy Cause, and make them to be occupied with Thy praise and with remembrance of Thee.”
(Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh, p.339)

“O Pen of the Most High! Say: O people of the world! We have enjoined upon you fasting during a brief period, and at its close have designated for you Naw-Rúz as a feast.”
(Bahá’u’lláh, Kitab-i-Aqdas, para.16)

An equinox in astronomy is the moment when the Sun passes over the equator. The event occurs twice a year, around March 21 and September 23. The word equinox derives from the Latin word for equal night. The equinoxes are the two days each year when the middle of the Sun is an equal amount of time above and below the horizon for every location on Earth.
(Wikipedia: Equinox)

experience
March 18, 2006: 2 hours, 6 children, average age 6-7. Given the extra preparation due to preparing this lesson in advance, the class went extraordinarily well and was much more organized. There was no sense of last-minute panic and we (the teachers) were far more relaxed and confident – even though we were both tired from fasting for the past 17 days. I think we are both showing signs of wear though – it was harder than usual to put up with difficult behaviour from the children. They were merciful and good though, and spared us any major tantrums.

The activity was quite well-liked. After last week’s class, we decided to work on a few things: preparing the materials in advance, making an example prior to the class so the children know what the craft will look like, and explaining the purpose of the craft. We got together a half-hour before the children arrived and put together a couple of pretty Naw-rúz tags out of construction paper, string and ribbons, using scissors and heart- and butterfly-shaped hole punchers from the dollar store. Photos to come soon. The children found the craft easy to do and seemed to enjoy it. At least, it went a lot better than last week’s craft (preparation is the key). Making the tags took up a good half-hour, and some of kids chose to make and decorate more than one.

We started with prayers, and we read and sung “Blessed is the spot”. We had a bit of talking to lead up to the activity regarding Naw-rúz, spring, the month of Fasting, and the Bahá’í calendar. We mentioned that Bahá’ís often give each other gifts at Naw-rúz, much like Ayyám-i-Há. They related to the idea of gift-giving and were quite quick to come up with ways to make a gift special (and, of course, one of those ways was to add a nice tag with the recipient’s name on it – hence the craft!) We ended the day with drawing springtime scenes in their scrapbooks – as well as pasting the text of “Blessed is the spot” into the books.

March 24, 2007: 2 hours, 7 children, average age 7. We had a blast with this class—and it was mainly thanks to the help of certain blessed souls who were ready and willing to give up a day or more’s worth of time and effort in preparation to help make it a reality. The day started with prayers; like last year, we sang “Blessed is the Spot”. The kids’ conduct during prayers has greatly improved since we started focusing our efforts on that part of the class. Our main activity for the day was baking cookies—what better way to make Naw-ruz a special event? The children could scarcely believe their ears when we told them; they thought we were joking. But it was not so!

I asked my mom (of course) to come help us bake cookies. She prepared individual bags of three kinds of dough for each of the children, brought cookie cutters, rollers, trays, flour, decorations (i.e. sprinkles, different colours of icing, etc.) and so on. The children spent over an hour rolling the dough, cutting out different shapes (sometimes making up their own), and, once they were fully baked and cooled, decorating their munchable masterpieces. They took home bags of cookies to share with their parents, cousins and siblings. No joke—they were genuinely proud to have made their own cookies and were looking forward to sharing with their families. Some of the children had been so industrious in making the cookies, and had amassed such a stack of them, that they started sharing their cookies with anybody they could find. Here are some photos of the whole process:

Room for improvement? Well, we were actually expecting some parents to show up and share the afternoon with the children; lack of logistical coordination meant that didn’t happen. We didn’t spend nearly enough time reminding the parents that they were invited to stay; written invitations (instead of the verbal invites) would have helped tremendously. I had expected to give a more adult-centred presentation of Naw-Ruz, which subsequently bombed—meaning we didn’t have much of a “lesson” per se; once I noticed that the kids were getting bored of my waffling, we jumped right into washing our hands and getting ready for the cookies (which was the right thing to do, I suppose).

Kudos? Obviously, to Mom for basically planning the entire thing in about a day; she had even planned more (including making decorative bags) but we ran out of time! Many thanks go to Dad for taking photos. Also, big ups are owed to those who helped keep the class under control during transition time. One thing that was pulled off remarkably well this time was discipline. We’ve had some discipline problems with one child in particular, and it’s really taken all of us to handle him and run the rest of the class smoothly… This time around, it really seemed to work well. Not only did we avoid a tantrum (which had happened the previous week, when there were only two teachers available), we actually applied some of the lessons of Ruhi Book 3 and gave preference to the children who were showing patience and politeness. We had to do it several times, but it worked! I’m sure we’ll have to repeat the exercise in coming weeks, but it was a genuine thrill to know that yes, when you put your heads together, the lessons we’ve learned in our training actually do bear fruit!

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.

learning concepts
All the major religions come from the same divine source.
Bahá’u'lláh urges us to consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship.

activities
song: “The Song of the Prophets” by Jack Lenz, on the album We Are Baha’is.
drama/skits: A play about the Oneness of Religion, from Baha’i Education for Children, Book 2, Chapter 9 (pp. 19-24)
stencil craft: print out stencils for the symbols of major religions (e.g.: hinduism, judaism, islam, sikh, christian), cut them out onto heavy paper; also print out a nine-pointed star that can encompass each of the other symbols. Cut out stars of many different colours; the children can use the stencils to paint or draw the different symbols onto the stars. these can be used as decorations on walls or windows, or as part of mobiles.

reading/prayer for study
Consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship. (Bahá’u'lláh)

reference
Ye are all the rays of one sun; the fruits of one tree; and the leaves of one branch. (Bahá’u'lláh, quoted by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London, p. 80)

O people! Consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship. Thus hath the day-star of His sanction and authority shone forth above the horizon of the decree of God, the Lord of the worlds. (Bahá’u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u'lláh, p. 22)

experience
January 20, 2007: 2 hours, 9 children, average 7 years old. We scheduled this lesson for World Religion Day and had a lot of fun with the stencils mentioned above. We wanted to get the children’s hands in gear in creative ways; amazingly, no one was spotted running with scissors. My only beef with this class was that the lesson content wasn’t strong enough—for example, as we introduced each stencil, we could have had the children guess which religion the symbol represented, and which Manifestation founded that religion… I haven’t been able to find my binder full of lesson plans from the Canadian national curriculum (which have made things so much easier since we started using them—no more last minute brainstorms) and the lesson from Baha’i Education for Children only presents the play, which I didn’t think we could do at the time with the resources we had. So we made up this lesson with the stencils. It went over all right—most of the children seemed to enjoy the artistic activity. One of our Baha’i friends, a regional coordinator for children’s classes, was there and snapped some pictures:

the whole group of us!

one of our shy participants.

hard at work.

Our upcoming class will again touch on the oneness of religion, so there’ll doubtless be more to tell soon. By the way, I’m sorry this post came late—I noticed there was a spike in traffic to this blog just before World Religion Day but I couldn’t get my act together to post our lesson in time :P There’s always next year right?

January 27, 2007: 2 hours, 7 children, average 7 years old. Well this was an interesting class. We wanted to try out the play contained in Baha’i Education for Children. I don’t know about you, but I’m no drama teacher. I suppose it would have been useful to read through Book 3A (aka the old Book 5, “Baha’i Children’s Classes, Grade 2″) before attempting this activity. Where Book 3 relies mainly on games for physical activity, Book 3A includes a lot more drama, acting and role-playing. If I was more of a manual-reading person (rather than the jumping-in type I am) we would have saved a lot of bother this time around. The play is meant to be learned and memorized over a longer period of time (to its credit, there are warnings to this effect at the top of the script); still, we figured we’d start reading and see how things would go. Most of the kids found the text difficult to read, let alone to memorize. For some—especially the younger ones who were only just learning to read—nothing sank in at all. Oops. So after a short period of confusion, we quickly changed tactics and began simplifying the script; a teacher would call out the main points of each child’s speech and have them repeat them out loud. Once the emphasis was off reading, things went a lot smoother.

The result? Well, we haven’t given up on the play yet. We’ll continue working with a simplified script (one of the teachers will be revising it so that it can be more easily understood by the children), and continue rehearsing until we get it. It’s funny—I don’t know who’s doing more learning, the children or the teachers. I certainly feel like I’m getting a crash course in children’s education every time I come to the class.

learning concepts
“Allah’u'abhá” means “God is most glorious”. Bahá’ís use it as a way of greeting each other.
Greeting each other helps each of us feel welcome.

activities
Fruit Salad: Each child picks the name of a fruit, for example apple, orange, banana, etc. Call out two fruits; the children who picked those two fruits switch places. When you call “fruit salad”, everybody switches places.
All My Friends/The West Wind Blows: Similar to the Fruit Salad game, except callouts begin with “All my friends who are…” and then continue with some characteristic that several people share, for example, colour of clothes, first letter of name, eye or hair colour, birthplace, etc. Everyone who shares that characteristic then switches place with the others. Callouts may also begin with “The west wind blows on everyone who…” ALSO: Game-caller is in the middle of the circle and tries to find his place along with everyone else. The person who is left out of the circle then becomes the new game-caller. This variant works best with chairs, and is probably best played with older groups.
Jump-Up: Each child, in turn, jumps up, introduces themselves, and says something about themselves such as a favourite activity, etc. OR: instead of saying something about themselves, they could strike a pose and freeze; they could mime their favourite activity, etc.
Greet & Switch: A chosen child moves across the circle to face another child (preferably someone she doesn’t know very well) and says, “Hello (or Alláh-u-abhá), I’m (…), how are you? It’s good to meet you!” (S)he then takes the place of whoever (s)he was facing, who then takes his or her own turn.

reference
(none this time around – we need these!)

experience
October 14, 2006: ~2.5 hours, 7 children, ages ~6-10. A good class to start off our new year of classes. We had encouraging turnout: 5 of last year’s core group of children attended, plus two more. The class started out slowly as we waited for some of the children to arrive, so we played a number guessing game in the meantime. Maybe not the most original game, but the kids got into it. We started (late) with prayers; they were quite beautiful. About half the children were shy and didn’t want to say prayers; the others did. I noticed it was the usual ones who didn’t want to say prayers. Still struggling to find ways to open up the desire to pray in these kids. Afterwards, we started with one prayer (O God! Guide me…), discussed it and asked what the words meant. We worked on memorizing it, with several children leading in a repeat-after-me style. Once the memorization was done, we opened up with some get-to-know you games; we played a couple of versions of Jump-Up and Greet & Switch. One of the kids, as was his habit last year, became distracted during the games and began to disrupt the class. I think all of us lost some patience with him, which I personally regret. After the games, we took some time to work on our new prayer books – after that was all done, we had snacks and went outside to play more active games. All in all? As I said, not too bad, but we could have done better. We didn’t mention “Allah’u'abha” as a particular Baha’i greeting, which is an important oversight. I think we probably all got panicked because it had been a while since we had done the class, and we weren’t as prepared (spiritually? materially?) as we could have been. It was a nice little jolt starting the class again – stressful, but doable. I still feel very confident about this year’s class and know that, once we get back into the rhythm of the class, things should go just fine.

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.

So our children’s class is now scheduled to start the weekend after (Canadian) Thanksgiving – October 14th. I’ve got a list of themes ready for the year, and I need to brainstorm some activities – if you can recommend some fun activities based around the first few books of the Furutan curriculum, that’d be really helpful – leave a comment on this post. There’s an information session at Ottawa’s newly renovated Baha’i Centre, and my co-teacher and myself will be speaking there about our experience teaching children from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds over the past year.

A nice and pretty French-language email is ready to send out announcing the class; the goal is to spread knowledge of the class among the Baha’is, in the hopes that they can forward it as an invitation to interested contacts. We’ll see how it works. Meanwhile, I’ll also need to put together a little sheet that explains all about the class and how it works.

That’s all for now – I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted much, but please be patient. This calm exterior belies hectic work!