RE teaching report, with kvetching.

[rivka]

It's been a long, long time since I did any teaching. There were mixed-age RE activities over the holiday, and then, in successive weeks, (1) I was deathly ill, (2) it wasn't my turn, (3) I was in Boston, and (4) only two kids showed up, so we postponed the lesson and just played. So I felt a little rusty when I hit the classroom this morning.

Our preschool class has been given three short nature-related curricula this year to fit in with the Religious Education program's overall focus on the Seventh Principle ("Respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part"). Two of the curricula have been great: the five senses one that we did first, and our seasonal studies focused on trees. The third one, "Animal Helpers," is a problem. The title is meant in two senses: children are supposed to pick an animal spirit guide that helps them be their best self, and they are guided in lessons about environmental stewardship focused on helping animals. I don't know if the author of this curriculum knows preschoolers who are waaay more mature than ours, or what, but the program as it's written is disastrously over their heads. So each week we wind up basically throwing out the planned lesson and trying to design a different lesson based on the same themes. That's a lot of work.

The theme for this week was "Animals and Water." According to the curriculum, we were supposed to (1) do a guided visualization of different water habitats, accompanied by our spirit animals; (2) look at pond water with a magnifying glass; (3) talk about how we use water; (4) talk about how little of the world's water is available for drinking; (5) go around the church finding all the water sources, marking problems (such as leaky faucetS) on a floor plan, and putting bricks in the toilet tanks to save water. Wouldn't that be a great lesson for, like, bright seven-year-olds? I mean, just looking at (5) alone, most three- and four-year-olds aren't able to connect a map or floor plan to real life (except maybe something very simple and concrete, like a map of the classroom with all the furniture drawn in), and don't have the knowledge of physics (or toilet construction) to understand what happens when you put a brick in the tank.

So that's not what we did.

We sat in a circle on the rug for our chalice lighting. ("This is the church of the open mind, this is the church of the helping hands, this is the church of the loving heart.") I told them we were going to talk about water, and how animals used it. We talked about what animals do with water (drink it, live in it, eat food that needs water to grow) and whether there are any animals that don't need water. I brought several National Geographic books and showed them pictures of underwater scenes and animals using water. We talked about ways that we use water ourselves: drinking, swimming, bathing, washing dishes.

Next we had an activity showing how the web of life depends on water. One little girl volunteered to be water, and I gave her a clear plastic cup with some water in it. Then another child was seaweed (a bunch of green ribbons tied together at one end). Seaweed needs water, so he held on to the little girl who was water. The next children took, in succession, a clam shell, a candle shaped like a tropical fish, a stuffed otter, a stuffed sand crane, and a little rubber squeezy shark. They figured out who they depended on, and put one hand on them. I wanted to get us all tightly bound into a web, and that didn't really happen - the kids were reluctant to really grab on, and also they were all holding their animal (or whatever) in one hand. (I hadn't thought of that.) But we were connected enough that I was able to push and pull a little to show that all the parts of the web are connected.

Then I said, "What happens if a person comes along and throws trash in the water?" I took a Chinese restaurant packet of soy sauce and poured it into the clear water. Great oil spill visual! It looked awful. All the kids got it right away, about how bad it would be. Then we deconstructed the web. The seaweed said, "Yuck! I can't live in that water!" Then the fish and the clam discovered that they had nothing to eat, and so on up the food chain. The kids clearly understood the message that hurting the water hurts everyone.

One of the kids (fortunately, the one whose mom is a co-teacher) threw a tantrum during the web of life activity, so I decided that it would be a good idea to break for a snack afterward. We drank water (of course) and ate goldfish crackers (I love a theme). All the kids spontaneously wanted to keep their web-of-sea-life critters with them at the snack table, and I saw a lot of cracker-feeding going on. While we ate, we talked about visiting the ocean. All of the kids had been there (this is Maryland, after all), and we had a happy discussion about finding shells, jumping over waves, playing in the sand. I worked the conversation around to the taste of seawater, and the kids happily informed me that it's gross and you can't drink it. We talked about the difference between salt water and fresh water, and where fresh water comes from.

When we returned to our circle on the floor, I took out a gallon jug of water. "If this was all the water in the world..." I measured out one tablespoon and put it into a cup. "this would be the amount of water that's good for drinking." We talked about how there's just a very little clean water in the world to drink, and how all the people and the animals of the world need to share. So we need to be careful that we don't use more than our share of water.

"How can we save water?" They had no idea. So I led them down the hall to the bathroom, most of them still carrying their sea critters. I put a plastic basin in the sink and asked someone to show how they brushed their teeth. None of the kids volunteered, but my co-teacher (who is a dentist) put on an impressive display. I had him leave the water running while he brushed. At the end, we looked at how much water was in the basin. I borrowed the stuffed sand crane from the kid carrying it and made it say, "Look at all this water! I could have drunk this water! I could have gone swimming in this water! And instead it went right down the drain!" All the kids' faces lit up, and they got their sea animals in on the act too. My co-teacher brushed his teeth a second time, being careful to turn the water off, and we looked at the little trickle in the bottom of the basin - but that part almost wasn't necessary. They totally got it.

Next we went into the kitchen and found two dripping faucets. I put a cup under the dripping faucet and caught some of the water, and asked them who was using it (nobody) and what would happen to it (it would go down the drain and be wasted). ("Oh no," said a staff member wandering through. "This looks like a Green Sanctuary thing. I told them to fix the faucets!") I told the kids that we could all look for dripping faucets at home, and then tell our parents to fix them "so water is left for the animals to use."

Back in our classroom, I put two samples of water on the table: the "oil spill" from the web-of-life exercise, and the cup with just a tablespoon of water in it, representing the world's drinkable water. I said, "There are two things to remember about today's class: that making water dirty hurts all the animals and plants, and that there's only a little water that's okay to drink, so we all have to share and be careful not to waste it."

Then it was time for the obligatory craft project. (Preschool = crafts. There is no diverging from this rule.) We made underwater scenes on blue construction paper, using construction-paper fish, markers, crayons, glitter glue, and shiny little glue-on gem-type things that mostly seemed to represent shells in the kids' minds. This was a very exciting, high-noise-level craft that they all got deeply involved in. It lasted up until the parents came to pick them up.

Most happily of all, my co-teachers and I unanimously agreed to scrap the "Animal Helpers" curriculum, so I won't have to try to drag any more lessons out of it. Yay!

Comments

[dafna]

Wow, it sounds great. It's fascinating for me to see how moral and ethical values are transmitted in a non-Biblical context. (And hee, just realized that the relevant Bible story for this lesson would probably be Rebecca at the Well).

Also, how sad is it that I had to stop and think where fresh water comes from? (Me to myself: Rain, right? And glaciers? Oh this is just embarrassing.)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

(And hee, just realized that the relevant Bible story for this lesson would probably be Rebecca at the Well).

I have a children's book version of that story, called Kind Little Rivka (http://www.judaism.com/display.asp?fp=127&sp=46). I had to have a copy because of the title, but I find the story deeply creepy. Rivka's supposedly three years old, although she is depicted as acting much, much older. And then she's engaged to be married! And this is portrayed as good and exciting, because she gets lots of pretty clothes and jewelry! Yeesh.

Wow, it sounds great. It's fascinating for me to see how moral and ethical values are transmitted in a non-Biblical context.

Most UU kids do study Bible stories at some point in their RE career. It is part of their religious heritage, after all, and part of the culture they live in. Some of them will grow up and choose a Christian or Jewish path. But you're right, the Bible is never presented as the primary basis for morality. It's a book that has important moral teachings in it... as a lot of other books do.

It's interesting to provide Religious Education to UU kids, because there's no assumption that they'll all grow up believing the same things. We believe that we're each responsible for finding our own spiritual path and practices, and our individual beliefs and (to a lesser extent) ethics tend to differ quite a bit. We do share a common moral code in the Seven Principles (http://www.uua.org/aboutuua/principles.html), and so that's the foundation of RE.

There are a couple of different "kids' versions" of the principles. One I like is:

1. Each person is important
2. Be kind in all you do
3. We're free to learn together
4. We search for what is true
5. All people need a voice
6. Build a fair and peaceful world
7. We care for the Earth

That's enough to keep us busy with moral education!

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

One of the things I've seemed to notice in Judaism is that the "Old Testament" isn't the basis of the teachings on how to live; without the thoughts and commentary, they're considered (insufficient? broken? dead? I don't remember the specific term).

Recently, Aahz on alt.polyamory mentioned something about how there's at least a school of thought that the law is not the words, but is simply something bigger, more important, and unable to be expressed. The words form a path to help one approach the law.

This, more than anything else, convinces me that Fundamentalism of the type that believes the bible is both true and complete (and sufficient - insofar as no one will need a different telling of the same tale to understand the true message(s)) is a dead end.

[dafna]

There's a nice line about how the Torah is the black printed words and the commentators are the white space in between.

And yes, even very traditional Jews don't so much believe in Torah in the literal sense that some Christian fundamentalists do because there's hundreds of years of oral tradition that came after it. Even in the Talmud, there's a great story in which the rabbis rule that having God on your side isn't enough, because it's not up to God to decide.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I've taught preschool Bible classes. From a Christian perspective, I don't think we'd tie it to a specific story -- maybe Creation. We'd talk about how God made the water and the animals and us, and how He wants us to take good care of the world and everything in it.

[dafna]

Well, I was oversimplifying slightly, but in the Jewish tradition, the commentators talk a lot about how Rebecca's action was notable not just because she gave water to the servant, but to the animals as well -- so it makes a good story to talk about why it's important to take care of animals as well as people -- and about the importance of water in a desert culture and the symbolism of water as a source of life.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I didn't intend to imply that that tale was inappropriate; just presenting another perspective.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You know, it's very important what you teach kids about things like this. When I was about that age I had a book about a raindrop that fell out of a cloud (it didn't want to!) and into a stream that fed into a reservoir and hence down a pipe into a house where it was used for washing hands and thence down a drain (a scary drain!) to a treatment plant and back into a river where it evaporated (which it wasn't at all sure about!) and finally got back to the cloud. (I love a happy ending.) I've just realized that I've never studied or examined any of this and have let this anthropomorphised water drop in a picture book inform my opinions ever since. (I said it was important what you teach kids!) Are you saying the book was wrong, and water that goes down the drain doesn't get back into the cycle of water after being squeezed through pipes and sand-traps but is somehow lost forever?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Are you saying the book was wrong, and water that goes down the drain doesn't get back into the cycle of water after being squeezed through pipes and sand-traps but is somehow lost forever?

That's an accurate description of the water cycle, but it's (understandably) simplified. Yes, it's true that the water that goes down the drain doesn't disappear forever - but.

The big piece that's missing from the picture book is the role of groundwater. In most areas, humans use a lot more water than is available through "meteoric sources," which sounds like it should mean water hurtling down from space but sadly just means rainfall/snowmelt. The excess is drawn from aquifers, underground natural reservoirs of water that has, over millennia, seeped into porous rock. (In some parts of the United States, people are still drinking melted Ice Age glaciers.) Aquifers are replenished by streams, etc., but many - especially in dry, heavily populated areas like the American West - are being drawn from at far above the replacement rate.

The other issue is where the raindrop actually falls. If it falls in a stream that feeds a reservoir, great! If it falls on the ocean, or on an area in which the groundwater is contaminated with agricultural runoff, it's not going back into the pool of drinkable water. In many areas, the scarce commodity is not water, but clean and fresh water.

(The energy cost of water purification and wastewater treatment is an additional environmental problem that makes water conservation important, but that doesn't involve the water cycle in your picture book, so I merely mention it as an aside.)

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a great lesson (your improvised one, not the curriculum). We talked about water conservation in our Junior Church, too, as part of our Harvest Month last year, but I was with the older kids.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

You're right, that suggested lesson plan for preschoolers was completely unrealistic. Yours, on the other hand, was great. I wonder if there's some RE resource collection (like a magazine or web forum) you could send it in to?

I especially loved the soy sauce illustrating an oil spill.

What about the future?

[(Anonymous)]

I have a question based on my long-ago experience as a high school chemistry teacher. What I found was that students who had been "exposed" to chemistry concepts in earlier grades thought they already knew everything I was trying to teach them which was, as you of course realize as a scientist yourself, not true.

I think your lesson plans are wonderfully creative and sound like lots of fun for the kids. But what happens when they do similar activities again in pre-school and in kindergarten and in first grade and ... ?

I don't think not teaching young kids is a good solution but I don't know what the right solution is.

Grandma Susan

Re: What about the future?

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I'm responding here because it's interesting, but I'm really getting off topic from the pre-school age children whom Rivka teaches.

I'm a university teacher. I also teach bright teenagers in a science camp. And I occasionally do design/technology activities and sports coaching with younger children. So I know exactly what you mean about pulling out what I expect to be a thought-provoking first encounter with a concept and getting "yeah, yeah, we did thermodynamics in Grade Nine..." And from my perspective, it's not just that they think they know all they need to know, it's also having come up with a memorable hands-on demonstration (which we don't have enough of in university) and discovering that they've already done it.

So it's a good question.

However, I've got a feeling that it's really only an issue for children older than 10 or 12 -- when they are younger, there can be LOTS of repetition of activities/concepts and it isn't a problem, because they don't remember the same way and because they absorb different things at different ages. My experience in a sports program for 5-6 year olds was that the kids encountering the exact same curriculum in their second year of the program loved remembering what came next and re-enacting the rituals ("Are we going to have oranges at Christmas again?" for example)

Re: What about the future?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi hobbitbabe,

Thanks for the detailed and reassuring answer to my question. You are correct that it's probably OT but it is always comforting when someone else understands exactly what I was trying to say.

It's been a long time since I thought in detail abut children under 10 and I think you are likely right that for younger children these experiences can be part of an enjoyable ritual rather than an impediment to understanding a complex topic.

Grandma Susan

Re: What about the future?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is probably not as much what children are taught, but how they are taught. If science is taught as a collection of facts to be memorized (as early-grades science typically is), then yes, later teachers will have a problem when they try to replace the early oversimplifications with a new set of facts, or with more of a scientist's approach to science. But if young children are taught to view science as an ongoing process of observation and discovery, and as a continuously unfolding process of understanding how the world works, they should be prepared to go deeper and further as they get older.

As for our Religious Education lessons, our goal this year is to develop the children's sense of wonder about, and reverence for, the natural world and its inhabitants. It's less about the facts (e.g., what proportion of the world's water is available for drinking), although we try to make sure that those are accurate, as it is about the values and attitudes encouraged (e.g., considering the needs of animals and plants when we make choices about resource use).

I'm sure that they will have continued exposure to environmental concepts as they grow older - factual lessons at school, values-based lessons at church, policy-oriented debates they might be exposed to in the media. Hopefully our preschool class will have primed them to approach those future lessons with a sense of the wonder and beauty of the natural world, and the importance of respect for all living things. It's that, and not the sand crane's place in the food web, that our lessons are designed to make stick with them.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is great!

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Except that you probably would have hated every minute of it. ;-)

Thanks!

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

That is just so totally cool; I'm in awe.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Cool lesson! I have flip switch aerators (http://www.energyfederation.org/consumer/default.php/cPath/27_860_268) on all my faucets so it's easy to turn the water off when I'm not actually using it and then turn it back on at the same temperature. (My condo fee includes a percentage of the development's water bill, so I don't get rewarded monetarily for this, but it's still a good thing.)