A horse of a different color.

[rivka]

Yesterday, all the Religious Education teachers got an e-mail outlining the curricula for next year and asking if we'd be willing to teach again. I discovered that the preschoolers will be combined with the kindergarteners next year, meaning that all of my current kids will be staying in the class. (This is a good thing. We have a great class.) And they'll be doing the "Chalice Children" curriculum, a preschool-level introduction to the symbols, people, and rituals of Unitarian-Universalism. That sounds fun to teach, and it would make an interesting change from our nature-oriented curriculum of this year.

I replied to the e-mail saying that I would be delighted to teach preschool again, and added as an afterthought that I would also be willing to teach OWL if she had trouble recruiting teachers for it. OWL stands for "Our Whole Lives;" it's the UU (and United Church of Christ) sex education curriculum. Our kids take it in middle school.

This morning I got a call from the RE director, letting me know that she wasn't going to be at church this morning. And then she said, "When I saw that you might be willing to teach OWL, I almost had a heart attack. Because you would be so good at it."

"It's pretty different from what I'm doing now," I said.

"Yeah. We should set up a time to talk about it, and see what you want to do."

So. Looks like RE is probably going to be a very, very different experience next year... unless she gets an influx of fantastic volunteers who want to teach OWL. Hm. I'm gonna need a new RE icon.

Comments

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Can I come teach OWL with you? It is *the* gold standard in sex ed curricula that also deal with faith issues. The little I know about it is *so* amazing.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Oh, she's absolutely right: You'd be *fabulous* at this. I look forward to reading your entries on that as much as I've enjoyed reading your entries about teaching the little kids!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I look forward to reading your entries on that as much as I've enjoyed reading your entries about teaching the little kids!

I'd have to do some careful thinking about what it would be appropriate to write about here. It's not the same as writing about what my little kids think about water conservation!

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Even your writeups of the preschool RE classes seem to be carefully resisting painting pictures of cute individuals and their comments. I noticed that - on one hand I wished you'd describe the kids, but on the other hand I respected that you could write for a large audience this way, and you could pass on your notes as documentation for future teachers, making it richly personal on your side without talking personally about your charges.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that you don't seem to write about specific, individual kids you coach, either.

At times, I have wanted to write about individual kids. But I didn't know how their parents might feel about it. In particular, many parents seem to believe that putting online any information about children at all puts them at risk of predators. If I wrote about kids in my class, I would be linking them to a specific physical location - the church. I could see parents freaking out about that.

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

I suddenly got this impression of you as the RE teacher they remember years/decades later... I had one of those, Mrs. Spaulding; she ended up teaching me once in grade school and once in junior high.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Heh. The Sunday School teacher I remember is the one who made the other girls pray for me in class when I corrected her errors.

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

"When I saw that you might be willing to teach OWL, I almost had a heart attack. Because you would be so good at it."
I think your DRE is right; you'd be absolutely splendid as an OWL facilitator.

The Grades 7-9 OWL curriculum is a lot of fun to teach; I've done it each year for the last three years. I've also learned an awful lot from the experience. The facilitator training is great, but I've learned even more from the questions the youth ask.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Everything I've heard about OWL sounds fascinating. And yes, you would be good, and you and Michael and Alex would all benefit from the practice too. My brother was teaching the grade 11 high school course in Parenting before he actually was one, but now is so in demand for that that it's hard for him to teach what he actually trained to teach.

[roozle.livejournal.com]

I have heard about the OWL curriculum and it sounds fascinating. If you do teach it, I'm looking forward to reading more about it.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I am surprised that so many people have heard of OWL. Where did you come across it?

[roozle.livejournal.com]

A few years ago, a coworker of mine taught the curriculum in her UU church. She'd talk about it occasionally.

OWL

[hazelchaz]

Go for it! and report here, please.