rivka

Yesterday was the second session of my new adult RE class. With last week's introductory stuff out of the way, this week's class felt much meatier. It was thought-provoking and fun. ( Read more... )

I'm on the DRE Advisory Council at my church. It's a small panel of people who provide support and feedback to our Director of Religious Education, and who are available to help sort out any difficulties or dramas that arise within the RE program. I'm counting down my last few months on the committee - I'll be replaced in the fall. I've really enjoyed the work.

Over the next six weeks, we're hosting a series of before-church breakfasts, one for the parents and other interested adults of each RE class. The primary goal is to find out how parents are feeling about RE and what their thoughts are about the future direction of the program. We're also hoping that the breakfasts will help foster a sense of community and will encourage parents to commit to bringing their kids to RE more often. (We have a problem with sporadic attendance.)

I'm facilitating the first two breakfasts. This morning's was for parents in the youth group, and next week's will be parents of babies and toddlers in the nursery. My friend Laura provided breakfast this morning - quiche, fruit, juice, and coffee - and also set a table beautifully, with tablecloth, decorative runner, china, cloth napkins, et cetera. It's amazing, what that will do to make a meal feel special and make the guests feel honored. The parents were quite obviously pleased and touched.

( what we talked about )

The parents present were all highly dedicated church families. (I'm hoping some less involved families come to subsequent breakfasts.) They spontaneously mentioned making a conscious family decision that "church is what we do" - a commitment to be part of the church community and help with church activities. They all agreed that it doesn't work to make a week-by-week decision about whether to go to church, or to allow your kids to see church as optional. "We have to help parents understand that when you go all the time, it's just better. Kids get more out of it, parents get more out of it, the church gets more out of it."

I am particularly interested in this question, about what makes some families commit to church and others remain on the fringe. Back when Michael and I first started attending, we made a conscious decision to have church be our default, rather than waking up on Sunday morning and deciding whether or not we felt like going. That decision deepened our relationships within the congregation and led to us being much more involved in church activities and church governance. But we were both raised in deeply committed church families, so I think that model felt natural to us.

I'm not sure how the process works for other people. In Unitarian-Universalism there is no obligation to go to church, no sense that it's wrong or sinful to skip church, no sense that the minister has access to spiritual gifts you can't get on your own. What makes church a deep part of life for some people, and a when-it's-convenient activity for others?

Alex is fast asleep, hopefully to stay that way until morning. At the NP's advice, we added some Vicks medicated stuff (camphor, I guess) to her hot-steam vaporizer in hopes of suppressing her cough. I wedged her door almost-closed with her sweater, to try to keep in more of the steam. Also at the NP's advice, we sprayed saline mist into her nose in large quantities. Poor kid. Although, man, do I ever appreciate the difference between a three-and-a-half-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old. She hated the saline spray, but she submitted.

Today I made three more pans of pumpkin-cranberry-pecan bars and also two pans of cornbread for Michael's work lunch tomorrow. (He's cleaning up my baking mess in return, so I consider it an equitable trade.) Tomorrow I don't have to bake anything. On Christmas Eve I am planning to make two pecan pies for the church potluck. I tried to convince myself that no one would expect me to bring anything to the potluck because I was directing the pageant, but I didn't believe me, so: pies. My compromise is using storebought crust. I can't believe how far I've fallen, except that this is the same kind of crust that I used for the baby shower quiches and they were tasty, so it's hard to bring myself to feel the proper amount of shame.

This evening was the dress rehearsal for the Christmas pageant. ( Read more... )

So, I, um, I did this thing.

Last year I helped organize the early Christmas Eve service at church. It's a short service designed for families with young children who might not be able to make it through the longer 8pm service for big people. It was a lot of fun last year, and at the time I thought, "Next year, how fun would it be to have a Christmas pageant?"

So this year I, um, I wrote one.

I'm sure there are prepackaged UU Christmas pageants out there which are perfectly appropriate for religiously diverse congregations, written by people who know a lot more about what children can be gotten to perform than I do. But I was attacked by a muse. I kept thinking that the 12th century carol "The Friendly Beasts" would adapt well for children's performance, and then there was the voice of a cranky sheep in my head, and, well, suddenly there was this script, complete with a UU religious message. (Should I post the script? It's four pages.)

The idea of actually putting this thing on terrifies me.

I tried to make it simple. There are three parts with about a dozen lines each and three minimal speaking parts. There's a shared group role for kids who are very little, because I knew Alex would want to be in it and probably some of the other kids from her Sunday School class. The costumes can be very simple. The props are minimal (we need a manger and a baby doll and some fleece, and possibly some straw), and there's no need for much of a set. I made my best guesses about what will be workable for a bunch of upper-elementary kids to master in three or four rehearsals, and I think my expectations are reasonable. But honestly, I'm still terrified.

I'm going to ask one of the teens I taught last year if she'd like to be my Assistant Director. Given that I'm going to be 33 weeks pregnant on Christmas Eve, it seems wise to have a helper who can jump around and be energetic. Plus, she loves theater and she loves little kids.

I met with acceberskoorb, our Director of Religious Education, yesterday to work out the planning. Can I just say that she's phenomenal at her job? She walked me through all the organizational details: lists of likely and possible participants, how many rehearsals we'll probably need and when we should schedule them, which kids can be counted on to memorize lines, how we'll assign parts, which members of the congregation might be counted on to sew costumes or play the guitar or or help with the singing, which kids in the youth group have talents in the visual arts and might want to paint a backdrop. It was awesome. I think pageants terrify her too, but she does a good job of hiding it.

“Why didn’t you warn me about Christmas pageants?”

Why indeed? What can you say about these pageants? What should you say? Is it fair to warn a fledgling minister? They’re like war, childbirth, and one microsecond of a holy visitation. - Carl Scovel

RE was a family affair today. I taught, Alex was in the class as usual, and Michael was my classroom assistant. His first time teaching Sunday School, and he picked an incredibly chaotic day to do it. All went more-or-less well, though. ( Read more... )

My RE teaching career has gone like this: preschool stories-and-crafts, ZOMG middle-school sex ed, preschool stories-and-crafts. Not sure if next year will be a ZOMG middle-school sex ed year or not, but let me just say that I find this pattern a bit... odd. Mindbending. At least it encourages mental flexibility.

When I taught preschool two years ago, our curriculum revolved around the natural world and cultivating a sense of wonder. This year our theme is home and family, including an appreciation for our church home and a sense that we belong to the human family. Once again we are using lessons cobbled together from three different curricula: Celebrating Me and My World, We Are Many, We Are One, and a modified version of a new curriculum for older kids called Creating Home.

Alex is in my class this year, and oh boy, is she proud of being a "Sunday Schooler" instead of a nursery kid. Every day last week she woke up and asked if it was a Sunday School day. It is especially exciting for her to have me be one of her teachers - I'm having to gently prepare her for the fact that I won't be teaching every week. Instead, I'm the lead teacher two weeks out of every four, and occasionally I also fill in as the assistant teacher. (For reasons of safety and practicality, all RE classes are team-taught.)

( I was the lead teacher this week. )

Not posted to the OWL filter.

I know I have some very smart, very clued-in people with disabilities on my Friends List. I'm pleading with you to help me fix the one messed-up session in OWL, the grades 7-9 sex ed class I'm teaching. Feel free to point other friends here, if you think they may have helpful comments.

( Here's the problem... )

Here's where I need your help:

1. I need readings. Anyone got anything they love? I knew I'd lent out my copy of With the Power of Each Breath years ago and never gotten it back, but I foolishly assumed that our library would have it. Nope.

2. I have three "Values Voting" statements. Please critique them, fix the wording, and suggest any better, or additional, ideas:

a) Mentally retarded people shouldn't have sexual contact, because they're not really able to give consent.
b) It's fine for disabled people to have children, even if the disability might be inherited.
c) Being in a relationship with someone who is seriously disabled would just be too hard. (Possible alternate wording: "It takes someone really special to be willing to have a relationship with a disabled person.")

I want to make this a good, engaging, educational experience for the kids. But I'm a little nervous about, um, how far inside I am on this issue. It makes it hard to know exactly what's going to be appropriate and helpful.

So... help?

It turns out that yesterday was Teacher Appreciation Sunday. I had no idea - it's possible that I was informed, but forgot. I settled Alex in the nursery and then walked into the sanctuary just moments before the RE Director announced that she was going to call the teachers up, class by class.

I sort of remember last year's Teacher Appreciation, which happened after the previous, quarter-time RE director had quit and the RE committee had imploded, all at the same time. It was completely half-assed; they had the kids sitting up at the front of the church and led them in a sing-song chorus of "Thank you, Miss Soandso" as each teacher came up to get a certificate or something. I doubt that many of the teachers felt particularly appreciated.

This year was very different. As each of us came up to the chancel, one of the kids handed us a surprisingly attractive tissue-paper-and-pipe-cleaner flower that the older kids had made. Becky, our RE director, gave us a little book she had made, and the president of the congregation gave us an extremely snazzy Certificate of Appreciation from the Board of Trustees. We stayed up there until all of the teachers had been called, and then the congregation gave us a hearty round of applause.

The books that Becky made... oh my gosh. They were little 4x6" photo albums. The cover said "Thank you, Rebecca, for teaching our preschool class!" and was "signed" with the names of the ten kids who were the core of our class. Inside were photos of most of the kids, a couple of pictures that I'd taken of our group with our "class tree," and - this was the coolest - shrunk-down versions of some of the artwork we made this year. I guess she either reduced them on a color copier, or scanned them, shrunk them down, and printed them. And she had to have snuck into our classroom during the week, borrowed the artwork and the class tree photos, and then put them back exactly where they were. Interspersed with the class-specific pictures were pictures she'd taken of the Tiffany stained glass windows in the sanctuary, with quotes about education superimposed on them.

This book was the most gorgeous thing. I cried. I saw teachers crying all around me. It's something I'll want to keep for always. And you bet I feel completely appreciated, and recognized, and honored as a teacher. If I had been on the fence about signing up for another year? This would totally have sold me.

Becky is an amazing person. I hope we can keep her at our church forever.

I was lead teacher for Religious Education again this morning, for the last time this year. The RE year ends June 10; June 3, which would ordinarily be my week, is an intergenerational service, and then June 10 all three of us will jointly lead some kind of end-of-year celebration.

This week was another tree-themed lesson. ( Read more... )

I felt kind of bad, leaving Michael to solo with a sick and cranky kid while I went off to church. But this was one of my lead-teaching weeks, so I kind of had to be there. ( Read more... )It's funny how my perspective on this material is changing over time. At the beginning of the year, I looked at the curriculum and thought, "This will all be a lot of fun, but where's the religion?" Now I've come to believe that a sense of wonder and the joy of discovery are religious experiences in themselves.