Celebrate!
September brings us some major holidays, including Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy months of fasting. But the most important date for many kids this time of year is the start of the new school year.
Click on a link below for information, stories, recipes, activities and more related to these and other holidays.
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We Honor… |
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| Horace Mann, who worked to make free, public, religiously-open schools available to everyone in the United States. When he was born in 1796, education was available only to people who could afford it, and then generally only to white men. Horace became a Unitarian because he came to agree with the Unitarian views that God is kind and loving, and that human nature makes us want to learn and grow and seek the good. Those same beliefs led him to believe that one of the most important parts of a good government is providing everyone with an education, so that they can grow into their best selves.
After studying to become a lawyer, Horace Mann served in the Massachusetts legislature, as the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and as a member of the U. S. House of Representatives. During that time he spoke out for the rights of women, and against slavery. But his emphasis was always on education, because he felt that education for all was the best way to create a just society.
In the last years of his life, Horace served as the first president of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Although some of the more conservative teachers there weren’t happy about it, Mann developed strong relationships between the Unitarians and the college, and he worked to make sure that all the students there were free to express their own religious beliefs. Horace Mann may have summed up his own life when he said, in a graduation speech at Antioch a few months before he died: "be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."
You can read more about Horace Mann here.
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Act!
You might feel like going to school is more of a chore than a privilege, but many children around the world whose families can’t afford to send them to school know that education is the most important step to leading a better life. Even if school is free, it can be difficult or impossible for poor families to provide their kids with the supplies they need to be successful in school. If you’re shopping for school supplies, why not see if you can help out another kid who needs supplies as well? Staples and Office Depot have donation programs, or you could check to see whether your own school or community has a program to get school supplies to kids who need it. |
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Nurturing Your Spirit
If you’re like most kids, you might think that memorizing is more of a boring homework task than a spiritual practice. I can’t say that I’ve ever met anyone who thought that memorizing the times tables was really fun. But memorizing special words is something that people have done for centuries, so that they can have religious texts or special poems available in their heads whenever they want them. There’s actually something quite wonderful that happens when you take the time to learn something beautiful word for word. That’s why they say that you “know it by heart” when you have something memorized—the words find their way into your heart as well as your brain!
If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you might want to memorize this poem to call up the cooler weather that is coming:
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
—Carl Sandburg
Or if you live in the Southern Hemisphere and spring is on its way, this might be the poem you want to store in your brain and your heart:
In time of silver rain
The earth
Puts forth new life again,
Green grasses grow
And flowers lift their heads,
And over all the plain
The wonder spreads
Of life,
of life,
of life!
In time of silver rain
The butterflies
Lift silken wings
To catch a rainbow cry,
And trees put forth
New leaves to sing
In joy beneath the sky
As down the roadway
Passing boys and girls
Go singing, too,
In time of silver rain
When spring
And life
Are new.
—by Langston Hughes
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Principles in Practice
Usually when I think about which of our UU principles relates to the topic of education, I think about our fourth principle, “A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” But really, our third principle, “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations” is about learning, too. As Horace Mann understood, accepting and affirming people is the best starting place for education – and spiritual growth is one of the most important parts of learning. What exactly is spiritual growth? Well, it’s hard to say anything exact about spirituality. But I would say that spiritual growth has to do with understanding and acting on our deep connections. We grow spiritually when we treat other people with caring, when we take care of our planet and the other beings who share it with us, when we take time to look at things from someone else’s point of view. We also grow spiritually when we pay attention to the deep connections inside of ourselves, when we get quiet and listen to the “still, small voice” inside of us.
Although the principle talks about acceptance and encouraging spiritual growth in our congregations, the start of school is a great time to remember and practice this principle. You can practice acceptance with new students at your school, who might be used to doing things differently than you or your long-time friends. And you can encourage spiritual growth in yourself and others by showing what it looks like when someone treats people and the planet with care and respect.
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