RE Curriculum

Introduction to the Curriculum Plan

"The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own; not to make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own; ...to awaken the soul, to excite and cherish spiritual life."

-- Rev. William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), Unitarian minister

OVERVIEW AND GOALS

Unitarian Universalist (UU) religious education introduces our children to our religious heritage, cultivates strong moral character, encourages critical thinking, and helps to nurture the unfolding of each child's unique religious being.

Parents and guardians are the primary religious educators. However, a specific religious education program can provide resource materials. It is important to set aside a designated time for religious education. This has traditionally been on Sunday, but it can be at another time. Also, the focus of religious education is changing from specifically imparting knowledge to providing opportunity for participants -- children and adults -- to interact with and experience the stories and information on various levels in order to provide tools for a lifelong spiritual journey.

This curriculum plan is for

• Members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF) who are isolated religious liberals, which means they have no local UU church or fellowship they can rely on for a comprehensive program or for help in finding the best religious education resources.
• Groups or Unitarian Universalists or congregations that might have a small number of children of varying ages.
• Children who, for some reason, are not involved with a program within a congregation.

The curriculum plan presently covers ages preschool through 12. Our curriculum plan culminates in a Coming of Age program at about age 13-14. This will be expanded for high school, young adult and adults. Some CLF youth have participated in regular CLF programs such as the email list. CLF offers religious education for adults, and a comprehensive plan will be developed for adult religious education.

WHERE DO I START?

The CLF curriculum plan is designed to be used in small groups of 1 to 4 children of mixed ages. Many sessions are built around stories, because people of all ages respond to good stories. But we have identified the ages we feel each year of curriculum is most applicable to:

Preschool Year -- ages 3-6- the curriculum Celebrating Me and My World; We Are Many, We Are One; or Unitarian Universalist Alphabet

• Year 1 is for children ages 5 to 8 (centered on 6 year olds)
• Year 2 is for children ages 6 to 9 (centered on 7 year olds)
• Year 3 is for children ages 7 to 10 (centered on 8 year olds)
• Year 4 is for children ages 8 to 11 (centered on 9 year olds)
• Year 5 is for children ages 9 and up (centered on 10 year olds)
• Year 6 is for young people age 10 and up (aimed at 11 year olds)
• Year 7 is for young people ages 11 and up (aimed at 12 year olds)
• The Coming of Age year is for young people ages 13-15)
• Youth for ages 16-18

This plan is designed for a year round program. Each year is then divided into quarters, and each quarter is devoted to a broad area of UU religious education:

The order in which the broad themes are presented throughout the year may be changed. However, each year represents a gradual movement outwards: beginning with who we are (Unitarian Universalist identity), thence to the tradition we have grown from (our Jewish and Christian heritage), thence the wider religious world (world's religions), and ending in ways we can act on our values in the world (social action and social justice). While each year will be age-specific and building on the previous year, you can start using the plan at any point.

A curriculum plan is just that -- a plan, a beginning, rather than the end or outcome. Please allow the ideas that are presented to stimulate other ideas, and pattern the sessions to meet the needs of your situation. Other resources are noted within the curriculum plan, especially those that are available from the CLF through the web site or mail, and the CLF Lending Library.

Life issues can be incorporated into the curriculum above wherever possible, drawing on the questions and experiences of the children in your family or program. Sexuality education is probably the most difficult issue for families and tiny congregations. Sexuality education resources developed by the UUA, Our Whole Lives, are available for grades K-2 and grades 4-6, and can be made to work for one or two children. Unfortunately, the Our Whole Lives for grades 7-9 require a group of young people, require that adult leaders attend a 15 hour training session, and the 32-session curriculum requires resources not available to most families and tiny congregations. CLF members can consult the CLF Director of Religious Education for materials to support sexuality education and other life issues.

The web of life is integrated throughout the curriculum. There is time for several seasonal celebrations each year, and a focus on environmental issues under Social Justice in Year 1. Adults who are leading religious education curriculum should remain aware of other opportunities for integrating science and the natural world into the curriculum wherever possible.

If the plan is not used for programming in the fourth quarter, social justice projects can be considered throughout the year.

WHAT HAPPENS IN EACH QUARTER?

There are nine or ten sessions within the topic area for the quarter, and allowance for one week of a seasonal celebration and one or two weeks off. The quarters roughly correspond with the way the year is divided in our publication, Cycle of Seasons, and you can refer to that publication for suggestions of seasonal celebrations. In addition, we allowed for sessions on Christmas and Easter in the first and second quarters, respectively. Note that the quarters correspond roughly to the seasons in many temperate parts of the world. You may want to adapt this curriculum to more closely correspond to the seasons in your region.

Each quarter, we recommend doing review and assessment of how the program is working for the child(ren) and leaders. We have also provided for an annual evaluation and goal-setting session each year in mid-September (see below under "Assessment and Evaluation Sessions"). At this annual session, we recommend making or revising a religious education covenant (see below under "What is implicit in the curriculum?").

Sometimes you will need to make your own session plan (or lesson plan) based on stories and materials we suggest. You will find a basic session plan outlined in the CLF publication Religious Education at Home or in this curriculum under "How to Plan a Session".

WHAT IS IMPLICIT IN THE CURRICULUM?

What you will find in this curriculum plan are the elements of the explicit curriculum, the subject matter or content of the curriculum. But adults leading this program should be just as aware of the implicit curriculum. Implicit curriculum may be thought of as the way we do the explicit curriculum. Explicit curriculum is what we teach; implicit curriculum is how we teach what we teach.

Some important areas of implicit curriculum that we believe must be included are: covenantal relationship; leadership and self-governance; institutionalism and stewardship; spirituality.

Covenant is a fundamental part of who we are as Unitarian Universalists. A covenant is a statement of how we have agreed to treat one another, how we have decided to be in relationship with one another. Unitarian Universalist covenants include the idea that we will act in accordance with our belief in the inherent worth and dignity of each other, and of all persons. A religious education covenant might include specific elements such as "We will treat each other with respect"; and "Everyone has the right to pass". One Unitarian Universalist youth group had a covenant that read simply: "Be excellent to each other." Covenants are written, signed by participants (adults and children or youth), and visible. The annual evaluation session (see below) is a good time to review, revise and renew the covenant.

Leadership and self-governance are also central to who we are as religious persons. In Unitarian Universalism, the ultimate authority for personal belief is the individual; the ultimate authority for all institutional affairs is the local congregation. In CLF, for example, while the Board and the staff run the day-to-day affairs of CLF, final authority rests in the vote of members of the congregation. In the context of religious education, children are taught how to take on responsibility from a young age, with the goal that they will be ready to take their place one day as voting members of a Unitarian Universalist congregation.

Institutionalism and stewardship are fancy words that boil down to a basic fact of existence: our congregations are supported solely by the membership of those congregations. In CLF, for example, the members of the Board all serve as volunteers; and the great majority of the budget of CLF comes from member contributions, or from our endowment which comes from member contributions. In the context of home based religious education, children (especially older children and teens) might be asked to contribute something to the family's CLF pledge. Also, institutionalism and stewardship become explicit parts of the curriculum in year 7, and in the Coming of Age year.

The line between religions and spirituality is not quite as clear as it might be in a church or fellowship. We think of spirituality as more personal, while religion is a communal expression. Young people should be encouraged to develop their own spirituality through learning a spiritual practice like prayer or meditation, and they should be encouraged to participate in the religious life of the family, through celebration of religious holidays, saying grace together at meals, etc.

KEEPING TRACK OF WHAT YOU DO

We have designed this curriculum to be used with children and teens who are fairly close in age. You'll see that for each year of the curriculum plan, we give the median age and an age range. If you have two children whose ages are, for example, 7 and 9, their median age is 8, the age that is halfway between 7 and 9. You should probably start with the sessions in Year 3, for which the median age is 8. Check each quarter to make sure the age range for the suggested sessions covers the ages of your children.

When your children are spread out in age, you may have to make some adjustments. If your children are spread more than four or five years apart, you may have to occasionally split them up, and have them doing two different parts of the curriculum plan. If that's the case, it's important to keep records so you know which child has done which sessions. We suggest you keep this curriculum plan in a three-ring binder with records of what parts of the curriculum you have completed.

We would also love to hear from you about how different sessions and quarters worked for you. If you can, please keep records of which sessions worked best and let us know about them -- and if there are sessions which did not work well for your family, please let us know. We will incorporate this feedback in future revisions of this curriculum plan.

If you develop a particularly successful session plan, we would like to see it. As we can, we will distribute copies of the best session plans to all CLF families. We would also like to see examples of your best projects and portfolios, but be sure to send copies and not originals as we cannot guarantee the return of any material.

ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION SESSIONS

We recommend that you regularly schedule review, assessment, and evaluation sessions.

Review is when the adult teacher and the learner(s) look back over material already covered. Review helps the learner to remember the content of the sessions better. We recommend that short reviews should take place 2 to 4 times each quarter -- such as at the end of 2 to 4 weekly sessions.

Assessment is a way of determining the meaning of the program to the learner. Two assessment tools are:

1. Portfolios: in a portfolio, the learner collects together all the material produced in a unit or a quarter. The adult leader and the learner review the portfolio together, and talk together about the meaning of the material. Portfolios may consist of drawings and paintings, a videotape, a journal or other written work, documentation (for example, documentation of a social action project or other project), sound recordings, etc.
   
2. Performance assessments: In a performance assessment, the learner does something concrete in front of or for other people besides the adult leader of the religious education. Performances might include a play or dance, a family worship service, a dramatic reading, etc.

Evaluation means that all the learners involved and the adult leader talk openly and honestly about how they feel about the religious education program. We recommend evaluating your program together at least once a year. Questions to ask of each other in an evaluation session include the following:

1. What were the best things that happened?
2. What did not go so well?
3. What do we remember best?
4. How well did we behave towards one another?

Evaluation sessions are to plan future religious education programs. This is not to say that just because the children don't like a certain topic area that you should therefore drop that topic area, but rather that adult leaders need to remain aware of where they might improve the program.

We also recommend that you review your covenant (see above) each year at the annual evaluation session. A key part of evaluating the year's program is discussing among adults and children how personal relationships are developing.

Remembering -- Brainstorm list of memorable sessions from the past year. Spend five or ten minutes coming up with a list of such sessions. Write them on a large sheet of paper. Make sure everyone gets a chance to speak. During a brainstorm session, there are no bad or crazy ideas -- just write down whatever people say. What's particularly important here is to find out what was most memorable to your children.

Evaluating -- Then when the brainstorming is done, go through the list to rank and sort, and see if you can come to agreement about what the best sessions were. From the children's point of view, what were the best sessions? What did you feel the best sessions were? What were you all most proud of? It is best if you do this on paper, and keep a copy in your three-ring binder for future reference.

Revisiting the covenant -- Review the Sunday school covenant you created. Does it need to be revised? When done, sign it again for this year. You might post one copy where you will see it each week, and file another copy in your three-ring binder with all your other religious education materials.

AND AWAY WE GO...

Once you look over the specifics of the curriculum plan, you'll soon get an idea of where in the plan you want to start off with your family or small group. Look over the bibliography, and make sure you have the books needed for that quarter. If not, borrow them from the CLF Loan Library if you are a CLF member, or buy them yourself (in the Bibliography, we have indicated the books we think you should purchase for yourself). Supplement the material in the curriculum plan with materials that are published in Quest or that are available online at the CLF member's web site.

It generally works best to do religious education as regularly as possible. In our curriculum plans we allow for several weeks off during the year. Children are little ritualists, and it's easier for them if they know that you are going to be doing religious education at the same time every week.

A well-planned religious education program in the home can be both fun and meaningful for children, teens, and adults. We hope the enclosed plan helps you start and maintain such a program.

Have fun!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The plan was developed under the leadership of Dan Harper, Interim Director of Religious Education for CLF, through June 2003. He had the assistance of Virginia Steel, long time Director of Religious Education. This plan is still being growing and being refined.

Helen Zidowecki, Acting Director of Religious Education, August 2003-June 2004

RE Curriculum Home

Last updated June 12, 2005