Today was our first day at First Day School in awhile, and we were the only ones who showed up for Meeting!
The Young Friends "class" (my teen) was studying African American Baptist and AME churches and the intersection of faith and culture. We also talked about Islam among African Americans and the importance of churches (and the SCLC) to the civil rights movement. This was a good segue into Black History Month coming up. I think we will be re-visiting some good movies about the civil rights movement and race relations in the U.S. in the coming weeks.
The Little Friends and Lower El "class" (my six-year-old) summed up our last couple of years of study of the parables and Bible stories with a reminder that all those lessons were about the Presence of God and our belief that there is that of God in everyone. We talked about how our coming lessons will go more into Quaker practices and testimonies.
I know I need to have the Meeting over for a meal soon, as we are too scattered, but things have been so hectic lately. And cold.
6 comments:
Sounds like great larning. Too bad you did not have more young Friends!
wow~
that's pretty impressive that a texas school has a class like that. Up here in Austin a lot of the good schools are about to be shut down... budget cuts and whatnot.
I imagine that sort of thing is statewide~
Godmama - I am thinking this comment went on the "Semester" post rather than this one, yes? If not, this is just our little Quaker Sunday school thing which is all me and the kids - no state, no funding. But if so,yes, they are both in good schools. The LSB's dual-language Montessori school is a charter school (the old daycare/pre-school/kinder one that was all Spanish was private - she started there at 18 months), which (charter schools) I feel pretty guilty about as a public school teacher, but not guilty enough to deny her it (I waited in line at 4am on the admissions day so I would get her first on the waiting list if she didn't make the lottery but she did). I would expect Austin to have more neat-o hippie schools than are found here. What is closing?
Nope, i was saying i'm impressed that there is a class on black churches~
;)
i don;t know as much as i should about the schools that are closing as i'm not a parent yet, but i hear through my progressive friends with progressive kids that their relatively progressive public elementary schools are being closed. there are "save our schools" signs all over town, it's sad.
there are some neato hippie schools here of course, but they are private, montessori, and expensive (i hear)...
A couple sets of families I know are coming up with the cash though... schools that aren't getting shut down completely are losing things like art and music...and lots of teachers are being laid off. yucky scary.
thanks governor perry!
For real. I bet there are neat-o hippie Montessori charter schools in Austin, too, though, and charter schools are free.
In First Day School, my "big girls" (now, it is just my own big girl since our Meeting's other teen moved away a year and a half ago)started studying world religions about three years ago. We use various resources but a Unitarian Universalist curriculum called Neighboring Faiths has come in very handy and it includes a unit on "A Culture of Faith" that we were using last Sunday.
Not to downplay the closing of schools by any stretch - class sizes just get bigger and bigger from where I'm standing - but it's too depressing sometimes to stand.
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