A Message to New Volunteer Teachers

Pat Ellenwood, DRE
Unitarian Universalist Society
Wellesley Hills, MA

In Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, this message is provided to all volunteers who will be working in the religious education program. Volunteers receive both this letter and a concise handbook that provides guidelines for the pragmatics of religious education. The letter is presented here as a model of how one religious educator welcomes volunteers into the program, sharing philosophy and faith, and inviting them to experience their work as a nourishing experience of adult faith development.

Tracey L. Hurd, Ph.D., editor.

A Message to New Volunteers

Long before Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase "the medium is the message," Angus MacLean, professor of religious education at St. Lawrence University Theological School, was using the phrase "the method is the message." Angus MacLean meant that we teach who we are by what we do and how we do it. If children come to a classroom where a teacher is only concerned with dishing out information, the children are going to learn facts—not how to search for truth. If children are given conclusions, they will not learn how to think for themselves.

The team of teachers creates an atmosphere through the way they speak to the children in the group, how they speak to each other, and the warmth of their personal interactions with the children. We hope this atmosphere created by the adults and children together is consistent with the goals of the Cooperative Church School, which are derived from the Purposes and Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Mission of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Wellesley Hills, and the Mission of the Religious Education Committee:

• To have a sense of personal worth so they can affirm the worth of others
• To develop a sense of community through intergenerational activities
• To develop an approach to life that includes changing and growing
• To understand the connection between our faith and our actions
• To know the liberal tradition of Unitarian Universalism and the individuals responsible for the growth of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
• To learn about the Bible and our Jewish and Christian heritages
• To find out about religions that have contributed to other worldviews
• To become involved in and committed to social justice as well as to participate in individual and group service projects.

The Purposes, Principles, and Sources of our Unitarian Universalist faith, along with the goals formulated by the Religious Education Association, undergird all that we do. They guide our choice of curriculum, worship topics, the covenant we have developed—all the other programs we offer. They are informed by the broad goals of liberal religious education that invite children and youth to understand that they have thoughts worthy of consideration; that adults take their ideas seriously and are available to help them in the lifelong process of religious education.

As a culture, we seem to have a highly developed understanding of IQ. As a faith community, we are interested equally in IQ, EQ, and SQ. We want to provide opportunities to stretch intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. We are aware that we all learn most effectively in different ways. A diet of one teaching method is no more nourishing than if all we ate each day was broccoli. We want to encourage children to know their own feelings and ideas and to express them freely, constructively, and creatively.

We want children to have information. We want our children and youth to make sense of the information by forming concepts. And by relating the information and the concepts, we hope they will ask important questions such as, "What does this have to do with me?" which must be asked by each one of us if we are to derive personal meaning from our curriculum and program.

Many of you are new to Unitarian Universalism, and all of you are new to teaching in the church school. I hope that you will see this time as an opportunity for your own religious growth and learning; that the issues we explore, the form of our chapel services, intergenerational openings, will give you food for thought and satisfy your need for a time of worship on each of the Sundays you are with the children.

There are many ways to be a part of a church community and being a volunteer in the Cooperative Church School is as valid as singing in the choir, serving on a committee, working on the rummage sale, or participating in the adult worship service in the sanctuary. There is no "they" to teach our young people. It is up to us. We want to reverse the trend that suggests that only 10% of our Unitarian Universalist youth remain Unitarian Universalists as adults.

Faith development for children and youth in a religious community is a complicated process. In addition to conveying the complexity of Unitarian Universalism, it is important for us to model our values and beliefs. We all know that we cannot walk into a classroom without materials, ideas, or information, and "model" for an hour. But no matter what the substance of the lesson, the way we interact with the children and the tone of the room is critical to our success with the children and youth as well as our success as an educating community. There is a wide range of experience among those of you who have so generously volunteered to be part of our ministry to children and youth. Whatever your experience in the past, I hope you will consider being the kind of person you hope the children will become.

Sidney Harris once wrote in his column for The Chicago Sun Times, "The power of a teacher's personality is even more decisive and permanent than the ideas he inseminates in his pupils.

In the fundamental task of living, we learn far more by example than by abstract mental processes. It is the ‘presentation of self' in a good teacher that makes the lasting impression. This may have been in part what Einstein meant when he defined education as ‘what is left after you have forgotten everything you learned in school.' What is left is the indelible memory of a teacher's moral courage, respect for reason, desire to share, eagerness to learn from pupils as much as what he is teaching."

The Religious Education Committee is very aware of the fact that our parents, in addition to being expected to serve on committees and participate in other ways in the life of our congregation, are also the primary source for volunteers in the Cooperative Church School. That means we are particularly grateful that you have made a commitment to being a companion and guide to our children and youth on Sunday mornings. If at the end of this year, you have felt the satisfaction of growth among those in your group, if one child has asked a startling question, if the words of the chapel service have held meaning for you, if the chapel talk has raised a question for you, if the time of silence and meditation has truly been silent and meditative, pass the word, that not only do you give when you volunteer but you also receive.

I hope what is left in the minds and hearts of the children after you have completed your teaching time with them is the sense that you enjoyed your time with them and were personally enriched by the experience. For those who are new to Unitarian Universalism, be mindful that as you are teaching, you are learning. If there are questions or issues that come up as you teach that you would like to explore more fully, please be in touch.

In Faith,

Pat Ellenwood

Director of Religious Education