Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2010-10-10 04:48 pm
edenfalling) wrote2010-10-10 04:48 pm
Entry tags:
Moral Tales, session 2: Hearing the Inner Voice (ie, your conscience)
I taught this week and last week, since session 2 is the first of the multi-part lessons. (Moral Tales has a very thorough curriculum, and many of the lessons are long enough to cover two or three Sundays.) My co-teachers and I have tried to set up our schedule such that for any multi-part lesson, there will be teacher continuity from one week to the next. So, for example, last week I taught with Helen Ann, and this week I was supposed to be teaching with Joanna; I would be the one who knew what happened in the first week.
Except this was a four-day weekend -- Monday is Columbus Day, which is a federal holiday and schools are therefore closed, and I guess the ICSD had a teacher training day or something on Friday. A lot of families took advantage and went out of town. This meant that while we had roughly 10 kids last week, today I only had 2. Which was fair enough, since I also had a substitute teacher, Beth, who is not usually a teacher at all. (Occasionally, life works out conveniently like that. *grin*)
The session's focus is on the story of "The Wise Teacher's Lesson," which I will briefly paraphrase for you:
---------------
The Wise Teacher's Lesson
---------------
One day, a Buddhist monk decides to teach his students a lesson. He gathers them together and says, "I'm getting old and can't support our temple and school the way I used to, so unless you help out, the school will close. In the nearby city, there are hundreds of people who have more money than they need, but they're too selfish to help us. So you must go into the city and follow the rich people. Wait for a moment when no one is watching, and steal their purses and wallets."
The students look at each other in confusion, wondering if their teacher has gone crazy.
"This is very important!" the monk says. "You don't want our school to close, do you?"
"No," the students say. "But you've told us it's wrong to take things that don't belong to us."
"And that's true!" says the monk. "Stealing is a very bad thing, unless it's absolutely necessary, and right now, it's absolutely necessary. So go steal some purses. But remember -- you must not be seen. Only steal when nobody can see you, when nobody is watching. Nobody must know that you are thieves."
The students look at each other dubiously, but they don't want to contradict their beloved teacher, so they leave the classroom and go stand outside the gates, trying to decide what to do... except for one boy, who stands quietly in the corner, waiting for the monk to notice him.
When the monk turns and sees the boy, he frowns. "Why aren't you out helping your fellow students?" he asks. "Don't you care for the fate of our temple and school?"
"I do," says the boy, sounding a bit nervous at standing up to his teacher, but he draws himself up and says, "I care, but I can't steal. You said we can only steal when nobody can see us, and there's nowhere on earth I could go that I wouldn't be able to see myself. I would always know I was a thief."
The monk's frown turns into a delighted smile. "You understood the lesson!" he says. "I hoped all my students would see, but you are the only one. Now go outside and catch your classmates before they get us all in trouble."
The End.
---------------
The idea, of course, is that your conscience is the part of you that's always watching your actions and telling you right from wrong. So we had several exercises related to that, and some others that were more about building community (since it's still early in the year). This week I retold the story very quickly and we did another couple related exercises, after which the lesson degenerated into arts-and-crafts, specifically making paper snowflakes.
An awful lot of my lessons tend to end up in random arts-and-crafts, especially when there aren't enough kids to make up a proper discussion group. I am pretty okay with this, actually, as I am very fond of arts-and-crafts and am grateful for an excuse to indulge in them. :-)
Last week and this week we also introduced the ongoing Gems of Goodness excercise, which involves the kids keeping a record of good actions they do or see during the week. On Sunday, they share those actions and place a little bead into a vase for each one. In some iterations of Moral Tales, you use a small vase and throw a party when it's filled. Since we will be throwing a party later in the year as part of a scheduled lesson, and since the curriculum is fairly strictly laid out, we are using a larger vase and just going for the satisfaction of watching the beads collect in pretty colors.
---------------
After church today there was a teacher appreciation lunch, which I went to -- I don't have work today, and free food is always worthwhile!
Then I came home, took a brief nap, and spent about two hours on the phone. First I was talking with my dad about random stuff, and also giving him information he needed to make my plane reservations for going to Spain at Christmas. (In order, he needed to know the exact form of my name as it appears on my passport, my passport number [just in case], my Continental Airlines OnePass number, and my OnePass PIN.)
Then my friend Susan called back and we caught up on what we've each been up to lately, which is always nice. She currently has a show up in the Chase Room at the Madison Public Library, which is pretty awesome. I need to get her to show me some photos of her work on display.
And that has been my day. :-D
Except this was a four-day weekend -- Monday is Columbus Day, which is a federal holiday and schools are therefore closed, and I guess the ICSD had a teacher training day or something on Friday. A lot of families took advantage and went out of town. This meant that while we had roughly 10 kids last week, today I only had 2. Which was fair enough, since I also had a substitute teacher, Beth, who is not usually a teacher at all. (Occasionally, life works out conveniently like that. *grin*)
The session's focus is on the story of "The Wise Teacher's Lesson," which I will briefly paraphrase for you:
---------------
The Wise Teacher's Lesson
---------------
One day, a Buddhist monk decides to teach his students a lesson. He gathers them together and says, "I'm getting old and can't support our temple and school the way I used to, so unless you help out, the school will close. In the nearby city, there are hundreds of people who have more money than they need, but they're too selfish to help us. So you must go into the city and follow the rich people. Wait for a moment when no one is watching, and steal their purses and wallets."
The students look at each other in confusion, wondering if their teacher has gone crazy.
"This is very important!" the monk says. "You don't want our school to close, do you?"
"No," the students say. "But you've told us it's wrong to take things that don't belong to us."
"And that's true!" says the monk. "Stealing is a very bad thing, unless it's absolutely necessary, and right now, it's absolutely necessary. So go steal some purses. But remember -- you must not be seen. Only steal when nobody can see you, when nobody is watching. Nobody must know that you are thieves."
The students look at each other dubiously, but they don't want to contradict their beloved teacher, so they leave the classroom and go stand outside the gates, trying to decide what to do... except for one boy, who stands quietly in the corner, waiting for the monk to notice him.
When the monk turns and sees the boy, he frowns. "Why aren't you out helping your fellow students?" he asks. "Don't you care for the fate of our temple and school?"
"I do," says the boy, sounding a bit nervous at standing up to his teacher, but he draws himself up and says, "I care, but I can't steal. You said we can only steal when nobody can see us, and there's nowhere on earth I could go that I wouldn't be able to see myself. I would always know I was a thief."
The monk's frown turns into a delighted smile. "You understood the lesson!" he says. "I hoped all my students would see, but you are the only one. Now go outside and catch your classmates before they get us all in trouble."
The End.
---------------
The idea, of course, is that your conscience is the part of you that's always watching your actions and telling you right from wrong. So we had several exercises related to that, and some others that were more about building community (since it's still early in the year). This week I retold the story very quickly and we did another couple related exercises, after which the lesson degenerated into arts-and-crafts, specifically making paper snowflakes.
An awful lot of my lessons tend to end up in random arts-and-crafts, especially when there aren't enough kids to make up a proper discussion group. I am pretty okay with this, actually, as I am very fond of arts-and-crafts and am grateful for an excuse to indulge in them. :-)
Last week and this week we also introduced the ongoing Gems of Goodness excercise, which involves the kids keeping a record of good actions they do or see during the week. On Sunday, they share those actions and place a little bead into a vase for each one. In some iterations of Moral Tales, you use a small vase and throw a party when it's filled. Since we will be throwing a party later in the year as part of a scheduled lesson, and since the curriculum is fairly strictly laid out, we are using a larger vase and just going for the satisfaction of watching the beads collect in pretty colors.
---------------
After church today there was a teacher appreciation lunch, which I went to -- I don't have work today, and free food is always worthwhile!
Then I came home, took a brief nap, and spent about two hours on the phone. First I was talking with my dad about random stuff, and also giving him information he needed to make my plane reservations for going to Spain at Christmas. (In order, he needed to know the exact form of my name as it appears on my passport, my passport number [just in case], my Continental Airlines OnePass number, and my OnePass PIN.)
Then my friend Susan called back and we caught up on what we've each been up to lately, which is always nice. She currently has a show up in the Chase Room at the Madison Public Library, which is pretty awesome. I need to get her to show me some photos of her work on display.
And that has been my day. :-D