Implications but there's probably a better word...

I considered slowly striving to make the titles longer than the posts...something creative and out of the ordinary to strive for ...

...but in the meantime...

Among other things, as I'm reading about post-modern churches, I'm thinking about the implications for those who write for children (because I write for children) and those who write curriculum (because we're trying to do creative hands-on activities with the kids at church to draw them into whatever the topic is in the worship gathering). Alot of creative people who love to write and create may find enough of an audience and opportunity for expression in their local communities and never feel a need to seek publication for a larger audience. But writers may still be enabler/facilitators (in the healthy sense of the word) and vision casters beyond their local community. They can help build bridges for people who may never understand each other without the bridges.

Postmoderns seem to be thinking "wholistic,""inclusive," "story," "journey," "beauty," stewarding culture and creation, loving people vs. converting them - among other things. They think "art" in the richest sense of the word. They aren't afraid of imagination and fantasy but see imagination as another God-given facet of who we are and a tool for "painting" pictures and parables to facilitate communication. They seem to be making a real effort not to compartmentalize life and faith but rather to filter life through faith, thinking "layers" in the literary sense of the word. Someone under 40 can probably better explain. That's my take right now.

I'm guessing that they're thinking of learning by observation, discovery, and discussion as opposed to lecture, memorization, punch and color or cultural cloning in church programs. And again, without the compartmentalization. They have a deep respect for historic tradition combined with a deep desire to include and engage those who are immersed in the culture around them in their discussions. They want to encounter God in an authentic, meaningful and personal way and in community - not as a one time experience. They want to be able to invite others to join them on their faith/life journey.

Someone else can probably do a better job adding other dimensions. If I go back through my notes from Webber's Younger Evangelicals and keep adding details, this will get long. :-) You can read the book. (You can read lots of books!)

And my question is what are the implications for writers? What are the implications for teaching and learning? What are the implications for families? [my feeling about families is that postmoderns will give them the freedom to be who they are, care about the things they care about and participate in the wider world as their expression of faith - as their spiritual service of worship and yet remain vital members of their faith community.]

It isn't neccessarily that these ideas are new so much as new churches seem to be more focused on elements like these and there are bound to be implications for writers, for learning, for families though not limited to those areas.

Of course, writing is largely personal expression and if it's happening on the inside, eventually it will show itself on the outside. Learning is like that too.

Disclaimer: Anything incriminating will be indecipherable to protect the guilty

Ok, my kids are threatening to crash my blog even though I've told them I'm not saying anything incriminating about them. (Actually, they're impressed that I even know what a blog is!)

I told them this is a one-track blog not unlike a one-track mind...No, blog and mind are not synonimous (sp?) . . . are they? Tell me they're not...

I'm still not saying anything incriminating but let me say that when kids are 2 or 3 years old they're often painfully honest and you figure they'll grow out of it. Social pressure, enculturation, grades ... all those conforming influences. (Well, I don't think my kids ever grew out of it :-)

There ... You've been warned. (To those of you who know who you are...Take it as a complement :-))

Random observations and comments about integrated learning

Integrated learning (?) for lack of a better term...

It's interesting how we feel the need to divide and conquor everything in our quest to understand and make sense of life. Some of us are more guilty of this than others :-)

It's probably a good thing that educators "discovered" that there are lots of ways that people learn and that all of our senses are important to learning and we can combine subjects, reinforce the learning and make it more interesting and time efficient. It probably wasn't that we didn't know these things, but more that the educational system wasn't implementing the obvious information (though let it be said that good teachers have been doing it all along). Some might argue that there isn't time to cover all the facts you have to learn to ace whatever test the system gives you if you try to learn everything by discovery. And of course the system is set up for paper and pencil evaluations partly to evaluate the teaching and partly to evaluate the learning. . . It's all very deliberate.

But sharpening all of our senses and understandings are important to successful living. True? Do you learn more when you sit still and listen to someone else talk for some prolonged period of time? Is it an important skill to learn? If you're not in college (or a child with an angry parent) how often do you spend 45 minutes listening to someone lecture you?

A historic observation (not based on endless research by the way) is that people learned the skills they needed to survive or they didn't survive. We live in a time and culture where there are so many options! And in most cases, there isn't an immediate life or death consequence to the choices we make.

I personally prefer hands- on learning but I also need a mental challenge. I enjoy learning what I need to know to do something. I learn it better if I do it over and over but if it's redundant I get bored. I don't mind tests if the results are good or if it doesn't put me in a box. I do mind if I do poorly or if the evaluation puts me in a box. The feedback is good either way if it comes with an option for improvement. I like creating and creative problem-solving. I like discussions if everyone can contribute. I like discovering new things and finding out more. I like cultural, social, and historic factors. I like independant study. I like being outside. Numbers, I avoid but there are people who handle numbers and physics or linquistics and other things .... with the same enthusiasm. Somehow, I think there's a place for all these things and more in God's learning module. I think there's a place for individual, family, and community differences in God's learning module.

A few years back I was excited to use a "Sunday School" curricula that integrated learning activities from science, math, history, geography, language arts, food and culture etc, etc. I enjoyed the huge sections of resources with recipes for food and art materials and music and craft ideas. You could pick and chose what you wanted to use for whatever lesson you were doing. I liked the focus on story (stories from scripture and opportunities for kids to share their own stories and listen to the stories of people around them.) It was set up in a three year cycle to go with the liturgy (if you were using a liturgy). You could reproduce pages. You could recycle and reuse the material so you didn't have to buy new materials every year. I liked the fact that it was rich - it was more than a couple of songs with a punch out and color curricula punctuated with memorization.

I was disappointed to find there were theological discrepancies that made this program less than desirable for a lot of people but I also thought this was pretty easy to work around especially with 3 & 4 year olds. I liked the family/multi-generational activity Sundays. Families were often making something that their family could give away. I liked the fact that they carried the theme into worship even though the teens hated hearing the same thing over and over. There are enough levels and facets of scripture that it wouldn't have to be like that. No one could possibly use all of it all of the time but it was a wonderful resource to pick and chose activities that would give a particular group of kids varied and interesting ways to interact with the scriptures or with an idea.

As a phy ed major 30 years ago we learned about the Guided Discovery approach to learning and Movement Ed. When I taught preschool gym it worked so well! All the kids were moving most of the time, not sitting in lines waiting their turn. All the kids were mentally engaged, trying to find a way to move that solved a problem. They could move in a way that grew their confidence and skills and it was fun for them. They learned respect for personal space and they learned to work together. They could use numbers and other skills in the gym. They grew confidence, locomotor, axial, and social skills that would provide a great foundation for team sports or anything else they would do later. You didn't have to invest in a lot of expensive equipment. Lots of advantages! Nine months later, they were doing things they couldn't do at the beginning of the year. Some of them would have learned those things anyway. Some of them would never have pushed themselves without being challenged. Fruit of our training: teens and adults are probably too self-conscious for that approach in a gym class... to see how many ways they can move with their foot higher than their head... .

My point? Whether we're learning about God or all that He's created, the peoples, the cultures, (the things we've successfully categorized) to really savor the richness you have to keep going after it- life-long learning but not neccarily in a classroom. Kids have their own personalities and interests even when they're little but they're still curious and observant and frank and all the world is new. We each have things to share and kids have things to teach us. For all my scriptural word studies about children and learning and teaching I'm only now beginning to notice that kids were just a natural part of the community and context of the Old and New Testaments. And I'm only now noticing all the times that Jesus said some variation of "look at the children," " notice this," "look," "see," "understand..."

just random comments and observations...

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand

"...for this was Your good pleasure..."

We did a House Blend gathering outside at Artisan last night. A little hard to hear, but it was a good time. It made me think about Jesus teaching outside all the time (men, women and children gathered around) Apparently everyone could hear him. I don't usually think of Him as being loud. Guess I should change my thinking!

I think I counted about 11 Artisan kids and young visitors last night and some were out of town on holiday. While these little people were claiming imaginary kingdoms on top of tree stumps we pondered the kingdom of God and Matthew 11: 25-30 and 11:16-19 in particular. What I found most interesting (I'm still pondering the passages) were the images of children and a father and son and this:

^"At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." (vs.25-26)

You have to be with someone to show them things, however simple or complex. I'm thinking that we probably need to have these little people around us more to really tap into these words and to truly discover and enjoy this thing that gives God so much pleasure...

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand

Alike and Different

I found it interesting when the kids were beginning to learn to read, that there's such an emphasis on noticing differences. On the one hand it makes sense that if you want to learn to read and discriminate between letters and symbols you need to learn to see the difference between an L and an I or a P and an R.

But if we translate that to the rest of life and we're always focusing on what's different about the people around us instead of what we have in common with them, it seems like we'd only get half of the story we're trying to read.

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand