The Reward for being Helpful

Hello dear all!

I know I haven't been posting every single week, but here's a brief update on what's been going on and what I've learned.

2 weeks ago, Cynthia and I were tested, and it was a big, big test. We learned that being too nice backfires after awhile! One of our students tends to take control of the class, and always makes suggestions like "let's play a game" when we're about to start the story, and making frequent comments like "i'm bored" and "this is lame", knowing that Cynthia and I were too nice to get mad. After much discussion, we realized the need for a concrete structure to our weekly class so that the kids get used to it and don't complain. Also, when a student reacts that way, it just means that she's quick learner, and now I ask her to assist her other friends and she does it gladly!

We're still getting new students joining each week, so we still haven't been able to start the Ruhi syllabus just yet. Hopefully next week we can!

Last week, we did the theme of "helpfulness" and a friend of mine who was it town read the story of Lua Getsinger to them. It was difficult explain the Central Figures of the Faith to the kids who were in class for the first time- but I was very impressed at how the children who came from Bahai families sat patiently, while I explained for the 10th time that Abdul Baha was the son of Baha'u'llah and telling them how to pronounce his name correctly. It was just beautiful.

I'm also having another challenge- half my students speak mandarin. Well, they speak English well and understand it too, but they just feel shy to speak it cos they know I speak mandarin! So i have to translate everything I say cos 3 of the girls only speak English. Also, 6 of the girls are 9 yrs old this year, and 2 of them are 5. It's hard to split the class of numbers and me being alone sometimes, but I think I'll have to think of a way to give the younger ones simpler exercises to do. One thing is for certain though, the younger ones are learning from the older ones very very quickly. It's both good and bad, I'm learning to deal with it better :)

For today's class (still on the theme of helpfulness), I thought of a little activity for the kids to do to practice this virtue. I printed four sheets saying this :

The Helpfulness Surprise…


• 1 Banana
• 2 Cups of Milk
• 3 Spoons of Ice Cream



What to do? Help your partner to figure it out.

Good Luck!


As you probably figured out, we're making milkshakes. But the kids don't know this! I'm just gonna leave all the ingredients out on the table, split them into pairs and see what they do!

:)Think we'll also do the 3 legged walk game, and learn the song good neighbours :)

So far so good, I can't wait to start the Ruhi syllabus, it will make things so much easier!

Language Barrier?

From Maya, a children's class teacher in Malaysia:

just to share with you that in todays class i had 4 kids between the age of 6 and 7. trouble was they couldnt understand a word I was saying either in malay or english.. i only knew how to say the word Unity in Tamil and these kids were so adorable that they knew i was struggling with trying to get them to u/stand they kept nodding away..hahahaha... anyways found this website http://david-hunt-music.com/music/ruhi-book-3-songs.htm useful for me to teach the kids songs with music, it sure made a difference with the background music and I find using powerpoint slides to prepare for lessons is interesting too...

take care and look forward to more posts from teachers around the world :)

Friendship

So here I am, cracking my head trying to think of activities for the children today!The class starts in 4 hours so I don't have much time. I wasn't here for the class last week because I had to go out of the country, but from what I hear, the theme was friendship. Only half the number of children came last week, so we still wanna keep this theme for today's class.

I've found a story called Lucky and Mucky by Rosa Vasseghi to tell the kids. It's basically about an unfriendly turtle who's too arrogant to make friends and ultimately she gets into trouble and all the sea creatures help her. I think this theme is so relevant to the group of children I teach! From what I hear from my sister, there's a lot of politics involved in their friendships in school, "I don't friend you anymore" is commonly heard. If X talks to Y, then Z will no longer friend X. Complicated stuff! I hope this story helps. I also want to link this to war and what happens when countries don't friend each other.

A few classes ago, the children made little scrapbooks and decorated them. I'm gonna ask them to draw a picture about the story so that they don't forget it.

The Holy Writing for today is :
" The best way to thank God is to love one another"-Abdul Baha

At this point, I have not yet given the children prayers to memorize. I'm trying to introduce the concept slowly, because most of my students have never said prayers in their lives. Does anyone have ideas on how to introduce it to them?
This quote ties perfectly with our last class as well since it encompasses the idea of God being the Creator.


We're also gonna re-cap last week's song " The time to be happy" and learn a new one " We are drops!"

At this point, I really wish I could play the guitar.It's such a useful talent. Thankfully, my brother does :) Yay.
Here are the chords, for you lucky guitar players out there.

We Are Drops Composer Unknown

C We are drops (we are drops) echo voice C Of one ocean (of one ocean) F We are waves (we are waves) G Of one sea (of one sea)

CHORUS: C Come and join us (come and join us) F In our quest for unity C G C F It's a way of life for you and me

C

We are flowers (we are flowers) Of one garden (of one garden) We are leaves (we are leaves) Of one tree (of one tree)

CHORUS

All the earth is (all the earth is) But one country (but one country) Man is one (man is one) Can't you see (can't you see)

CHORUS

As for games, I plan to use the games from Ruhi book 3A. I want to introduce drama and acting more seriously, because I plan to get them to perform a skit at our upcoming children's party. We're going to play the game where the children have to draw invisible squares around themselves and pretend there's a rope in the middle of the square. Great imagination booster! Also, I'm gonna incorporate some of the theatre activities we do in my theatre class. One of it is something we casually call Boal's hand game (after Augusto Boal-famous theatre practitioner). In this game, people are divided into pairs. A has to follow the palm of B's hand. B can walk, run,jump, bend-do anything. A has to stay focused on his/her task. It's a great game that trains the attention-span and gets an actor to think about his/her character's motivations. Since they are kids, I'm gonna get them to pretend they are different animals, take on different professions and ages. It should be fun!


No idea how my planning has been, I'm pretty sure I'll have to modify and change some things as I go along! Will post about their responses soon :)

Happy fasting!

God's Creation

Cynthia and I spent two classes focusing on the theme of God's creation(these were the classes we did before the preview and before we started the Ruhi Book 3 syllabus). Here are some activities we did that may be useful:

1. Ask the children a few questions about man-made vs natural items/objects
2. Take them on a walk around the neighbourhood and ask each child to make a list of God's creations that he/she saw.
3. Discuss and compare the list. What are the key differences between God's creation and man's creation?
4. Teach them the song " I loved thy creation, hence I created thee. Wherefore do thou love me that I may name thy name and fill thy soul with the spirit of life" I happened to have a funky african version of that chant, so I got the children to use chopsticks as musical instruments. It also started the discussion on prayer and its importance.
5. During the next class, Cynthia got vegetable seeds and each child was given the project of sprinkling a few drops of water on it every day for a week before the next class. The decorated their styrofoam cups with pictures of God's creation that they had discussed the previous week. This vegetable planting project is an ongoing one. Eventually, we're gonna get them to move it to flower pots. They love it!

(We probably did a bit more, I'll add it on as I go!)

Children's Class Preview

How I ended up taking on a children's class is actually a story in itself that I'd like to share before I go on explaining how the preview went. These children's classes are inspired by the teachings of the Bahai Faith (www.bahai.org) and occur weekly on a voluntary basis. In the classes, children learn moral values and spiritual principles that empower them and guide them through life. These classes are a worldwide effort and happen in every city across the globe- you never know, there might be one happening right in your neighbourhood!


Anyway, so there used to be a children's class teacher in my community and she had around 6-7 (3 of them being her own kids) students. I used to help out whenever I could with games, skits, songs and dance. But in december, her family moved away and the classes had to stop. Nothing happened for a few months, and by this time I had already gone through the training and become a qualified teacher. One day, my 8 year old sister asked me "Can you teach me childrens' class?" It was at this moment that I realized the class meant something important to her. So I made her a deal. She had to find a minimum of 5 students for me to begin the classes. She began her quest and started telling all her friends who lived in our neighbourhood. 2 weeks later, she told me with a disappointed look that she could only find 4 students. My sister, 2 of her friends who were from the earlier class, and 1 new classmate of my sisters came for our first 2 lessons. After some conversations with my sister and her classmate, I discovered that they had many more friends living around our area. I thought, why not share the class with these kids too! If I'm gonna put in 3 hours a week for this class, I might as well offer the benefits to more children! If their parents decided that they didn't want their kids to come, fine; but at least they know the class exists. It was the least I could do.


I took a walk around my neighbourhood with my sister, and talked to a few parents. The first parent flatly said, "Sorry, not interested". It was quite disheartening, considering that this was a community service initiative, not some piano or tuition class. The parents in the 2nd home were more friendly. It was a little tough explaning the class since it is kinda absurd-people hunt for good places and pay so much money for their kids to learn skills, and here I was knocking on their door, inviting their child to come for a free class! He was a bit surprised, but assured me that he or his wife would come for the preview on Friday night. The other families weren't at home and Friday was 4 days away- I had to do something!


So Cynthia (another youth who's gonna be helping with the classes) and I sat down and made a fancy flyer for my sister to give to her friends in school to invite their parents to come for a preview. The cover of the card looked like a birthday party invitation card, but it said "Let's play, learn and grow together!" On the inside, we included some Bahai writing on child education and we quoted Obama's inauguration speech! (I’ll take a picture of the card include it with this post soon)


So Friday arrived. 8.30pm. No one was there. Cynthia got stuck at a work meeting and said she would be late. I hadn’t prepared anything. I considered doing a powerpoint presentation, but I realized it might be too formal and the last thing I wanted was for the parents to think it was another tuition class. I sat down, said some prayers, took a deep breath and asked myself why I feel so strongly about the childrens’ class, why I bothered teaching it and how I benefitted from it since I attended it as a child.

Here were my thoughts:

I’ve been through many forms of education- Chinese, Malay, British, American. Some are very exam-orientated, some focus more on the development of the intellect, but they all place value on material existence and success. Ask any child to draw a picture of success and they’ll draw car, house and $$$. With the current economic crisis, the world has seen the most successful people lose everything over-night, people murder their own families because there was no hope of survival. The children’s class redefines success and strives to make every child see his/her larger purpose of serving humanity. I recalled the lesson the week before on ‘generosity’. When I first asked the kids, “If you have no money or food, can you give a poor man anything to help him?”, their instinctive response was “of course not!” but after we talked and discussed further, the said “ we can share with him our time, our care, our kindness and our love. We always have something to give.” This intrinsic value is what the children’s class is all about, and nothing can take that away from you, even during the darkest storms in life. I’ve seen how this perception of my own value has guided me through life, and I wanted to share this significance with the parents.


20 minutes later, 2 parents showed up-both mother’s. It’s interesting how fathers tend to let their wives deal these kinds of events more. Maybe it’s the culture here. Or maybe it was because I was a girl. I don’t know. But it was a nice, cozy get together. Everything I had mentally prepared (a speech of some sort) got flushed away and I decided to just be chill, sincere and speak from the heart. Our conversation went great! The parents are really supportive and have agreed to help sort out the food/share their specific talents with the kids, like baking, gardening etc. I did mention that the class is inspired by the teachings of the Bahai Faith, and I told them that when we do discuss about God or religion in the class, we refer to one universal God and teach that religion is part of a progressive whole. They had no objections.



So this Saturday, I’m gonna be having my first class with nine students!!!
(Wait, I won’t be here for the first class since I’ll be in Singapore for an oratory competition, but Cynthia will be handling it.)

The Inspiration Behind the Class

The education and training of children is among the most meritorious acts of humankind and draweth down the grace and favour of the All-Merciful, for education is the indispensable foundation of all human excellence and alloweth man to work his way to the heights of abiding glory. If a child be trained from his infancy, he will, through the loving care of the Holy Gardener, drink in the crystal waters of the spirit and of knowledge, like a young tree amid the rilling brooks. And certainly he will gather to himself the bright rays of the Sun of Truth, and through its light and heat will grow ever fresh and fair in the garden of life.

Therefore must the mentor be a doctor as well: that is, he must, in instructing the child, remedy its faults; must give him learning, and at the same time rear him to have a spiritual nature. Let the teacher be a doctor to the character of the child, thus will he heal the spiritual ailments of the children of men.

If, in this momentous task, a mighty effort be exerted, the world of humanity will shine out with other adornings, and shed the fairest light. Then will this darksome place grow luminous, and this abode of earth turn into Heaven. The very demons will change to angels then, and wolves to shepherds of the flock, and the wild-dog pack to gazelles that pasture on the plains of oneness, and ravening beasts to peaceful herds, and birds of prey, with talons sharp as knives, to songsters warbling their sweet native notes.

For the inner reality of man is a demarcation line between the shadow and the light, a place where the two seas meet; it is the lowest point on the arc of descent,and therefore is it capable of gaining all the grades above. With education it can achieve all excellence; devoid of education it will stay on, at the lowest point of imperfection.

Every child is potentially the light of the world -- and at the same time its darkness; wherefore must the question of education be accounted as of primary importance. From his infancy, the child must be nursed at the breast of God's love, and nurtured in the embrace of His knowledge, that he may radiate light, grow in spirituality, be filled with wisdom and learning, and take on the characteristics of the angelic host.

Since ye have been assigned to this holy task, ye must therefore exert every effort to make that school famed in all respects throughout the world; to make it the cause of exalting the Word of the Lord.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 129)