Overview of Youth First Day School Curriculum

The overall goal of the Gwynedd Youth FDS program is to offer religious education; space for personal spiritual experience and service opportunities, all of which serve as stepping-stones along individual spiritual paths.

The FDS curriculum that is shared with your youth in their FDS class offers diverse programming and is based on guidelines that the teachers and I established in order to create a FDS program that will allow the children as they progress over the years from First Day School grade level to the next, to be gradually exposed to age appropriate materials allowing for more personal growth in spirituality and a deeper understanding and commitment to Quaker testimonies.

The year is separated into three main areas of focus that guide the rest of the curriculum:

Sept, Oct, Nov will focus on spirituality. The focus is to explore individual understandings of 𠇊 worshipful state of mind”. Guided meditations, centering exercises, yoga, art experiences, worship sharing, junior meeting for worships, feeling called to speak and prayer will all be used as keys to open doors to discussion on how the spirit is at work in our lives.

December, January, February, March will focus on Quakerism and what it means to our youth to be a Quaker and follow Quaker practice. Examples of topics are Quaker History & Famous Quakers, Quaker Values/Beliefs/Testimonies, how the meeting is structured (Meeting with a concern for business, Committee work) and Quaker organizations.

April, May and June will focus on Bible Study. Topics might include Bible discussion, Jesus’ life, what makes a Christian, exploring other denominations in our Community, world religions, historical path of influence leading to Quakerism, biblical callings, faithful response to contemporary culture and its challenges.

Extensions to our FDS programming:

Music - Kindergarten through 4th grade youth are very fortunate to also have the opportunity to rejoice the spirit through song each week with Carl Baron.

Youth and Militarism - Joanne Penn and Gary Lapreziosa bring “Youth and Militarism” into each of the grade levels for one or two First Day School classes. Their discussions center on learning to "think for yourself” while immersed in the culture-at-large, whose distractions and distortions discourage critical thinking about matters of war and peace, militarism, and the individual's moral agency in a mass society.

Susan Miller will also be joining various classes this year offering a variety of units:

Conflict Resolution: K-4th - What is conflict anyway? When is it useful & when not? What skills make a good problem solver and how can we develop them in ourselves and our friends? We will discuss points of view using "I statements". Thinking through what we want the outcome to be gives us clues about how to get there from here. We will practice listening, interpreting body language, and standing in each other's shoes.

Mediation/Conflict Resolution: Middle School-Where does conflict come from and how do we sharpen up our problem solving skills? How does our interpretation of events determine our actions? The Mediation process lends us some helpful tools. In role-plays we will practice some of them in ways that prove useful in our relations with our friends and parents.

Mediation Training: High School-What is Mediation? What is Restorative vs. Retributive justice? How can principles of Mediation be useful in our lives to help us resolve rather than sidestep conflict? These questions will be examined during a mediation training overview, through the learning of conflict resolution skills and role-plays.

Underground Railroad/Quaker Heroes: 3,4th grade-Learning Quaker history through stories and music.

Take Your Classroom to Meeting for Worship - The last Sunday of most months will be “Take Your Classroom to Meeting for Worship”. This is an opportunity for youth to worship with their peers. They do centering exercises together before going into regular meeting. The goal of this program is to help your youth feel more comfortable exploring silent worship and begin to understand what worship means to them.

Further:

Middle School and High School programming differs in that the students are beginning to share who they have become spiritually and faithfully and are offered ways to express this through discussions and projects that stretch them to consider how their faith and beliefs affect their decisions as they place themselves in the world around them.

Middle School will be involved with three units of exploration:

Rwandan Village - Sept – Nov. Stacy Wyckoff- The middle school class will continue its’ partnership with the Rwandan Village to which we were introduced last winter.

As a class we will be developing a newsletter introducing our Rwandan partners to our lives at Gwynedd Meeting. We will explore spirituality, community and individuality – and share that exploration in published form with the village in Rwanda and our friends here at Gwynedd. Much of this communication will be developed visually, although we have the opportunity to work with someone who can help us translate some of our core messages into Kinya Rwanda to truly help make this communication evolve. Please come with your ideas, your creativity, and if possible digital camera on a regular basis to ensure we capture the best stories for this project.

Exploring various religions in the community: Dec – March – Marybeth Garrett – We hope to have some interesting discussions on the observations the Middle Schoolers have of various religions and services we learn about, comparing and contrasting them to Quakerism. In order to do this we will be taking trips to places of service in the community such as: St. Rose of Lima, a Synagogue, a Mennonite, Baptist and Christ United Church of Christ church.

Bible Study -April – June – Jim Quinn - Their Bible Study unit will focus on how to use the Bible and Quaker teachings in making decisions in everyday life. The New Testament will be emphasized. There will be discussions on how Quakers and other Christian denominations view the Bible and how that fits into their view of the world. One Sunday will be devoted to a History of the Bible. Children who attend class faithfully will emerge with knowledge of the most familiar verses of the Bible.

High School

Mark Manta will be the teacher: High Schoolers will begin a quest for meaning and spirit in every day life. It is also in the plans to have six speakers from six different religious traditions (2 per class) to talk about if their faith has

Principles of peace and how they've come to understand them. The six traditions may be Judaism, Islam, Catholicism, Jaynes (similar to Hindu), Mennonite and Quaker. The program will end with an afternoon wrap up session with all six speakers and audience question

SERVICE PROJECTS AND TRIPS

Another very important aspect of the FDS program is service projects and trips designed to build spiritual confidence, friendships and offer opportunity for our youth to practice their faith and make a difference in the community. There will be various opportunities throughout the year for your youth to participate in these projects including Christmas and Earth Day service projects. These may occur at Gwynedd or outside of Gwynedd. Also, as part of this program the Middle Schoolers will continue their upkeep of the “Rainbow Trail” and the High Schoolers will continue to oversee care of the “Healthy Garden”.

You and your youth will receive weekly Parent FYI’s to inform you of goings ons in the classroom and upcoming events and trips.

CLASS ASSIGNMENTS

The class that your child attends corresponds with whatever grade level they are entering this school year 2007-2008 in their regular schooling.

K-2nd (Room D) – Deb Faulkner, Gail Moxey and Beth Roberts (Each teaching third of the year in this order)

3,4th – (Room B) - Beth Roberts, Marybeth Garrett (Each teaching half the year in this order)(Assistants: Gary Lapreziosa and Vicki Hain Poorman)

Middle School- 5th-8th grade (Ping Pong Room upstairs) – Stacy Wyckoff, Marybeth Garrett, Jim Quinn (Each teaching third of the year in this order)

High School -9th-12th grade – Classroom at top of stairs - Mark Manta (Substitute - Ran Bakshi)

Please contact Pauline Rosa-Martir Schepperd, Youth Program Coordinator with further questions and to get more info. cassandra.night@verizon.net or (215)855-2284