Letter from Rev. Bossen - RE Program
Office Administrator
July 12, 2011
Dear Members and Friends:
As you know Nathan Staples has resigned his position as Director of Religious Education effective September 11, 2011. A hiring committee has been formed by the Board in the hopes of having a new Director of Religious Education start on September 12th. In the meantime, I wanted to update you on what is being done to ensure that the religious education program gets off to a strong start next year.
Transition Team
In order to ensure a smooth transition between DREs, the RE committee will be temporarily suspended and its functions taken over by a RE Transition Team. The team will be tasked with helping our new DRE get acclimated to the Society and get a grasp on the current program. The team will function from August to December 2011. In January 2012 the DRE will identify potential members for a new RE committee. This will allow the new DRE time to get to know the members of the congregation and fully understand their needs and expectations. Additionally, it will help ensure that the program functions during our transition of DREs.
Curriculum Review
Next year our religious education program will focus on teaching the children and youth about Unitarian Universalism. In order to ensure that the curricula that have been selected meet the needs of our congregation, we are making them available for review. Starting on Thursday, July 21st copies of the curricula will be available in the office. All comments or concerns about the curricula should be directed to me so that I can share them with the members of the RE Transition Team. Comments should be submitted in writing or via a face-to-face meeting and the deadline for comments is August 15th. Here is a description of next year's curriculum taken from the April 2011 DRE Report to the Board:
Our youngest group, the Chalice Children, will work with a curriculum called Dr. Seuss and UUs, which takes students through the principals and purposes by reading the books of Dr. Seuss and relating them to their own experiences.
Our middle group, the Tweeners, will work with Toolbox of Faith, this is a new curriculum from the UUA‘s Tapestry of Faith program that gives students a toolbox of UU faith tools to use to help develop their own beliefs.
Lastly, the youth group will be using two curricula that will work together nicely. First, they will work with Heresy Apparent, a curriculum that covers the history of Unitarian Universalism and then they will move on to Living in UUville a curriculum that focuses more on what it means to be a UU in modern times and covers many different moral questions.
Next year we‘ll also be working with some of our students on a Coming of Age program. For this program we‘ll be pulling from several different sources but will focus primarily on the UU Church of the Larger fellowship‘s Coming of Age curriculum. This curriculum is specifically designed to work for small groups and should be perfect for our needs.
Teacher Training and Recruitment
Over the next month or so our current DRE will be focusing on teacher recruitment. In order to ensure that the RE teachers have the best support next year, we will be holding a teacher training in late August or early September. The Ohio Meadville District has committed to run the training and the trainer and date will be announced in early August. If you are considering serving as a teacher, do so with the knowledge that the district staff will help you gain the tools you need to feel supported as a teacher.
If you have any questions about our religious education program in the next few months, please feel free to direct them to me or to a member of the RE Transition Team.
love,
Colin