Happy New Year!
So. Manual 3 (orig. pub 1992) for 2008. How is it different from Manual 2? For those of you who have been teaching out of these for a while (which is not me), do you sense a progression or slightly different focus among these three manuals? Do you like one more than another? Or are they pretty much interchangeable?
Let's take a look at the table of contents and see what we've got. There are 47 lessons, plus one for the teacher, which I assume could be used in inservice training. 47 lessons + 2 General Conference Sundays + 2 stake conference Sundays = 51. What do you do with the leftover week? The annual resource guide suggests an Easter lesson; in our ward, we add in a Christmas lesson instead.
All three manuals break down the lessons into twelve areas, which are taught in the same order each year. These twelve areas don't exactly link up to the months, nor to the values in the young women's theme, nor to the old "areas of focus" from the way the program was organized when the manuals were first published. Interesting, and a little puzzling.
The twelve are: living as a daughter of God, fulfilling women's divine roles (note the plural), contributing to family life, learning about the priesthood, learning about family history and temple work, being involved in missionary work, increasing in spirituality, living a virtuous life, maintaining physical health, developing socially and emotionally, managing personal resources, and developing leadership skills. They do seem to move through a general narrative of gospel basics, followed by deepening girls' experiences with the church and its programs, followed by things useful to them as they mature into independent women.
I wonder if it feels that way to the young women, if they have some sense of what "unit" the lesson comes from, or if it just feels kind of random from week to week (the AP manual is not divided into units at all, e.g.). It's not like studying a book of scripture, which has its own internal structure, or the lives of the prophets, which is also organized around chronology and sequence. Do you give the girls the lesson topics ahead of time? (I think I might try this in 2008) Do you think they would want or need a sense of where a lesson fits into the overall curriculum? Is there an overall thrust or logic to their curriculum?
Actually, I asked my L's about this today when I was teaching. I announced the title of the lesson (it was #49, about disabilities) and one of them commented that the lessons were so random. So I showed them the manual (I happened to have it with me, usually I leave it at home and just bring my own typed outline of the lesson) and we talked about the 12 units and the way it is organized.
In the introduction, the big picture is defined this way: "by studying the lessons in this manual, each young woman should better understand the Lord’s plan for her and be better able to base her personal choices and behavior on gospel principles." But let me point out (and this isn't really a criticism) that the young women don't have access to this manual as a personal study guide, unless they are really involved in looking it up each week on lds.org. Does this feel to them like a coherent "course of study"? Should it?
Fairy godmother time: what "units" would you love to see added? What lessons should there be? And I should say that if our conversation on this turns out to be productive, I would definitely consider drafting a letter to the curriculum folks incorporating our suggestions (why not, after all? - they claim to want our feedback).
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
What's in Your Church Bag?
..figuratively speaking, that is. What do I bring in to my meetings with the young women, and what do I leave home? It's a bit of a dance to teach YW, isn't it? Trying to listen to the music, and approximate the steps without stepping on anyone's toes, all at the same time. Deciding how to put myself into the lesson, but not have it be all about me. Negotiating what the girls want and need to hear from me, with what their parents want them to learn (sometimes those are just slightly off-register from one another). How to teach from the materials we're given, while still being authentic, real, and relevant. All that. So what's "in my bag," and what's not?
I bring:
my testimony - just where it is, what it is. I don't pretend it's complete. I want to let them know by example that it's okay to have doubts, and to keep coming and participating even with those doubts instead of using them as an excuse to distance themselves from the church and Heavenly Father. Doubts mean you're thinking about your faith. Engaged faith is good faith.
my scriptures, well marked - again, even if I'm not perfect in my own scripture study, I want them to know that there are answers there and to help them develop a relationship with those words.
my love and unconditional acceptance - this has got to be the secret to success in any calling: to love the people you serve, and to love the people you serve with. This doesn't come naturally, always, but we can pray for it, expect it, and proceed as if we have it. And ... I'm not their mom. I'm not in a position to sit in judgment on them, discipline them, or scold them.
I don't bring:
my political affiliation. 'nuff said.
confessions of my present or past sins (or those of my kids, who are their peers).
higher biblical criticism. Not the place.
my angst about how to teach the lesson - more than they need to know. One of my major pet peeves is when someone starts a lesson or a talk with a lot of apologies, or a long narrative about how they got asked to speak. We don't need the backstory to the preparation. Just get your head in a good place about what you're going to teach before you cross the threshold, and then teach it without apologizing for it. Anyway, by the time we're done with all the preliminaries and split into classes, there's not a lot of time for extra stuff.
my demons from my own YW experience - I have them. Maybe you too. If you are still reeling from some faith-demoting experiences during your own YW years, be careful not to bring this into the classroom. I think it's great to try to be the YW leader you never had, but it's not okay to punish the girls in your ward for your past trauma.
How about you? What's in your church bag? What's not?
I bring:
my testimony - just where it is, what it is. I don't pretend it's complete. I want to let them know by example that it's okay to have doubts, and to keep coming and participating even with those doubts instead of using them as an excuse to distance themselves from the church and Heavenly Father. Doubts mean you're thinking about your faith. Engaged faith is good faith.
my scriptures, well marked - again, even if I'm not perfect in my own scripture study, I want them to know that there are answers there and to help them develop a relationship with those words.
my love and unconditional acceptance - this has got to be the secret to success in any calling: to love the people you serve, and to love the people you serve with. This doesn't come naturally, always, but we can pray for it, expect it, and proceed as if we have it. And ... I'm not their mom. I'm not in a position to sit in judgment on them, discipline them, or scold them.
I don't bring:
my political affiliation. 'nuff said.
confessions of my present or past sins (or those of my kids, who are their peers).
higher biblical criticism. Not the place.
my angst about how to teach the lesson - more than they need to know. One of my major pet peeves is when someone starts a lesson or a talk with a lot of apologies, or a long narrative about how they got asked to speak. We don't need the backstory to the preparation. Just get your head in a good place about what you're going to teach before you cross the threshold, and then teach it without apologizing for it. Anyway, by the time we're done with all the preliminaries and split into classes, there's not a lot of time for extra stuff.
my demons from my own YW experience - I have them. Maybe you too. If you are still reeling from some faith-demoting experiences during your own YW years, be careful not to bring this into the classroom. I think it's great to try to be the YW leader you never had, but it's not okay to punish the girls in your ward for your past trauma.
How about you? What's in your church bag? What's not?
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Young Women Behaving Badly: Why Viacom and Disney both need a YW program
No one in Mary's day in Galilee or Bethlehem seems to have batted an eyelash that the mother was too young, just that she was an espoused virgin.
Seems we find ourselves in the exact opposite place today, with the nation in a bizarre buzz over the announced pregnancy of the unwed 16-year old star of Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101," Jamie Lynn Spears, the younger sister of one of America's most shameful mothers. What might have been a rather ordinary age for a first-time mother two thousand years ago (or even a lot more recently in certain countries) is making headlines big-time. It's this teen's proximity to and potential influence on lots and lots of young TV fans that makes the culture-war mercury climb high on this one. I read today that Nickelodeon might be planning a TV special about "sex and love" - which I shudder to imagine, even if Linda Ellerbee is involved. And too bad it's after the fact; I think JL might have been able to use some of that information about 14 weeks ago.
This seems to be sparking a nationwide conversation about teen pregnancy. I guess that's good, but we could have had that conversation about 400,000 (or x000,000, pick a number) births ago and prevented a lot of heartache; why did this one trigger the sudden interest and concern?
Actually, teen pregnancy is on the decline in the United States, and has been since the 1990s. Experts disagree about which proportion of that decline is owed to higher use of contraception, and which part is from increased abstinence, as it turns out both contraception use and abstinence are on the rise. Anyway, the teen birth rate last year (meaning 2005, since it takes a while to compile the states) was the lowest on record.
But hold the celebration... the US teen birth rate is the highest among all industrialized countries. And out-of-wedlock births in the US were at an all time high. Nearly FOUR in ten of all babies born in the US were born to unwed parents (!!). The age group in which unwed births was having a steep rise in the last five years was among women in their 20s - a sad side effect of more people delaying marriage, and more people living together without being married. And even among girls ages 10-17, the numbers are still too high... JL is far from alone, as there are hundreds of thousands of unwed teen mothers giving birth this coming year.
So here's my idea, and remember you heard it here first. Major media companies and recording studios need a young women's program. (Young men's too, it goes without saying). Each rising class of Mouseketeers and Nickelodeon child stars need some caring advisors to teach them a set of values which if truly internalized, would help them live happy and fulfilling lives as they matured into womanhood. I mean, ideally, these advisors would be reinforcing what the starlets are learning at home, but just in case they've got Lynne Spears for a mother, it could pick up the slack. Those values might include faith in a higher power, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works and integrity. For starters.
A weekly meeting might be in order. It could be written into the contract that they had to attend (maybe with a bonus for exemplary behavior?). As those girls got older, they could get some straight talk about how to manage life in the limelight: using money and leisure time wisely, steering clear of substance abuse and eating disorders, choosing good friends, setting high goals, chastity as a viable personal choice. A personal progress program for the next generation of Olsen twins and Lindsay Lohans.
It would never work, of course. Big media companies have no incentive to stop doing the equivalent of sucking cutie-pie young girls into the maw of their snowblower, chewing them up, and spitting them out as bewildered and battered young adults. The American public, which resents intrusion into its own privacy, nonetheless seems to have an insatiable appetite for whatever the tabloid press can tell us about the most intimate details of someone else's life. With our national culture leaning towards the confessional and the voyeuristic at the same time, my vision of child stars getting solid guidance and following it seems positively utopian. I'm still holding out hope on Miley Cyrus, especially as she's the only rising entertainment star that my own daughter seems to notice. But for the others, I'm recommending that their TV show contracts and recording deals come with the real opportunity of a lifetime: to hear what our girls hear from us every week, to feel the genuine love of their leaders, and to know (really KNOW) that God has a plan for their lives.
Seems we find ourselves in the exact opposite place today, with the nation in a bizarre buzz over the announced pregnancy of the unwed 16-year old star of Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101," Jamie Lynn Spears, the younger sister of one of America's most shameful mothers. What might have been a rather ordinary age for a first-time mother two thousand years ago (or even a lot more recently in certain countries) is making headlines big-time. It's this teen's proximity to and potential influence on lots and lots of young TV fans that makes the culture-war mercury climb high on this one. I read today that Nickelodeon might be planning a TV special about "sex and love" - which I shudder to imagine, even if Linda Ellerbee is involved. And too bad it's after the fact; I think JL might have been able to use some of that information about 14 weeks ago.
This seems to be sparking a nationwide conversation about teen pregnancy. I guess that's good, but we could have had that conversation about 400,000 (or x000,000, pick a number) births ago and prevented a lot of heartache; why did this one trigger the sudden interest and concern?
Actually, teen pregnancy is on the decline in the United States, and has been since the 1990s. Experts disagree about which proportion of that decline is owed to higher use of contraception, and which part is from increased abstinence, as it turns out both contraception use and abstinence are on the rise. Anyway, the teen birth rate last year (meaning 2005, since it takes a while to compile the states) was the lowest on record.
But hold the celebration... the US teen birth rate is the highest among all industrialized countries. And out-of-wedlock births in the US were at an all time high. Nearly FOUR in ten of all babies born in the US were born to unwed parents (!!). The age group in which unwed births was having a steep rise in the last five years was among women in their 20s - a sad side effect of more people delaying marriage, and more people living together without being married. And even among girls ages 10-17, the numbers are still too high... JL is far from alone, as there are hundreds of thousands of unwed teen mothers giving birth this coming year.
So here's my idea, and remember you heard it here first. Major media companies and recording studios need a young women's program. (Young men's too, it goes without saying). Each rising class of Mouseketeers and Nickelodeon child stars need some caring advisors to teach them a set of values which if truly internalized, would help them live happy and fulfilling lives as they matured into womanhood. I mean, ideally, these advisors would be reinforcing what the starlets are learning at home, but just in case they've got Lynne Spears for a mother, it could pick up the slack. Those values might include faith in a higher power, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works and integrity. For starters.
A weekly meeting might be in order. It could be written into the contract that they had to attend (maybe with a bonus for exemplary behavior?). As those girls got older, they could get some straight talk about how to manage life in the limelight: using money and leisure time wisely, steering clear of substance abuse and eating disorders, choosing good friends, setting high goals, chastity as a viable personal choice. A personal progress program for the next generation of Olsen twins and Lindsay Lohans.
It would never work, of course. Big media companies have no incentive to stop doing the equivalent of sucking cutie-pie young girls into the maw of their snowblower, chewing them up, and spitting them out as bewildered and battered young adults. The American public, which resents intrusion into its own privacy, nonetheless seems to have an insatiable appetite for whatever the tabloid press can tell us about the most intimate details of someone else's life. With our national culture leaning towards the confessional and the voyeuristic at the same time, my vision of child stars getting solid guidance and following it seems positively utopian. I'm still holding out hope on Miley Cyrus, especially as she's the only rising entertainment star that my own daughter seems to notice. But for the others, I'm recommending that their TV show contracts and recording deals come with the real opportunity of a lifetime: to hear what our girls hear from us every week, to feel the genuine love of their leaders, and to know (really KNOW) that God has a plan for their lives.
Friday, December 21, 2007
welcome, we are live
Hi to everyone, especially those who were so supportive of this blog's launching over at the post at fMh this week. It gave me the courage to roll it out a little early! Let me give you a tour of the blog so far:
Left sidebar - We got my thoughts on what I'm trying to achieve. That's where you come in. It's been lonely just blogging away for a few weeks with no commenters. You'll see that a lot of the early posts have no comments. That's because there were no readers then. If you want to go back and add your 2cents to an earlier post, I'm all for that. Just remember in all your comments, keep it productive, and respect the privacy of your young women.
Then we got the yw web crawl, where I'll stick anything that I find that looks interesting.
Below that are other LDS womens blogs I like.
Reading material is for books that shaped my thinking about mentoring young women, or which look good. Anyone want to review one of them, be my guest.
Then you learn about me & how to email me, and below that are some links to websites you may find helpful. Suggestions are welcome for how to add to that list.
Finally, you'll see the categories for my posts - by manual # and by topic, so's you can search them easily, and then an archive of all the posts. So look around, comment away, and thanks for coming!!
Left sidebar - We got my thoughts on what I'm trying to achieve. That's where you come in. It's been lonely just blogging away for a few weeks with no commenters. You'll see that a lot of the early posts have no comments. That's because there were no readers then. If you want to go back and add your 2cents to an earlier post, I'm all for that. Just remember in all your comments, keep it productive, and respect the privacy of your young women.
Then we got the yw web crawl, where I'll stick anything that I find that looks interesting.
Below that are other LDS womens blogs I like.
Reading material is for books that shaped my thinking about mentoring young women, or which look good. Anyone want to review one of them, be my guest.
Then you learn about me & how to email me, and below that are some links to websites you may find helpful. Suggestions are welcome for how to add to that list.
Finally, you'll see the categories for my posts - by manual # and by topic, so's you can search them easily, and then an archive of all the posts. So look around, comment away, and thanks for coming!!
Lesson 2-49 "Valuing and Encouraging People with Disabilities"
Great topic, important life lesson. In an unusual (?) level of coordination among the youth manuals, the young men are getting very much the same lesson in the same week, with some slightly different stories and lesson development ideas. You could mine their version for additional ideas if you wanted.
The young women's version of this lesson suggests having the girls write the word "differences" with their non-dominant hand as a way to appreciate the struggle of people with learning disabilities. The young men are asked to do the same with the word "disabilities." Does it matter whether we have the kids focus on people's "differences" or on their "disabilities"? They're not quite the same thing.
First of all, let's clear up the language. Kids may not know that certain words are inherently or historically insulting. After all, people used to say "moron" or "Mongoloid" in scientific papers. But we've (hopefully) made some progress along those lines. In this brochure from the British government, I found a good list. Avoid "the disabled" as a collective noun - this pigeonholes them into a single group. Instead use "disabled people." In general, don't use the disability as a noun (the blind, an epileptic, an invalid). Use "has an impairment" rather than "handicapped." We don't say mental, schizophrenic, lunatic, crazy person, psycho, retarded, dwarf, midget or cripple any more. Here's some more advice for using non-discriminatory and updated language when talking about disability.
The discussion about how to act around people with visible or obvious disabilities is important stuff. I found this review of What Adults with Disabilities Wish All Parents Knew helpful. I liked the idea that we are all on "different journeys" and that there is no big dividing line between "normal" (maybe there's not even a "normal") and "disabled." Certainly, if you have a girl in your class with a disability (whether visible or not), you want to make sure that you don't draw a sharp distinction between her and the rest of the class. People want to be spoken to, not about; they'd rather be asked about their disability than ignored; don't assume they need help or a wheelchair pushed, ask first. Also, disability can be unseen, too, but it's still important to acknowledge and talk about.
I came across some fascinating material on the web, maybe just to enrich your own thinking about the issue. Seeing Beyond Sight, stunning photographs by blind teenagers. The Disability Social History Project. Jana over on Exponent II recently ran a great "letter to a young friend" about her prosthetic leg. BBC runs a lively and frank online disability magazine called Ouch! (the week before Christmas its tag line was "Merry Cripmas") with these hilarious top ten lists including the ten worst things children say. The reality show Little People, Big World has done a lot, I think, to educate American TV audiences without exploiting the Roloff family and without fostering the kind of morbid fascination that used to put people like "General Tom Thumb" (Charles Sherwood Stratton) on display in P.T. Barnum's circus.
Finally, the lesson doesn't raise the issue of disability in the hereafter or with respect to resurrection. I think that's good, but it may come up in class and it would be important to be prepared with an answer for that. In my opinion, a teacher or leader needs to be careful about what she says about this. While Jesus healed people of quite debilitating impairments, and while the promise is clear in the scriptures that we will be restored to perfection in the resurrection, I don't think it's helpful to declare to someone that everything will be better in the eternities. It implies that their life here is not capable of being complete or fulfilling. I think it might be most helpful to say something along the lines that we don't know everything about how that will work out in the end, and then gently redirect back to the issue at hand: to love all people, respect their dignity and personhood, and help in whatever way we can without being condescending.
The young women's version of this lesson suggests having the girls write the word "differences" with their non-dominant hand as a way to appreciate the struggle of people with learning disabilities. The young men are asked to do the same with the word "disabilities." Does it matter whether we have the kids focus on people's "differences" or on their "disabilities"? They're not quite the same thing.
First of all, let's clear up the language. Kids may not know that certain words are inherently or historically insulting. After all, people used to say "moron" or "Mongoloid" in scientific papers. But we've (hopefully) made some progress along those lines. In this brochure from the British government, I found a good list. Avoid "the disabled" as a collective noun - this pigeonholes them into a single group. Instead use "disabled people." In general, don't use the disability as a noun (the blind, an epileptic, an invalid). Use "has an impairment" rather than "handicapped." We don't say mental, schizophrenic, lunatic, crazy person, psycho, retarded, dwarf, midget or cripple any more. Here's some more advice for using non-discriminatory and updated language when talking about disability.
The discussion about how to act around people with visible or obvious disabilities is important stuff. I found this review of What Adults with Disabilities Wish All Parents Knew helpful. I liked the idea that we are all on "different journeys" and that there is no big dividing line between "normal" (maybe there's not even a "normal") and "disabled." Certainly, if you have a girl in your class with a disability (whether visible or not), you want to make sure that you don't draw a sharp distinction between her and the rest of the class. People want to be spoken to, not about; they'd rather be asked about their disability than ignored; don't assume they need help or a wheelchair pushed, ask first. Also, disability can be unseen, too, but it's still important to acknowledge and talk about.
I came across some fascinating material on the web, maybe just to enrich your own thinking about the issue. Seeing Beyond Sight, stunning photographs by blind teenagers. The Disability Social History Project. Jana over on Exponent II recently ran a great "letter to a young friend" about her prosthetic leg. BBC runs a lively and frank online disability magazine called Ouch! (the week before Christmas its tag line was "Merry Cripmas") with these hilarious top ten lists including the ten worst things children say. The reality show Little People, Big World has done a lot, I think, to educate American TV audiences without exploiting the Roloff family and without fostering the kind of morbid fascination that used to put people like "General Tom Thumb" (Charles Sherwood Stratton) on display in P.T. Barnum's circus.
Finally, the lesson doesn't raise the issue of disability in the hereafter or with respect to resurrection. I think that's good, but it may come up in class and it would be important to be prepared with an answer for that. In my opinion, a teacher or leader needs to be careful about what she says about this. While Jesus healed people of quite debilitating impairments, and while the promise is clear in the scriptures that we will be restored to perfection in the resurrection, I don't think it's helpful to declare to someone that everything will be better in the eternities. It implies that their life here is not capable of being complete or fulfilling. I think it might be most helpful to say something along the lines that we don't know everything about how that will work out in the end, and then gently redirect back to the issue at hand: to love all people, respect their dignity and personhood, and help in whatever way we can without being condescending.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Lesson 2-48 "Communication Skills in Leadership"
This series of two lessons on leadership skills (the communication lesson and the one following, on inclusion of people with disabilities) can convey truly useful and important life skills. So I was absolutely horrified by the suggested "demonstration" in which the teacher is instructed to bind and gag the class president. Hello?! What more concrete an example of the silencing of our young women might we need? WHAT were the lesson writers thinking?? Okay, big breath... get centered... come back to this idea in a minute...
I recently served as a Cubmaster in our ward. One of the old traditions when a boy earned his first badge (the Bobcat) was to pin the badge on upside-down, and the boy was supposed to leave it that way until he had done a good deed. One variation on this was to have the boy's father pick the kid up, turn him upside down, and hold him that way while the Cubmaster pinned the badge on (right side up) so that it was upside-down when the boy was set on his feet. All in good fun.
Soon after I was called, and I think maybe we had awarded one bobcat this way, rumors of a letter came down that we weren't "supposed to be doing that" any more. From the church? From the council? Wasn't clear. After a while someone actually found a copy of the letter, so that it went from rumor to reality. Indeed, such "hazing" of young boys was said (by the national BSA organization) to be inappropriate. Even if it had been done in a spirit of fun in the past, it could result in injury, be considered abusive, or (reading between the lines in the wake of clergy sex-abuse scandals) lead to a lawsuit.
So, ladies... imagine that if you teach this lesson in the way the manual recommends, and you have a reporter from your local paper sitting in, just imagine how that will sound to the people in your community when they're reading about it at the breakfast table on Monday morning. Right. I thought so. Note to people revising this manual: drop this particular "demonstration" like a hot potato, better yet with a follow-up letter to all leadership about the dangers and emotional scarring that can result from thoughtless (and pointless) humiliation of a young woman by activities like this one. I'm sorry, but in this day and age where it's unfortunately commonplace to hear about young women being kidnapped and sexually assaulted, tying and gagging a girl in a classroom is just wrong.
Anyway I think there are much better ways to introduce the relevant point (actually ANY other way would be an improvement!) that leaders need to be able to communicate effectively. Characteristics of leadership could lead to a fruitful discussion of the ways in which women's and men's leadership differ, even (without taking a political position) to a discussion of the way people perceive female leaders in today's society - think of the female prime ministers of many nations, and the flap (or maybe, the relative lack of flap?) over our first serious woman presidential candidate in this year's contest. And the spheres in which young women will be future leaders are all important and each should be given due weight - in the home, in the Church, and in the community. I like the exploration of the Savior as a leader and think that part of the lesson could be profitably expanded. Maybe using some resources like this one, or this one from President Kimball.
On a related topic (maybe worth its own post), what suggestions do you have for fostering meaningful leadership opportunities for young women? I.e., if we're going to claim we teach girls leadership skills, then as a people we need to 1) celebrate our women leaders and 2) really make our female leadership roles substantive and real. How do we do this for the young women in our care? How do we make class presidencies work well? What other avenues for YW's leadership are there? What successes and good strategies can you celebrate that you've seen firsthand?
I recently served as a Cubmaster in our ward. One of the old traditions when a boy earned his first badge (the Bobcat) was to pin the badge on upside-down, and the boy was supposed to leave it that way until he had done a good deed. One variation on this was to have the boy's father pick the kid up, turn him upside down, and hold him that way while the Cubmaster pinned the badge on (right side up) so that it was upside-down when the boy was set on his feet. All in good fun.
Soon after I was called, and I think maybe we had awarded one bobcat this way, rumors of a letter came down that we weren't "supposed to be doing that" any more. From the church? From the council? Wasn't clear. After a while someone actually found a copy of the letter, so that it went from rumor to reality. Indeed, such "hazing" of young boys was said (by the national BSA organization) to be inappropriate. Even if it had been done in a spirit of fun in the past, it could result in injury, be considered abusive, or (reading between the lines in the wake of clergy sex-abuse scandals) lead to a lawsuit.
So, ladies... imagine that if you teach this lesson in the way the manual recommends, and you have a reporter from your local paper sitting in, just imagine how that will sound to the people in your community when they're reading about it at the breakfast table on Monday morning. Right. I thought so. Note to people revising this manual: drop this particular "demonstration" like a hot potato, better yet with a follow-up letter to all leadership about the dangers and emotional scarring that can result from thoughtless (and pointless) humiliation of a young woman by activities like this one. I'm sorry, but in this day and age where it's unfortunately commonplace to hear about young women being kidnapped and sexually assaulted, tying and gagging a girl in a classroom is just wrong.
Anyway I think there are much better ways to introduce the relevant point (actually ANY other way would be an improvement!) that leaders need to be able to communicate effectively. Characteristics of leadership could lead to a fruitful discussion of the ways in which women's and men's leadership differ, even (without taking a political position) to a discussion of the way people perceive female leaders in today's society - think of the female prime ministers of many nations, and the flap (or maybe, the relative lack of flap?) over our first serious woman presidential candidate in this year's contest. And the spheres in which young women will be future leaders are all important and each should be given due weight - in the home, in the Church, and in the community. I like the exploration of the Savior as a leader and think that part of the lesson could be profitably expanded. Maybe using some resources like this one, or this one from President Kimball.
On a related topic (maybe worth its own post), what suggestions do you have for fostering meaningful leadership opportunities for young women? I.e., if we're going to claim we teach girls leadership skills, then as a people we need to 1) celebrate our women leaders and 2) really make our female leadership roles substantive and real. How do we do this for the young women in our care? How do we make class presidencies work well? What other avenues for YW's leadership are there? What successes and good strategies can you celebrate that you've seen firsthand?
Lesson 2-47 "An Uplifting Environment"
Seeing as it comes near the end of the manual, this lesson will always be taught near Christmas. I guess it can be wrapped into a discussion of keeping Christ in your Christmas celebrations.
I was fascinated by McConkie's quote that Mormons are under the dual obligation of creating a righteous environment themselves and rising above "every unwholesome environmental situation" in which they find themselves.
The former seems straitforward enough, stressing what a teen can do in her own home and in the spaces in that home over which she has control, and what she should try to do in whatever homes she establishes in the future, etc. I like the story about "Louise" and her family, although my myth-o-meter lights up when I see stories like this with no dates, places, or historical provenance. It's fun to imagine that a family of girls who took turns sleeping in a single bed practiced Beethoven on a mattress, but I wonder about its accuracy.
The latter point, I think, is the more interesting, and I don't think the anecdote about walking out of a "suggestive" movie exhausts the possibilities here. The story talks about simply "removing ourselves" from unwholesome circumstances. But is that the same as "rising above" them? If we get out of the projects, say--what's our obligation, if anything, to the people who remain there? What about abuse - there's an "unwholesome" environment. How do people rise above that? It can take a lifetime and lots of pain in the meantime. Thoughts?
I was fascinated by McConkie's quote that Mormons are under the dual obligation of creating a righteous environment themselves and rising above "every unwholesome environmental situation" in which they find themselves.
The former seems straitforward enough, stressing what a teen can do in her own home and in the spaces in that home over which she has control, and what she should try to do in whatever homes she establishes in the future, etc. I like the story about "Louise" and her family, although my myth-o-meter lights up when I see stories like this with no dates, places, or historical provenance. It's fun to imagine that a family of girls who took turns sleeping in a single bed practiced Beethoven on a mattress, but I wonder about its accuracy.
The latter point, I think, is the more interesting, and I don't think the anecdote about walking out of a "suggestive" movie exhausts the possibilities here. The story talks about simply "removing ourselves" from unwholesome circumstances. But is that the same as "rising above" them? If we get out of the projects, say--what's our obligation, if anything, to the people who remain there? What about abuse - there's an "unwholesome" environment. How do people rise above that? It can take a lifetime and lots of pain in the meantime. Thoughts?
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Lesson 2-46 "Financial Responsibility"
I planned to teach this lesson over two weeks (the second week got snowed out, unfortunately). It's such an important topic, especially for the older teens who are just a couple of years away from financial independence (or something approximating that while in college). My own experience is instructive: I went straight from high school to college to college-and-married without ever being out on my own, providing for myself. Basically within 2 years of leaving Laurels I was co-managing a household. This is really important material for them to know before they enter the turbulent waters ahead (I'm thinking of kayaking here) - how to avoid the rocks of serious financial problems, debt, and bad credit, etc.
I used several of the New Era articles that came up with a search term "financial." I thought it important to talk with them about some basics of financial management. First we discussed what money they have access to & how they earn it. Some in my class hold down part-time jobs, others pick up some cash from babysitting or household chores, some get allowance from their parents. Some have savings accounts; one has a checking account in her own name. Next, we defined some terms: consumerism, materialism, thrifty, frugal, resourceful (and talked about why those last three sometimes have negative connotations), credit, debt, debit card, and interest. We compared interest rates on savings accounts and on credit cards. We talked about why getting into credit card debt is both easy and bad, but also how it's important at some point to use a credit card to establish good credit, or you won't get good terms on your first car, housing rental or other big-important-loan.
Basic Principles I introduced (most of these came from the Kristi Linton article) were: pay your tithing first, spend less than you earn (and since you can't rely on earning more, that often has to do with spending less), distinguish between wants and needs, learn how to work, pay yourself (i.e. save), get an education, keep track of your money (i.e. learn how to keep a ledger, use a software program, balance a checkbook, etc), use and follow a budget, understand how credit works, and be an informed consumer.
Websites I pointed them towards included Money Tools for Teens from the Univ of California Cooperative Extension, Teen Financial Advice from NEFE, and Washington State's Teen Consumer Scrapbook. I closed with this quote from Sterling W. Sill: “If there is anyone who can’t buy happiness with money it must be that (s)he just doesn’t know where to shop. We can build temples with money, we can send out missionaries with money, we can erect educational institutions, operate hospitals, and pay our tithing with money. … In many ways we can build up the kingdom of God with money” (in “A Fortune to Share,” Ensign, Jan. 1974, 60) - it's not that money itself is bad - like lots of things, it's where your heart is in relation to it that matters.
In the second week, I had planned to do a little workshop on balancing a checkbook, reading a bank statement, writing a check, and understanding a credit card application. I got a lot of the blank forms and samples from this website. Since we were snowed out, maybe that could be a future Wednesday activity. I also wanted to ask them what were some of the best things that anyone has done for them to help them learn about money and how to use it wisely. I would be curious to know what they said.
I used several of the New Era articles that came up with a search term "financial." I thought it important to talk with them about some basics of financial management. First we discussed what money they have access to & how they earn it. Some in my class hold down part-time jobs, others pick up some cash from babysitting or household chores, some get allowance from their parents. Some have savings accounts; one has a checking account in her own name. Next, we defined some terms: consumerism, materialism, thrifty, frugal, resourceful (and talked about why those last three sometimes have negative connotations), credit, debt, debit card, and interest. We compared interest rates on savings accounts and on credit cards. We talked about why getting into credit card debt is both easy and bad, but also how it's important at some point to use a credit card to establish good credit, or you won't get good terms on your first car, housing rental or other big-important-loan.
Basic Principles I introduced (most of these came from the Kristi Linton article) were: pay your tithing first, spend less than you earn (and since you can't rely on earning more, that often has to do with spending less), distinguish between wants and needs, learn how to work, pay yourself (i.e. save), get an education, keep track of your money (i.e. learn how to keep a ledger, use a software program, balance a checkbook, etc), use and follow a budget, understand how credit works, and be an informed consumer.
Websites I pointed them towards included Money Tools for Teens from the Univ of California Cooperative Extension, Teen Financial Advice from NEFE, and Washington State's Teen Consumer Scrapbook. I closed with this quote from Sterling W. Sill: “If there is anyone who can’t buy happiness with money it must be that (s)he just doesn’t know where to shop. We can build temples with money, we can send out missionaries with money, we can erect educational institutions, operate hospitals, and pay our tithing with money. … In many ways we can build up the kingdom of God with money” (in “A Fortune to Share,” Ensign, Jan. 1974, 60) - it's not that money itself is bad - like lots of things, it's where your heart is in relation to it that matters.
In the second week, I had planned to do a little workshop on balancing a checkbook, reading a bank statement, writing a check, and understanding a credit card application. I got a lot of the blank forms and samples from this website. Since we were snowed out, maybe that could be a future Wednesday activity. I also wanted to ask them what were some of the best things that anyone has done for them to help them learn about money and how to use it wisely. I would be curious to know what they said.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
St. Lucia: Seeing Lucidly in Midwinter
This week we marked St. Lucia Day at our house. If you have Italian or Scandinavian heritage, you may be familiar with this holiday, celebrated December 13 each year. Saint Lucy was a 4th century martyr who lived on the east coast of Sicily. Some of the legends about her include that she consecrated her virginity to God, refused to marry a pagan, and had her dowry distributed to the poor. Unable to move her or burn her, the Roman guards stabbed her and killed her, whereupon she continued to miraculously prophesy or sing even with her throat cut. She is the patron saint of blindness & sight (in some versions of her story, her eyes were cut out before she was killed) and is sometimes portrayed holding her own eyes on a plate. Lots of rich imagery and symbolism there to ponder.
Her feast day falls in midwinter; in fact it fell on the winter solstice, the year's longest night, under the Julian calendar. In Scandinavian countries, a girl is chosen to portray Lucia, wearing white and walking at the head of a procession while wearing a crown of evergreen and lit candles. I read in one place that the candles symbolize the fire that refused to take St. Lucy's life when she was sentenced to be burned. In homes, one of the daughters customarily wakes the others early in the morning wearing her crown of candles and carrying a tray of breakfast in to them. What a wonderful image of the light that young women can kindle in a dark world.
Veneration of Lucy spread from Italy to Germany and from there up into Scandinavia. She is one of a very few Catholic saints who survived the Lutheran Protestant reformation and are still celebrated in Lutheran nations. There are very few saints feast days in Scandinavia, and I think none others associated with women but hers. Interestingly, the adoption of the holiday in Denmark happened during WW2. The wikipedia entry I read this Dec 13th says: "Danish Day of Lucia ("Luciadag") was first celebrated on December 13, 1944. The tradition was directly imported from Sweden by initiative of Franz Wend, secretary of Föreningen Norden, as an attempt "to bring light in a time of darkness." Implicitly it was meant as a passive protest against German occupation during the Second World War but it has been a tradition ever since."
I didn't celebrate this holiday as a child, but we have re-adopted it in our house recently, just because I think it's so beautiful, I do have Scandinavian heritage, and I wanted my only daughter to have a day that for some reason feels like it's about powerful and ancient femininity. "Lucia" is the same root as "lucid" - i.e. clarity, and that feels deeply right also. I'm a winter solstice baby myself. I used to feel gypped that my birthday was so much shorter than everyone else's, but I feel differently now. I feel like that day is powerful, significant, and deeply symbolic. Lucy's brilliant lighted crown and the eyes on her plate speak to me both about what (young) women are -- royal -- and what they are capable of doing -- seeing with lucidity, even in darkness.
PS: I found our battery-lit crown on ebay from a nice lady in Sweden. Here's a site that sells them, both with candle bulbs and for real candles.
Her feast day falls in midwinter; in fact it fell on the winter solstice, the year's longest night, under the Julian calendar. In Scandinavian countries, a girl is chosen to portray Lucia, wearing white and walking at the head of a procession while wearing a crown of evergreen and lit candles. I read in one place that the candles symbolize the fire that refused to take St. Lucy's life when she was sentenced to be burned. In homes, one of the daughters customarily wakes the others early in the morning wearing her crown of candles and carrying a tray of breakfast in to them. What a wonderful image of the light that young women can kindle in a dark world.
Veneration of Lucy spread from Italy to Germany and from there up into Scandinavia. She is one of a very few Catholic saints who survived the Lutheran Protestant reformation and are still celebrated in Lutheran nations. There are very few saints feast days in Scandinavia, and I think none others associated with women but hers. Interestingly, the adoption of the holiday in Denmark happened during WW2. The wikipedia entry I read this Dec 13th says: "Danish Day of Lucia ("Luciadag") was first celebrated on December 13, 1944. The tradition was directly imported from Sweden by initiative of Franz Wend, secretary of Föreningen Norden, as an attempt "to bring light in a time of darkness." Implicitly it was meant as a passive protest against German occupation during the Second World War but it has been a tradition ever since."
I didn't celebrate this holiday as a child, but we have re-adopted it in our house recently, just because I think it's so beautiful, I do have Scandinavian heritage, and I wanted my only daughter to have a day that for some reason feels like it's about powerful and ancient femininity. "Lucia" is the same root as "lucid" - i.e. clarity, and that feels deeply right also. I'm a winter solstice baby myself. I used to feel gypped that my birthday was so much shorter than everyone else's, but I feel differently now. I feel like that day is powerful, significant, and deeply symbolic. Lucy's brilliant lighted crown and the eyes on her plate speak to me both about what (young) women are -- royal -- and what they are capable of doing -- seeing with lucidity, even in darkness.
PS: I found our battery-lit crown on ebay from a nice lady in Sweden. Here's a site that sells them, both with candle bulbs and for real candles.
Lesson 2-45 "Participation in the Cultural Arts"
Our ward ended up with something else planned for the young women on the Sunday this lesson would have been taught. If anyone taught this lesson or sat in on a well-taught version of it and wants to contribute a post, comment away.
This lesson is placed in the unit on managing personal resources. It's interesting that cultural arts are singled out here for special attention. I could rant about why "science, technology and engineering" was not singled out instead... but I won't. I also could be cynical about how lessons like this "contain" women in certain fields, thus minimizing their voices elsewhere. But I won't do that either. Instead when I took the topic seriously I realized that this is an important arena for the expression and voice of young women. And clearly, there's a crying need for not letting "culture" (in the sense of artistic production) wallow and devolve any further - we do need people to raise the bar in the cultural arts. When FCC chairman Newton Minow said that TV was a wasteland, I wasn't even born, but man, was he right and he's only gotten righter. It seems very related to the recent lesson on managing time wisely, that is, on focusing one's creativity, time & energy on what which nourishes (on the MAKING of something) rather than on what empties (the CONSUMING of what other people -- often at poor wages, I might add -- have made).
I was thinking that talking about Minerva Teichert would work well in this lesson. And when I began to list all the things that cultural arts would include, I surprised even myself. My partial and idiosyncratic list would include:
Fine Arts and Crafts (textile arts, painting, sculpture, multimedia, fashion, decorative arts - I'm not talking strolling the aisles at Michael's Craft Store mind you, but beautifully decorated everyday items like what I saw at the Tirolean Volkskunstmuseum in Innsbruck this summer - or think Shaker - utilitarian and beautiful)
Dramatic and performing Arts - on stage and behind the scenes, in all aspects
Literature, poetry and expository writing - here the girls could be reminded of the 19th century Women's Exponent and the current crop of literary journals for Mormon women
Media - film, photography, digital media, web, tv, broadcasting
Music - performance, composing, conducting
Nonprofit work - extending the reach of the arts, esp in places where school systems no longer support the range they used to
Museum work - preservation, archiving, curating, display
Criticism - film, literary, theater, food, etc...
Culinary Arts - anyone else besides me a fan of Ace of Cakes? Those people rock.
Design - architectural, interior, landscape, product, commercial art, graphic, illustration, web...
At first I wondered, how might this lesson apply globally to young women in developing countries, or in conflict zones? Ie, in some ways this seems like counsel for young women in comfortable circumstances. But then... it's important there too, I realized.
This lesson is placed in the unit on managing personal resources. It's interesting that cultural arts are singled out here for special attention. I could rant about why "science, technology and engineering" was not singled out instead... but I won't. I also could be cynical about how lessons like this "contain" women in certain fields, thus minimizing their voices elsewhere. But I won't do that either. Instead when I took the topic seriously I realized that this is an important arena for the expression and voice of young women. And clearly, there's a crying need for not letting "culture" (in the sense of artistic production) wallow and devolve any further - we do need people to raise the bar in the cultural arts. When FCC chairman Newton Minow said that TV was a wasteland, I wasn't even born, but man, was he right and he's only gotten righter. It seems very related to the recent lesson on managing time wisely, that is, on focusing one's creativity, time & energy on what which nourishes (on the MAKING of something) rather than on what empties (the CONSUMING of what other people -- often at poor wages, I might add -- have made).
I was thinking that talking about Minerva Teichert would work well in this lesson. And when I began to list all the things that cultural arts would include, I surprised even myself. My partial and idiosyncratic list would include:
Fine Arts and Crafts (textile arts, painting, sculpture, multimedia, fashion, decorative arts - I'm not talking strolling the aisles at Michael's Craft Store mind you, but beautifully decorated everyday items like what I saw at the Tirolean Volkskunstmuseum in Innsbruck this summer - or think Shaker - utilitarian and beautiful)
Dramatic and performing Arts - on stage and behind the scenes, in all aspects
Literature, poetry and expository writing - here the girls could be reminded of the 19th century Women's Exponent and the current crop of literary journals for Mormon women
Media - film, photography, digital media, web, tv, broadcasting
Music - performance, composing, conducting
Nonprofit work - extending the reach of the arts, esp in places where school systems no longer support the range they used to
Museum work - preservation, archiving, curating, display
Criticism - film, literary, theater, food, etc...
Culinary Arts - anyone else besides me a fan of Ace of Cakes? Those people rock.
Design - architectural, interior, landscape, product, commercial art, graphic, illustration, web...
At first I wondered, how might this lesson apply globally to young women in developing countries, or in conflict zones? Ie, in some ways this seems like counsel for young women in comfortable circumstances. But then... it's important there too, I realized.
Lesson 2-44 "Developing Talents"
This is really two lessons in one - one about talents and how to develop them, and the other about learning to think about one's spiritual gifts as something akin to a talent. We talked about how saying someone "has a gift" for something or that they're "talented" in some area implies that it comes easily for that person. And that's not necessarily true, there's often lots of work that gets put in before something looks effortless to others.
A couple of weeks after I taught this lesson, a friend of mine gave a really outstanding talk about the parable of the talents. She emphasized that point exactly, that we all have received God-given talents (and spiritual gifts). In the story, the expectation was the same for the recipient of five as of two as of one: make something of this, don't bury it. Why did the master scold the one-talent servant for not investing his talent in the market? Usury was forbidden in the Old Testament, so why was it seen here as a positive good? Partly, she explained, because by Jesus' time, there was a system of investment in public works and building projects, and even one talent could be contributed to some greater good. Likewise, even those who see themselves as less talented need to offer what they have, which in the setting of the church or the community contributes to building the kingdom.
When it comes to spiritual gifts, here is an arena in which, the scriptures make clear, women are at no disadvantage before God. I liked this quote by Bruce R. McConkie, which he said at the dedication of the Nauvoo Monument to women in the fall of 1978 (quoted in Jan 1979 Ensign, 61):
A couple of weeks after I taught this lesson, a friend of mine gave a really outstanding talk about the parable of the talents. She emphasized that point exactly, that we all have received God-given talents (and spiritual gifts). In the story, the expectation was the same for the recipient of five as of two as of one: make something of this, don't bury it. Why did the master scold the one-talent servant for not investing his talent in the market? Usury was forbidden in the Old Testament, so why was it seen here as a positive good? Partly, she explained, because by Jesus' time, there was a system of investment in public works and building projects, and even one talent could be contributed to some greater good. Likewise, even those who see themselves as less talented need to offer what they have, which in the setting of the church or the community contributes to building the kingdom.
When it comes to spiritual gifts, here is an arena in which, the scriptures make clear, women are at no disadvantage before God. I liked this quote by Bruce R. McConkie, which he said at the dedication of the Nauvoo Monument to women in the fall of 1978 (quoted in Jan 1979 Ensign, 61):
“Where spiritual things are concerned, as pertaining to all of the gifts of the Spirit, with reference to the receipt of revelation, the gaining of testimonies, and the seeing of visions, in all matters that pertain to godliness and holiness and which are brought to pass as a result of personal righteousness in all these things men and women stand in a position of absolute equality before the Lord. He is no respecter of persons nor of sexes, and he blesses those men and those women who seek him and serve him and keep his commandments.”
Spiritual gifts are enumerated in at least three places in the scriptures: 1 Corinthians 12:4-12, Moroni 10:8-18 and D&C 46:10-33. It might be an interesting exercise to compare the three lists - what's the same in all three, which ones uniquely mention some gifts, and why? I don't think we talk about these enough these days, or maybe we just emphasize certain ones (faith, say) and de-emphasize others (tongues, prophecy) that no longer seem to have a place in the modern world/modern LDS church.
Finally, I handed out references for seven "talented" women in the scriptures. Each young woman looked one up, and we talked about what this woman's talents were, how she used them, why she is included in the scriptures, and how the scriptural woman's story might be applicable to our own lives. I used:
Deborah (Judges 4)
Woman of Proverbs 31 (Proverbs 31:10-31)
Abish (Alma 19:16-29)
Esther (Book of Esther, especially chapter 4)
Dorcas (Acts 9:36-42)
Emma Smith (D&C Section 25)
Lydia (Acts 16:14-15, 40)
Lesson 2-43 "Wise Use of Leisure Time"
In order to teach about using our (that quaint phrase - it cracks me up, and makes me think of leisure suits) "leisure time" wisely, I thought it would be good to figure out how much of this resource the girls I teach actually have. I made up a table with slots for each hour, and had them fill in what they were doing in that hour on a typical weekday. Between sleep, school, homework, job, Seminary, and chores, most of the girls in my class had very little leisure time indeed (of course, teaching this lesson during summer vacation would give a quite different picture).
Why is this important? Think about a violin bow, and how it's important to loosen it between playing. Loved the Brigham Young quote -
"Recreation and diversion are as necessary to our well-being as the more serious pursuits of life...Our pursuits should be so diversified as to develop every trait of character and diversity of talent."
In other words, having a favorite activity is good, but zoning out by doing the same thing (especially if it's passive, like mindlessly watching TV) when you can't think of anything else to do is not so good. The second quote, by J. Reuben Clark, distinguishing between leisure and idleness, was helpful too. It didn't take us long to generate a pair of contrasting lists ("wise use" and "unwise") - with a big gray area in between of activities that could be wise, but could also be unwise, and thus require our discretion and listening to the Spirit. Our class got into a good discussion of books and which titles they like and recommend, too.
PS - I think if you use the wordstrip idea, then it should say "Time, the wise woman's treasure." Why go out of our way to use language that excludes women?
Why is this important? Think about a violin bow, and how it's important to loosen it between playing. Loved the Brigham Young quote -
"Recreation and diversion are as necessary to our well-being as the more serious pursuits of life...Our pursuits should be so diversified as to develop every trait of character and diversity of talent."
In other words, having a favorite activity is good, but zoning out by doing the same thing (especially if it's passive, like mindlessly watching TV) when you can't think of anything else to do is not so good. The second quote, by J. Reuben Clark, distinguishing between leisure and idleness, was helpful too. It didn't take us long to generate a pair of contrasting lists ("wise use" and "unwise") - with a big gray area in between of activities that could be wise, but could also be unwise, and thus require our discretion and listening to the Spirit. Our class got into a good discussion of books and which titles they like and recommend, too.
PS - I think if you use the wordstrip idea, then it should say "Time, the wise woman's treasure." Why go out of our way to use language that excludes women?
Lesson 2-42 "Gratitude and Appreciation"
Two glasses on the table with exactly the same amount of water in them, and two labels - one that says "half full" and other, "half-empty." Kind of corny, but it was a shorthand way to review last week's lesson about optimism and to introduce this one on gratitude. No, I didn't make the bookmarks. Instead we started by talking about Thanksgiving traditions in their homes (it was the week of Thanksgiving that this lesson was assigned).
In my childhood home, I always knew it was Thanksgiving time when the hand-painted ceramic Pilgrim man and woman came out and stood on the dining room buffet. And it's all about the pie at my house; when my siblings and I get together, there is lotsa pie. Among my class members, most of them had traditions of going around the table before eating and saying something they are thankful for. Then at the end of the lesson I tied back to those traditions and said we can develop personal "thanksgiving traditions" to let Heavenly Father know we see and appreciate his hand in our lives. I thought Eyring's talk from the recent conference worked perfectly here. We also used some of President Hinckley's 6 B's talk from the Jan 01 Ensign.
I used three scriptural accounts of people seeing what they'd been given, and giving thanks:
Matthew 15:33-37 - Jesus thanking God before blessing the loaves
Luke 17:12-19 - the ten lepers (the obvious story)
3 Ne 10:10 - the gratitude of the people in Zarahemla was part of what prepared them to see Jesus
I shared a reading from Corrie Ten Boom's wonderful memoir of her Nazi internment, The Hiding Place, in which her sister, Betsy, was grateful for the dreadful conditions in the camp and was able to see that good would come out of even the fleas.
We talked about President Hinckley's advice to "work at" being grateful, and we wrote down on some index cards as many blessings as we could count in 3 minutes (It was a lot!) and sang "Count Your Blessings" as the closer.
In my childhood home, I always knew it was Thanksgiving time when the hand-painted ceramic Pilgrim man and woman came out and stood on the dining room buffet. And it's all about the pie at my house; when my siblings and I get together, there is lotsa pie. Among my class members, most of them had traditions of going around the table before eating and saying something they are thankful for. Then at the end of the lesson I tied back to those traditions and said we can develop personal "thanksgiving traditions" to let Heavenly Father know we see and appreciate his hand in our lives. I thought Eyring's talk from the recent conference worked perfectly here. We also used some of President Hinckley's 6 B's talk from the Jan 01 Ensign.
I used three scriptural accounts of people seeing what they'd been given, and giving thanks:
Matthew 15:33-37 - Jesus thanking God before blessing the loaves
Luke 17:12-19 - the ten lepers (the obvious story)
3 Ne 10:10 - the gratitude of the people in Zarahemla was part of what prepared them to see Jesus
I shared a reading from Corrie Ten Boom's wonderful memoir of her Nazi internment, The Hiding Place, in which her sister, Betsy, was grateful for the dreadful conditions in the camp and was able to see that good would come out of even the fleas.
We talked about President Hinckley's advice to "work at" being grateful, and we wrote down on some index cards as many blessings as we could count in 3 minutes (It was a lot!) and sang "Count Your Blessings" as the closer.
Lesson 2-41 "Optimism"
This lesson fell on a first Sunday, so a member of the presidency taught it to the whole group. I prepared the lesson anyway because I was new and didn't know not to. I couldn't have pulled off the story about the family who moved, I thought it was cheesy so I was going to leave it out. But the woman who taught the lesson in our ward had just lived through a very similar situation with her own daughter and she recounted the story with sincerity and feeling, and the girls got it in a way they never would have from me. So my thoughts on this haven't been tested by actually teaching what I prepared, but here they are anyway.
I didn't like the way the self-assessment test was phrased (I mean, honestly, who would answer "yes" to those questions??), so I re-wrote it, based on (forgive me) the post-assessment test for teens who've just taken the Covey seminars on Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. I wrote it so that the girls would be able to answer yes to most of the questions. Such as:
I sometimes feel overwhelmed and discouraged.
I have developed strategies for when I feel that way.
I see myself succeeding in the future.
My point would have been, look, we all feel down, get overwhelmed, hormonal, discouraged and focus on ourselves. Let's not beat ourselves up for that. Let's figure out what to do to avoid letting those feelings make us hopeless or unable to move forward.
I also planned to bring the biggest wrench in our house for a visual (it's mighty big, like cast iron or something). In our house if someone is having a "Laman and Lemuel" moment and starting to murmur, complain, etc - and it happens in the best of families, we all can attest - we sometimes talk about getting out the "attitude wrench" and cranking their attitude towards the positive. I know I need the attitude wrench lots of times. To me, this lesson is very related to the previous one on choosing our responses to circumstances, and not blaming others for them.
[Aside: I like this quote from the book I'm currently reading, Ruling Your World, by Sakyong Mipham: "Our attitude is like the flag bearer in a military charge. Everybody follows the flag, because that's where the fight is. When our attitude goes through the mud, that's where all our thoughts will go. When our attitude goes to the top of the mountain, all our thoughts will follow. Changing our attitude is the way to effect change in our life."]
The danger, it seems to me, is in telling girls "just cheer up" or that "no one likes a frowny face" when the reality of life is that it's not all happiness and sunshine. "Just be happy" or "smile more" feels to me a kind of denial of a person's real feelings. Instead I think the lesson needed to focus on optimism as a learned skill. Being fully converted to the gospel helps, in that it can give us a true understanding of ourselves, our purpose, and a larger plan. But it doesn't protect us fully from the bumps of life, and we shouldn't expect it to. Facing challenges with optimism and faith is an important skill--being trusting, believing that the Lord stands ready to bless, letting go of the "perfect." That's not the same as just putting on a happy face.
Was Jesus optimistic? How do we know? Other scriptural examples? If I can help them go to the well of the scriptures for relevant stories, all the better. I thought it would be powerful to end this lesson with the hymn "Come Come Ye Saints" which I think is deeply optimistic but which comes out of a serious trial in our history. I also think for older girls it would have been appropriate to say something about how clinical depression intersects with the idea that girls/women are "supposed to be" happy, and how if you are not able to choose your response, or you can't feel hopeful, then get help.
I didn't like the way the self-assessment test was phrased (I mean, honestly, who would answer "yes" to those questions??), so I re-wrote it, based on (forgive me) the post-assessment test for teens who've just taken the Covey seminars on Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. I wrote it so that the girls would be able to answer yes to most of the questions. Such as:
I sometimes feel overwhelmed and discouraged.
I have developed strategies for when I feel that way.
I see myself succeeding in the future.
My point would have been, look, we all feel down, get overwhelmed, hormonal, discouraged and focus on ourselves. Let's not beat ourselves up for that. Let's figure out what to do to avoid letting those feelings make us hopeless or unable to move forward.
I also planned to bring the biggest wrench in our house for a visual (it's mighty big, like cast iron or something). In our house if someone is having a "Laman and Lemuel" moment and starting to murmur, complain, etc - and it happens in the best of families, we all can attest - we sometimes talk about getting out the "attitude wrench" and cranking their attitude towards the positive. I know I need the attitude wrench lots of times. To me, this lesson is very related to the previous one on choosing our responses to circumstances, and not blaming others for them.
[Aside: I like this quote from the book I'm currently reading, Ruling Your World, by Sakyong Mipham: "Our attitude is like the flag bearer in a military charge. Everybody follows the flag, because that's where the fight is. When our attitude goes through the mud, that's where all our thoughts will go. When our attitude goes to the top of the mountain, all our thoughts will follow. Changing our attitude is the way to effect change in our life."]
The danger, it seems to me, is in telling girls "just cheer up" or that "no one likes a frowny face" when the reality of life is that it's not all happiness and sunshine. "Just be happy" or "smile more" feels to me a kind of denial of a person's real feelings. Instead I think the lesson needed to focus on optimism as a learned skill. Being fully converted to the gospel helps, in that it can give us a true understanding of ourselves, our purpose, and a larger plan. But it doesn't protect us fully from the bumps of life, and we shouldn't expect it to. Facing challenges with optimism and faith is an important skill--being trusting, believing that the Lord stands ready to bless, letting go of the "perfect." That's not the same as just putting on a happy face.
Was Jesus optimistic? How do we know? Other scriptural examples? If I can help them go to the well of the scriptures for relevant stories, all the better. I thought it would be powerful to end this lesson with the hymn "Come Come Ye Saints" which I think is deeply optimistic but which comes out of a serious trial in our history. I also think for older girls it would have been appropriate to say something about how clinical depression intersects with the idea that girls/women are "supposed to be" happy, and how if you are not able to choose your response, or you can't feel hopeful, then get help.
Lesson 2-40 "Self-Mastery" (Or: How Not to be a Victim in Your Own Life)
As you can see from my subtitle, I wanted this lesson to focus on claiming, naming, owning our feelings and decisions. We started with the one verse we have about Jesus as a teenager - Luke 2:52 "and he grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." I count four ways that Jesus grew and matured in that one verse alone - things he learned to control as he reached adulthood - things in which we can emulate him.
I brought our remote control, and we talked about the idea of an emotional remote control. I got this idea from one of John Bytheway's books, maybe the one about what he wished he'd learned in high school. It's inaccurate, actually, to say "she made me mad" or "you made me sad." If there was a remote control that had your buttons on it, would you really give it away to someone else? Our responses to provocation or temptation are (or can be?) chosen, and the more conscious we are about choosing, the better for us.
Great story on this from Robert Wells' article from a 1987 New Era in which a pilot who crashed blamed the airplane for its malfunctioning when it was clear that the crash was caused by pilot error.
The week I was preparing this lesson, I heard "Talk of the Nation" on NPR with guest John McWhorter. He was talking about the Jena episode and recent controversy and response to it. He characterized the displaying of the noose as a "prank" and therefore not worth giving the power to the perpetrators to get the entire nation in a frenzy over it. Others disagreed, calling it an act of criminal terrorism that no one should tolerate, and that should have a fuss made over it. One caller said when he hears someone make a racist comment towards him, he thinks: is this malicious, or ignorant? If it's ignorant, am I going to use this as a teaching moment, or let it go? In other words he has gotten to a place where he can decide whether it's worth it to allow a speech act to hurt or insult him. He doesn't have to be knee-jerk insulted by anything dumb that gets said to him. The girls had a lively discussion about this. Both sides in this debate have merit, obviously. Aristotle, "For where it is in our power to act it is also in our power not to act."
From there we looked at the account in Luke of the temptation of Jesus. From this we learn more about what we are capable of controlling--which appetites, which kinds of temptation (our list looked like this: body & appetites, thoughts, language, habits, love [yes, Cinderella, really, it doesn't just "happen" to you], and our responses). One person brought up that we need to take this account seriously that Jesus was, indeed, tempted by these things.
For me, this is a spectrum (or, maybe more accurately, a playground see-saw). On one side there is "my will" - make of myself whatever I want - personal progress - free agency - all about wonderful me. On the other side is the will of the Father, His sovereignty, and the need to be perfectly surrendered to and swallowed within his loving will. Conflict there? Sometimes. What bridges it, what's the hinge that this see-saw tips on? It's the atonement - see Philippians 4:13 and also Ether 12:27.
I brought our remote control, and we talked about the idea of an emotional remote control. I got this idea from one of John Bytheway's books, maybe the one about what he wished he'd learned in high school. It's inaccurate, actually, to say "she made me mad" or "you made me sad." If there was a remote control that had your buttons on it, would you really give it away to someone else? Our responses to provocation or temptation are (or can be?) chosen, and the more conscious we are about choosing, the better for us.
Great story on this from Robert Wells' article from a 1987 New Era in which a pilot who crashed blamed the airplane for its malfunctioning when it was clear that the crash was caused by pilot error.
The week I was preparing this lesson, I heard "Talk of the Nation" on NPR with guest John McWhorter. He was talking about the Jena episode and recent controversy and response to it. He characterized the displaying of the noose as a "prank" and therefore not worth giving the power to the perpetrators to get the entire nation in a frenzy over it. Others disagreed, calling it an act of criminal terrorism that no one should tolerate, and that should have a fuss made over it. One caller said when he hears someone make a racist comment towards him, he thinks: is this malicious, or ignorant? If it's ignorant, am I going to use this as a teaching moment, or let it go? In other words he has gotten to a place where he can decide whether it's worth it to allow a speech act to hurt or insult him. He doesn't have to be knee-jerk insulted by anything dumb that gets said to him. The girls had a lively discussion about this. Both sides in this debate have merit, obviously. Aristotle, "For where it is in our power to act it is also in our power not to act."
From there we looked at the account in Luke of the temptation of Jesus. From this we learn more about what we are capable of controlling--which appetites, which kinds of temptation (our list looked like this: body & appetites, thoughts, language, habits, love [yes, Cinderella, really, it doesn't just "happen" to you], and our responses). One person brought up that we need to take this account seriously that Jesus was, indeed, tempted by these things.
For me, this is a spectrum (or, maybe more accurately, a playground see-saw). On one side there is "my will" - make of myself whatever I want - personal progress - free agency - all about wonderful me. On the other side is the will of the Father, His sovereignty, and the need to be perfectly surrendered to and swallowed within his loving will. Conflict there? Sometimes. What bridges it, what's the hinge that this see-saw tips on? It's the atonement - see Philippians 4:13 and also Ether 12:27.
Lesson 2-39 "Preventing Disease" (through being educated about women's health)
At first glance, this topic seems utterly here-and-now, even banal. So dig deeper. In what sense is this a lesson on a gospel topic? Lots of ways:
--a true understanding (i.e. based in science, not myth, folklore or magic) of the nature of disease and its treatment is a blessing of our time, and evidence of Heavenly Father's concern for all his children.
--this is not an archaic topic at all, but very relevant to girls' and women's circumstances worldwide. Women and children worldwide bear a disproportionate burden from preventable diseases and therefore it's not only a "gospel" issue but a human rights issue. The Church champions some causes which in our super-medicalized United States might seem "traditional" or even "regressive" but which are very empowering in the third world - e.g. preventable disease and women's literacy.
One example of this is the dire social consequences in India and elsewhere from sheer ignorance about breast cancer (reported in the Time cover story the week I was preparing this lesson). Another is the high incidence of malaria in tropical regions, especially sub-saharan Africa - malaria threatens fully half of the world's population. Half! That's no typo. The parasite has developed such drug resistance that even the most potent strains can scarcely be controlled (subject of a chilling National Geographic article in July). At least a million people will die this year, most of them under age 5, and the vast majority of them in Africa. That's more than twice the annual toll a generation ago.
--for everyone, then, it's important to not base our health decisions on superstition or "culture." That works for getting enough health care, but also (maybe more relevant in certain parts of America) for not getting too much (I'm thinking of cosmetic plastic surgery, which is on the rise for teens, and also on taking medications that aren't really necessary).
--the more general gospel principle is to take responsibility for one's physical being as a part of spiritual maturity and growing up. You know the old tale about how a mother teaches her daughter to cut the end off the roast before she cooks it? Finally she gets to wonder why, and she goes back to her own mother and finds out that her mother didn't have a pan big enough for the roast. That's what I'm talking about. Don't just cut the end off the roast without thinking.
This lesson really needs close adaptation to the needs of your class. Here's what I did with it. We took a true/false quiz on diseases which led to a discussion about various categories of preventable diseases:
Things You "Just Get" - understanding our immune system, our natural defenses and how to boost them. Special caution for young women about anemia - very common.
Suicide Prevention - the number two killer of teenage American girls. Recognizing signs of depression, getting treatment for self-harm. How to be a support to a friend or relative going through this.
Cancer Prevention - breast cancer information (I think it's totally appropriate to mention self-exam to Laurels) - awareness of family history, how childbearing & breastfeeding relate to risk factors. Skin cancer - sunscreen and be armed with good info (site dedicated to the memory of a friend of mine).
Communicable Diseases - viral, bacterial. Housecleaning and food sanitation. Food-borne illness. Handwashing now that cold and flu season is upon us. Avoiding STD's and knowing the signs of bacterial meningitis.
Diseases of pregnancy, preventable birth defects, and early childhood disease - these are important things to know, long before a woman reaches childbearing (and, let's acknowledge, not all will). Women can break the cycle of their historic vulnerability to disease through education and good choices.
Living with a diagnosis or chronic condition - as this was applicable in our class, we had a good discussion about this issue. Not letting your diagnosis define you. Knowing, and educating others about, what you can and can't do.
Concluding Thoughts:
Disarticulate disease into "dis-ease." We are not made for a life of ease, but if we can prevent needless suffering, we darn well should.
--a true understanding (i.e. based in science, not myth, folklore or magic) of the nature of disease and its treatment is a blessing of our time, and evidence of Heavenly Father's concern for all his children.
--this is not an archaic topic at all, but very relevant to girls' and women's circumstances worldwide. Women and children worldwide bear a disproportionate burden from preventable diseases and therefore it's not only a "gospel" issue but a human rights issue. The Church champions some causes which in our super-medicalized United States might seem "traditional" or even "regressive" but which are very empowering in the third world - e.g. preventable disease and women's literacy.
One example of this is the dire social consequences in India and elsewhere from sheer ignorance about breast cancer (reported in the Time cover story the week I was preparing this lesson). Another is the high incidence of malaria in tropical regions, especially sub-saharan Africa - malaria threatens fully half of the world's population. Half! That's no typo. The parasite has developed such drug resistance that even the most potent strains can scarcely be controlled (subject of a chilling National Geographic article in July). At least a million people will die this year, most of them under age 5, and the vast majority of them in Africa. That's more than twice the annual toll a generation ago.
--for everyone, then, it's important to not base our health decisions on superstition or "culture." That works for getting enough health care, but also (maybe more relevant in certain parts of America) for not getting too much (I'm thinking of cosmetic plastic surgery, which is on the rise for teens, and also on taking medications that aren't really necessary).
--the more general gospel principle is to take responsibility for one's physical being as a part of spiritual maturity and growing up. You know the old tale about how a mother teaches her daughter to cut the end off the roast before she cooks it? Finally she gets to wonder why, and she goes back to her own mother and finds out that her mother didn't have a pan big enough for the roast. That's what I'm talking about. Don't just cut the end off the roast without thinking.
This lesson really needs close adaptation to the needs of your class. Here's what I did with it. We took a true/false quiz on diseases which led to a discussion about various categories of preventable diseases:
Things You "Just Get" - understanding our immune system, our natural defenses and how to boost them. Special caution for young women about anemia - very common.
Suicide Prevention - the number two killer of teenage American girls. Recognizing signs of depression, getting treatment for self-harm. How to be a support to a friend or relative going through this.
Cancer Prevention - breast cancer information (I think it's totally appropriate to mention self-exam to Laurels) - awareness of family history, how childbearing & breastfeeding relate to risk factors. Skin cancer - sunscreen and be armed with good info (site dedicated to the memory of a friend of mine).
Communicable Diseases - viral, bacterial. Housecleaning and food sanitation. Food-borne illness. Handwashing now that cold and flu season is upon us. Avoiding STD's and knowing the signs of bacterial meningitis.
Diseases of pregnancy, preventable birth defects, and early childhood disease - these are important things to know, long before a woman reaches childbearing (and, let's acknowledge, not all will). Women can break the cycle of their historic vulnerability to disease through education and good choices.
Living with a diagnosis or chronic condition - as this was applicable in our class, we had a good discussion about this issue. Not letting your diagnosis define you. Knowing, and educating others about, what you can and can't do.
Concluding Thoughts:
Disarticulate disease into "dis-ease." We are not made for a life of ease, but if we can prevent needless suffering, we darn well should.
Lesson 2-38 "Physical Health"
So much to cover in this lesson! I had just finished teaching my college students about nuclear testing in the West, and had assigned them Terry Tempest Williams' moving essay from her book, Refuge, "The Clan of One-Breasted Women." That whole episode in our nation's history makes me seethe. And it's a sad reminder that after all we can do, darn it, environmental and genetic factors make a big difference in our physical health. "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?" (Matthew 6:27 - meaningful scripture for someone as height-challenged as myself).
We started this lesson by talking about three kinds of health: physical, emotional, and social; and then by listing things that affect our health: behavior, physical and social environment, genetics, and our access to health care.
On that last one, how many physicians are there per 100,000 people where you live? That's one measure of people's access to health care, and you can find out by country, or by state within the US. US average is 268. In Bangladesh, people, it's 2 or fewer.
We then went through scriptural counsel, discussing each one in turn:
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 - body as temple
D&C 38:42 - cleanliness
D&C 88:124 - sleep and rest
D&C 89:11 - emphasis on seasonal and whole foods
D&C 89:12 - sparing use of meat
D&C 89:14 - grain as the staff of life
D&C 89:20 - promises given to Saints who try to keep themselves healthy
Then we talked in a general way about teen girl health: checkups and vaccinations, managing stress, getting enough rest & sleep but also exercising, thinking about your reproductive system and its health (i.e. knowing what's normal, and getting a first gyn checkup sometime in the next few years if not already - remember I'm talking to Laurels here), breast cancer risks (it's now 1 in 8 nationwide, higher in some ethnic & age categories, wow), and car safety. Accidents are the #1 killer of teenage girls. Seatbelts... duh... but so many don't wear them.
From there we went into a discussion of exercise and fitness and its benefits, etc. While researching for this lesson I read that despite major advances in women's sports since the passage of Title IX 30 (!!) years ago, adolescent girls today are the least active segment of the American population.
Finally we talked about eating habits and body image and maintaining a healthy weight. Obesity is on the rise, but the girls already hear so much about being thin, so it's a delicate balance to talk about I think. I emphasized cutting out diet sodas, getting enough calcium (they are building bone mass only until age 20, it's all bone loss after that, gals), and getting vitamins from fruits and vegetables. Ketchup does not count, despite it being called a vegetable in the federal school lunch program. If you had vegetarians in your class (I didn't) then it would be good to remind them about the special considerations there, esp getting enough protein, calcium and iron.
Regarding emotional health, especially for older girls, I think it would be good to mention something about understanding and expressing feelings, being assertive, getting resources and support for serious issues such as depression, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
My handout included some websites I thought they would find useful and which provided relatively neutral and factual information:
US Office on Women's Health
OWH's Girls Health page
Healthier US Initiative
Food Pyramid Page
College Women's health page
PS - this was the first lesson I taught in my new calling.
The Courage to be Curious
Tomorrow, I am substituting in my husband's Sunday School class in addition to teaching my regular Laurels' class. He teaches the 12 & 13 year olds and this year their curriculum is the latter-day prophets. A couple of weeks ago, one of the girls in the class spoke up and asked why they weren't also going to be learning about some of our women church leaders. How come there was no curriculum manual devoted to them? Well, reasonable enough question.
Later that same day, in his priesthood lesson the assigned topic was "Women in the Church," and during the discussion he asked the other members of the class how many of them could name even three of the Relief Society presidents. Not one could do it. I guess it got us both thinking about the women whose stories we don't collectively tell and celebrate nearly often enough. Not just the general RS presidents, but so SO many others.
Hence, while he's away tomorrow he's asked me to give a guest lesson on the RS presidents as a way to start. There are 15 (quick, no peeking, how many can YOU name?). I'm using the poster with portraits from lds(dot)org for a handout, and I'm using Derr, Cannon & Beecher's Women of Covenant, the history of Relief Society published in 1992 with handy chapter-long biographies (at least up to Elaine Jack) to fill in what I don't know off the top of my head.
I'm proud of that kid who asked. I'm proud there are handy and text-searchable resources for preparing such a lesson. And I will let you know how it goes.
UPDATE: this lesson, too, didn't happen yet because of snow. We will team-teach it on a future Sunday.
Later that same day, in his priesthood lesson the assigned topic was "Women in the Church," and during the discussion he asked the other members of the class how many of them could name even three of the Relief Society presidents. Not one could do it. I guess it got us both thinking about the women whose stories we don't collectively tell and celebrate nearly often enough. Not just the general RS presidents, but so SO many others.
Hence, while he's away tomorrow he's asked me to give a guest lesson on the RS presidents as a way to start. There are 15 (quick, no peeking, how many can YOU name?). I'm using the poster with portraits from lds(dot)org for a handout, and I'm using Derr, Cannon & Beecher's Women of Covenant, the history of Relief Society published in 1992 with handy chapter-long biographies (at least up to Elaine Jack) to fill in what I don't know off the top of my head.
I'm proud of that kid who asked. I'm proud there are handy and text-searchable resources for preparing such a lesson. And I will let you know how it goes.
UPDATE: this lesson, too, didn't happen yet because of snow. We will team-teach it on a future Sunday.
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