Preliminary Reports: Claiming Teaching as Ministry and Spiritual Practice
In the fall of 2004, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) conducted an online survey addressing issues of teacher development and training in Unitarian Universalist (UU) lifespan faith development programs. The term “teacher” was used to signify adult leaders in faith development programs; it was not used for its traditional, classroom-based connotations. The survey was publicized through REACH-L and LREDA email lists and outreach to district staff, program consultants, and religious educators. There were 140 responses, with distributions from large, mid-size, and small congregations and children/youth programs paralleling the distribution of congregation and program sizes in the Association overall. Results and analysis of the survey will be presented at General Assembly and posted on the UUA website. Here are some preliminary findings:- Teaching is a spiritual practice. Claiming the ministry of religious
education as central to the ministry of our faith is an essential step towards
enriching and supporting teachers and our congregations. The survey did not
offer the terms “spiritual practice” or “ministry”—these were provided by
respondents. Here’s a sample of comments:
- “I believe teaching is one of the best ways to truly explore what our UU faith is about … I’m trying to get teachers to say this now and am working … to find ways to bring teaching before the congregation so they also know that this is a ministry we hold in high esteem.”
- “Teachers need to see their teaching as a spiritual practice. We can provide training and support that balance the intellectual and logistical aspects of what we do with the spiritual and pastoral care component of what we do when we work with children. It is not just teaching or facilitating, it is sharing who we are and how we live as UUs.”
- “I would like to see teaching be a spiritual practice.”
- “The more it can be ministry and not a chore or job or one more thing in an
already busy life, the better it will be for everyone.”
- There is tension between providing efficient pragmatic resources to teachers
and providing faith-deepening experiences for teachers. Many respondents
expressed concerns about volunteer teachers’ limited time for teaching and the
religious educator’s need to be responsive to their constraints. At the same
time respondents noted that changing the paradigm of teaching, from “duty” to an
embodiment of faith or ministry, might attenuate that tension. How to get there
from here? Respondents favored different formats for different objectives.
- Asked what they would ideally like to offer to teachers, respondents
indicated: small group ministry to connect teachers more deeply to the spiritual
aspects of their work and development (75.8 percent), trainings on particular
curricula, similar to Our Whole Lives (OWL) training (72.8 percent), workshops about religious
education and related issues (71.3 percent), and online (70.5 percent), video
(67 percent), and CD (65.9 percent) resources about issues basic to teaching in
lifespan faith development programs.
- There is a need for efficient delivery of basic training materials about UU
faith, child development, multiple intelligences, behavior management (or
strategies to work with children/youth that structurally address this issue),
and extra games/activities/music.
- There is a need to provide more in-depth connection to the curricula and
programs that teachers are using that is beyond more generic teacher training.
Support for continued OWL training and other similar training was expressed
repeatedly.
- There is a need to provide avenues to connect teachers to each other and to
their work in lifespan faith development programs as part of their spiritual or
UU identity development. There is considerable interest in the use of small
group ministry with teachers, with concerns about how to make it work
logistically. One respondent commented, “This would be a great way to provide
opportunities for teachers to connect at a deeper level versus a training
workshop, which is useful but more on an intellectual level.”
- Although each respondent navigates his/her own set of roadblocks, some constraints seem widely shared. Constraints experienced by those working with volunteer teachers include lack of available time for the religious educators and/or congregants who are teaching; lack of available resources (including materials for teachers, curricula, supplemental materials, money for additional training); lack of methods of enriching teaching within lifespan faith development programs that “don’t feel like one more meeting,” and the need for a congregational cultural shift from teaching as service to teaching as ministry.
Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
