Participants
Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong is designed for sixth graders. Think: the end of childhood and the beginning of youth. Think of youngsters looking back with a sense that it is time to move on, and ahead with a mixture of wonder, hope, awe, and trepidation. Think of the brink of puberty and adolescence.
In her book Nurturing Children and Youth: A Developmental Guidebook (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association, 2005), Tracey L. Hurd discusses characteristics of young adolescents. These include:
- Seeks support for self-esteem and body image as she/he transitions into an adult body
- Engages in abstract and hypothetical thinking
- Concentrates on self and others' perceptions of the self
- Engages actively with peers and social relationships
- Tries to reconcile the inner self with the outer self
- Explores gender, racial, and ethnic identities through affiliations
- Expresses criticisms of self and others
- Seeks belonging and membership and is concerned with social approval
- Takes on others' perspectives and understands that sharing perspectives does not necessarily mean agreement
- Expresses interest in religion that embodies values
- Sustains faith development by engaging with a community that allows questioning
- Seeks love, understanding, loyalty, and support
Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong offers ways to support the young/older adolescent:
- Promote self-esteem
- Affirm and support the adolescent's many physical, emotional, and cognitive changes
- Model respect
- Be flexible and responsive
- Provide opportunities for complex thinking and the pondering of big questions
- Respect and take seriously the adolescent's self-consciousness
- Recognize that challenging authority provides an outlet for new cognitive skills
- Maintain clear expectations that enable adolescents to make independent decisions
- Keep some routines or rituals that provide continuity from childhood to adulthood
- Be a sounding board for youth's exploration of ideas
- Encourage involvement in multiple settings
- Actively support the adolescent's exploration of identity
- Encourage participation in a faith or religious community
- Provide outlets for questioning faith, religion, and creed
- Facilitate youth's work in the community
- Celebrate both change and continuity
Integrating All Participants
Unitarian Universalism is an inclusive religion and Amazing Grace is an inclusive curriculum. No one should be excluded from the program or its activities by real or perceived physical or other limitations.
Inclusiveness sometimes requires adaptation, and specific suggestions for adapting activities are made as appropriate under the heading Including All Participants. By changing things as suggested or using alternate activities, you can help ensure that every session is inclusive of youth with a range of physical and cognitive abilities and learning styles, food allergies, and other sensitivities or limitations.
As you plan your Amazing Grace sessions, be aware of activities that might pose difficulties for youth who are differently abled. All spaces, indoor and outdoor, need to be accessible to anyone who might be in the group. Check the width of doorways and aisles, the height of tables, and the terrain of outdoor landscapes.
Find out about participants' medical conditions and their allergies, particularly to food. Session 4, Faith in Action: A Taste of Ethics, involves food. Make sure all your youth can eat the food you plan to use, or change the food.
The program mixes active and quiet, expressive and listening, and whole-group and individual activities, along with alternate activities that you can substitute for core activities if you feel they better suit your group, or if you have extra time. As you begin to recognize different learning styles among participants, let this information guide your selection of activities for each session.
In the Teacher Development section of the UUA website, find descriptions of a helpful resource book, Sally Patton's Welcoming Children with Special Needs.
Last updated on Friday, July 24, 2009.
