Rev Andy Laird relates a valuable Probationer experience

Introduction
The Methodist Church requires its Probationer Ministers to undertake some individual theological study during their probation period. For my second year’s study I spent a day each week in a local primary school, working with children and learning from the staff: firstly, how best to communicate simple and complex ideas; and, secondly, to study how children relate to Spirituality. My aims were to improve my ability to relate to young children and to learn how best to engage them within a worship environment; and, then, to share the benefit of my experience with other preachers.

The Placement
I already had a good relationship with the head of a local C of E primary School and he arranged for me to spend half a term each with Year 1, Year 3 and Year 6 classes. I was given no specific responsibilities, other than to be a general classroom helper, so I had plenty of opportunity simply to observe what was going on. In fact, I did a wide variety of things in addition: I provided additional (welcome!) support in RE lessons, music lessons, IT lessons and school assemblies. As I look back, this was a marvellous opportunity, a real gift, for which I am very grateful.

What I observed and learned
Year one
I was very impressed with the teacher’s ability to translate what could be difficult instructions into very simple language, and then to explain it again and again, very calmly, in different ways to make sure as many of the children (four and five year olds) as possible understood. Those that listened and understood accepted what they were told and got on with it. But even then, generally less than half the class knew what was required of them when it came to do the work that had been explained.

Discussing this with the teacher and my Tutor for the placement, I began to see that, at this very young age, children feel they are at the centre of their own world and that other things just happen around them,  so they have a very self-focused view of life and, particularly, their own experience of life.

Misunderstanding at this age is frequent and is often caused by children concentrating on themselves, not on what the teacher is saying. So, when a teacher asks a question of the class about, say, the sunny weather, and points to a child with their hand up to answer, they may say something like, ‘I’m going to a party after school’. Others would have the right answer, but a number would not because they were worrying about a wobbly tooth, thinking about what they had for breakfast, or deciding who they would play with at break time and so on, as the teacher talked. It is as though the education being offered is external to their very ‘internalised’ world – and only external things which really grab their attention or interest them will be internalised to the point at which children listen and respond appropriately and so let it become part of their experience.

Story is an important vehicle for teaching at this age and I observed that children were far more attentive in terms of listening when a story was read to them than when teaching input was being given; and religious story is no different. Through story children are free to engage with the characters, incidents and issues that a story raises and, with their own experience of life, form a response to the story. At this age they also accept and can work with fantasy (Fairy tales) as well as fact (his-story).

Very young children deal with teaching about God in the same way – what I saw in RE lessons was that those who were ‘tuned in’ to what was being said or taught generally just accepted it without questioning and discussed it in the class quite happily. However those still worrying about wobbly teeth didn’t get any further than recognising that the teacher is talking about Church, and others were thinking about the last time they went into a church rather than listening to what the teacher was saying.

What all this says to me as a preacher is that, when working with very young children, I need, in some way, to ‘grab’ their attention at the outset so they listen and don’t drift off into their own world; then, to help them internalise or engage with what I am saying, I need to be very careful with my vocabulary and use only words which they will understand, or use a suitable short story; I need to be ready to say important things two or three times in two or three different ways which capture their imagination, or, preferably, enable them to experience by doing or holding something connected with the talk or story; finally, for maximum acceptance, my point must be simple to understand and delivered in a short space of time.

Year three
The teaching style and language had moved up a notch: there was less obvious and persistent instruction; there was a more ‘open’ style of teaching in which children were encouraged to ask questions, seek clarification and work/find things out for themselves; if children didn’t understand words, they were encouraged to look them up in a dictionary. Children were obviously not only learning by reading and being told, but also by ‘doing’. Most of the children appeared to have more confidence in themselves and felt able to question and challenge if they needed to. I sensed an awareness of boundaries but freedom to learn and work within them (most of the time!). It was also clear to me that a transition had begun, away from a ‘me in the centre’ view of life to a ‘me as part of a group’ view: the engagement with, and awareness of, others within the group was very strong.

This attitude also extended to the group’s interaction with faith, spirituality and ethical issues: in RE lessons there was more discussion and questioning about God and faith and less ‘acceptance’; awareness of feelings and emotions was more evident in class discussions and inter-active teaching, as I saw when, in a lesson teaching the basics of good diet and fitness, a discussion about anorexia developed and it was handled sensitively and maturely by the class. Examples of poetry and prayers pinned on boards around the classroom showed an awareness in some of spirituality and ‘otherness’.

Also, story, both in terms of reading for themselves and in being read to, was important for children in this class and, in the context of ‘otherness’, an awareness of fantasy stories of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings was very strong, with connections being made to Biblical stories and differences discussed. As with year one children, therefore, story is an effective teaching aid.

As a preacher working with 7 and 8 year olds I can see that an inter-active and more participatory approach would be most suitable – encouraging conversation with the children or getting them involved through story or in physically doing something rather than just talking to them and expecting them to both listen and understand. Again though, the subject matter and point of any ‘talk’ must be straightforward and capture the attention and imagination of the children.

Year six
What I observed in the children of this age was that most now had a clear picture of themselves and their own identities and modelled their behaviour to fit. On the whole, most were far more independent and confident than year three students and obviously knew this – and some made the most of it by being ‘characters’ in the class. The group ethos was quite strong, both in class and at break times, when, for girls, the attraction of playing games had gone, to be replaced by standing around in groups talking, whereas the boys still played football.

Much of the class teaching was reinforced by ‘hands-on’ group working. For example, after hearing and discussing the famous legend of Icarus and Dedalus, the children were asked to work in groups to prepare an 8-picture storyboard and then given video cameras to go around the school and improvise the action on the storyboard to make a video of the legend. Other lessons involved children making models or drawing pictures to show what they had learned. This practical approach really seemed to appeal to most boys and girls and to motivate them to try and produce good work.

The ability to engage with the spiritual and ‘other’ was also still quite mixed. In one exercise, the class were asked to imagine they were living in a country where, because of fighting and ethnic cleansing, they had to move out and leave all their furniture and belongings behind. The task was to write down five things they would carry in their rucksack which would remind them of ‘home’, friends they might not see again and better times. A lot of children had listed photographs, stones, bits of wood, a flower and so on and gave quite moving narratives for each.

In working with children of this age and older, then, I would want to work more with inter-action and dialogue than with story or ‘doing’ things – the last thing children of this age want is to be singled out from the group to stand at the front in Church and possibly be made a spectacle of. The ability to concentrate on a talk is more developed at this age, though the concentration span is still quite short, so the importance of brevity, maintaining interest and relevance throughout is essential.

Conclusion
It is easy for many of us, as preachers, to think we are good at the children’s address in a service because the adults tell us they liked that bit of the service. Whilst that in itself is good news in part, when did a child last tell you he/she liked your talk?

From what I have learned through my placement, I offer some guidance to preachers leading worship or school assemblies:

• Find out what ages of children are likely to be in a service and tailor your talk accordingly; some pointers are relevant for all ages:
• Grab the attention at the start with an object or a picture or a simple bold comment
• Keep your language simple and repeat yourself as necessary
• Keep the subject/content simple
• Concentrate on making only one or, at most, two key points, clearly stated

Be realistic about what will work for each age range:

• Story works well at all levels, but it is hard to find one which suits all ranges
• Don’t expect very young children to interact well with you, older children are likely to respond better, with answers you would expect
• If you want to engage older children, use them as a group and ask them to do things they can do together, like act out a situation/story and/or read a sketch. They are more likely to do this with a few days notice (which also gives them time to rehearse).

Use different components to try to engage all ages:

• have a visual aid to grab attention of all;
• tell a story, simply, for benefit of very young ones, making the point of the story clear;
• in asking questions about it focus on older children to respond;
• pose ‘what if’ type questions to develop the story and to try to engage the oldest children in dialogue;
• if you need to bring ‘volunteers’ out to the front, look to ‘middle’ range children to help, though accept younger ones if they come – just don’t expect them to get it right!

Research has shown that children take in:

• 10% of what they hear
• 50% of what they see
• 60% of they say
• 90% of what they do.

Preachers need to be very mindful of this!

In addition to ‘normal’ worship I have also applied all of these techniques at the monthly Saturday teatime family services I started in my Church a year ago. We clear all the chairs out of church and put tables and chairs round the edges, café style, for families. It was here I discovered I needed help trying to lead worship for 15 -20 children mostly under the age of 7. In this environment, the use of separate clear times for activity (using the big floor space), story (with everyone sitting on the floor together listening and looking at pictures projected onto a screen) and prayer (families sitting and praying together at their tables) works very well.

Overall, I think it is important for preachers to be realistic about how much the children of each age range have absorbed: a percentage would have taken in only a minimal amount of what was said, however I believe that what is important for the children at this age is how they feel about the whole ‘Church’ experience, that it was ‘warm’, comfortable, fun or safe.

Rev. Andy Laird is the Minister of Kenilworth Methodist Church. This article was inspired by the two articles in Ichthus, Autumn 2004. Frank Beetham, the author of one of those items, is a member at his Church.?Andy has not sought to duplicate anything those writers have done or to play it down but his work is intended to complement theirs. The photos were taken by and reproduced with permission from Mr Peter Morris.
www.kenilworthmethodist.org