Over this year we have undertaken a survey of students, teachers and parents to find out what they think in relation to Religion and Spirituality. Interesting.
The survey was designed to give us foundational information to develop further programs within a school environment such as The Stillness Project (meditation - more on this later). The survey is now being used by 5 other schools as a tool to help them reflect on their students attitudes and how they may respond in an approrpiate way.
To see the survey click on the link 'Religion and Spirituality Research 2011'.
Loved to hear what you think.
If you are interested in participating please email me.
Showing posts with label schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label schools. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 November 2011
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Parenting- A Simple Tip
Parenting is a tough job. Unfortunately we often have to balance parenting with a number of other tough jobs, like the one that pays the bills or that of maintaining our relationship with our partner, for example.
Finding enough time to spend with our children and to explore all those parenting things such as communication, encouraging achievements at home and school, boundary setting and teaching social skills is almost impossible. Yet there is one simple (not easy) way to achieve many of those goals at the one and same time.
Sharing one meal a day together for say 5 days per week around the dining room table. That would equal some 260 plus quality hours of parenting each year! Meals are a great time for people to share information and communicate, engage in that elusive eye contact necessary to reading the emotional moods of those you live and go to school with, raise interesting topics for discussion and allow questions to be asked and explored by all.
It may not sound like much but it’s a great way to begin, everybody has to eat, and if some simple ground rules are set at the beginning such as no talking with you mouth full, waiting for others to finish before you speak, no leaving the table until everyone is finished for example it could just be the start of an exciting adventure.
Research supports this simple approach and it is worth trying.
Finding enough time to spend with our children and to explore all those parenting things such as communication, encouraging achievements at home and school, boundary setting and teaching social skills is almost impossible. Yet there is one simple (not easy) way to achieve many of those goals at the one and same time.
Sharing one meal a day together for say 5 days per week around the dining room table. That would equal some 260 plus quality hours of parenting each year! Meals are a great time for people to share information and communicate, engage in that elusive eye contact necessary to reading the emotional moods of those you live and go to school with, raise interesting topics for discussion and allow questions to be asked and explored by all.
It may not sound like much but it’s a great way to begin, everybody has to eat, and if some simple ground rules are set at the beginning such as no talking with you mouth full, waiting for others to finish before you speak, no leaving the table until everyone is finished for example it could just be the start of an exciting adventure.
Research supports this simple approach and it is worth trying.
Friday, 29 January 2010
REDSHOES IN TWEED HEADS
Well, I am finally able to bring you all up to speed on the happenings since we left St Jude's.
After 2 heavy days on the ride (bottom sore), we arrived in Tweed Heads and stayed our first night in the dodgiest motel in town. (The only one who would take young Monty!).
We rocked up at the house to be greeted by the carriers, broken furniture and missing boxes! Fortunately we had arranged unpackers and this took some of the stress off. By dinner time the house was almost fully unpacked and we could sit down. Club life up here seems integral to people's existence so we ate out at the clubs thiose first few nights.
I have started at the school and it is very exciting. My second day at the school (19 Jan) I conducted a eucharist which was a great success. The red shoes, rednose and the Harley have been important to my settling in, not only with the students but the teachers! A number of teachers ride motorbikes so the first sunday here i went off with 60 bikers for a half day ride!! Great stuff!
The students have all been introduced to me and it's fun to watch them checking out which pair of red shoes I am wearing each day (I mix them up).
Have also settled into St Cuthbert's which is very different to St Jude's. I will be beginning the Sunday Services at The Evangelist Chapel at the Maher's Lane Campus on Sunday 14th February. That will be very exciting.
So we have survived the move and hope all out there in blog land are well.
Be sure to email me and let me know what is happening.
After 2 heavy days on the ride (bottom sore), we arrived in Tweed Heads and stayed our first night in the dodgiest motel in town. (The only one who would take young Monty!).
We rocked up at the house to be greeted by the carriers, broken furniture and missing boxes! Fortunately we had arranged unpackers and this took some of the stress off. By dinner time the house was almost fully unpacked and we could sit down. Club life up here seems integral to people's existence so we ate out at the clubs thiose first few nights.
I have started at the school and it is very exciting. My second day at the school (19 Jan) I conducted a eucharist which was a great success. The red shoes, rednose and the Harley have been important to my settling in, not only with the students but the teachers! A number of teachers ride motorbikes so the first sunday here i went off with 60 bikers for a half day ride!! Great stuff!
The students have all been introduced to me and it's fun to watch them checking out which pair of red shoes I am wearing each day (I mix them up).
Have also settled into St Cuthbert's which is very different to St Jude's. I will be beginning the Sunday Services at The Evangelist Chapel at the Maher's Lane Campus on Sunday 14th February. That will be very exciting.
So we have survived the move and hope all out there in blog land are well.
Be sure to email me and let me know what is happening.
Friday, 1 January 2010
REDSHOES MOVES ON
Well, it seems unreal but this Sunday (3rd january) is Gaye, I and Monty the dogs last SUnday at St Jude's. What a great time it has been. There have been some wonderful moments and I have enjoyed the company of all I have worked and worshipped with. Our Rector Greg has been a great mentor and support, especially through the difficult process towards ordination, as has Amanda and Jim. It has all been appreciated.
It seems just as unreal to be moving out on a journey as a priest in my own ministry. I, and many others, thought it would never happen, but it has. The journey to this place over the last 10 years has been amazing, surprising, challenging and stretching.
To all at St Jude's thank you so very much for the last 4 years and I look forward to staying in touch in the future.
Maybe, one day, I will return just as Jesus did from his sojourn in Egypt. Who knows the mind of God?
It seems just as unreal to be moving out on a journey as a priest in my own ministry. I, and many others, thought it would never happen, but it has. The journey to this place over the last 10 years has been amazing, surprising, challenging and stretching.
To all at St Jude's thank you so very much for the last 4 years and I look forward to staying in touch in the future.
Maybe, one day, I will return just as Jesus did from his sojourn in Egypt. Who knows the mind of God?
Thursday, 26 November 2009
School Chaplaincy
Maralyn Parker in the Telegraph (261109) raise some valid issues regarding chaplaincy in public schools and the funding of such by the taxpayer.
See Mrarlyn's comments at:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/maralynparker/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/public_schools_do_not_need_christian_chaplains/
Here is what I had to say in response in my email to her:
Maralyn
Thanks for charging up the debate. Looking at this thread and reading your comments I am aware that we view the world through our own biases and bring that too any debate particularly on issues such as religion.
As someone who has worked with young people for 30 years, and for much of that time in very difficult public schools, I suggest that a range of options are required if we are to safely navigate our children into adulthood. What we don’t need are zealots at play in the education system, and by zealots I mean those of all philosophical biases (including religion) who deem that there is only one solution to the situation at hand. There is not and to believe so is dangerous.
I have worked with chaplains, social workers, counsellors and youth workers who have been balanced, accepting and effective and I have worked with some in all those roles who were, to put it mildly, simply pushing their own particular biased ideologies.
I myself am a Christian but that does not limit me in whom I work with, whom I accept or how I work with others. As a Christian I am committed to life affirming acceptance of all regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and social status. I am not into proselytising. When I worked in schools (not as a paid chaplain by any organisation or government funding – voluntarily), I worked with one express purpose, to help young people to grow and become the person they discovered themselves to be. Not who I or any ideology or faith deemed them to be.
I also know that many chaplains have little or no education qualifications, but I also know many who do. I, for example, am completing my Masters this year and I would be advocating that all who work with young people have qualifications and extensive life experience to support through practice what they have learnt through study.
Philosophically I would not accept this grant money to work as a chaplain in a public school or for a chaplaincy organisation because both limit me to a set of outcomes which are not always in the best interest of the children, their parents, the staff and the schools. I have always negotiated my own arrangements with public schools through heads of school, staff rooms and P&C’s, and always to a positive outcome for all.
My negative comment to your comments is that you may be guilty of generalisation in terms of Christian chaplains and, perhaps, a blind spot to the biases of other disciplines, but as I said early, we all view the world through our biases.
So my comment is, if school chaplaincy in public schools is undertaken by people for the purpose of enhancing the life experience of others without a proselytising agenda, then it can add to the life of the school. But if it, and the other disciplines in the school are skewed by ulterior motives, then there is some danger afoot.
See Mrarlyn's comments at:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/maralynparker/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/public_schools_do_not_need_christian_chaplains/
Here is what I had to say in response in my email to her:
Maralyn
Thanks for charging up the debate. Looking at this thread and reading your comments I am aware that we view the world through our own biases and bring that too any debate particularly on issues such as religion.
As someone who has worked with young people for 30 years, and for much of that time in very difficult public schools, I suggest that a range of options are required if we are to safely navigate our children into adulthood. What we don’t need are zealots at play in the education system, and by zealots I mean those of all philosophical biases (including religion) who deem that there is only one solution to the situation at hand. There is not and to believe so is dangerous.
I have worked with chaplains, social workers, counsellors and youth workers who have been balanced, accepting and effective and I have worked with some in all those roles who were, to put it mildly, simply pushing their own particular biased ideologies.
I myself am a Christian but that does not limit me in whom I work with, whom I accept or how I work with others. As a Christian I am committed to life affirming acceptance of all regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and social status. I am not into proselytising. When I worked in schools (not as a paid chaplain by any organisation or government funding – voluntarily), I worked with one express purpose, to help young people to grow and become the person they discovered themselves to be. Not who I or any ideology or faith deemed them to be.
I also know that many chaplains have little or no education qualifications, but I also know many who do. I, for example, am completing my Masters this year and I would be advocating that all who work with young people have qualifications and extensive life experience to support through practice what they have learnt through study.
Philosophically I would not accept this grant money to work as a chaplain in a public school or for a chaplaincy organisation because both limit me to a set of outcomes which are not always in the best interest of the children, their parents, the staff and the schools. I have always negotiated my own arrangements with public schools through heads of school, staff rooms and P&C’s, and always to a positive outcome for all.
My negative comment to your comments is that you may be guilty of generalisation in terms of Christian chaplains and, perhaps, a blind spot to the biases of other disciplines, but as I said early, we all view the world through our biases.
So my comment is, if school chaplaincy in public schools is undertaken by people for the purpose of enhancing the life experience of others without a proselytising agenda, then it can add to the life of the school. But if it, and the other disciplines in the school are skewed by ulterior motives, then there is some danger afoot.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)