The First Day School’s Corner of the World: April 2022
By RE Coordinator Charlotta Koppanyi
April is here – a month of Easter and Earth Month! Some celebrate Easter with family and friends, recognizing the religious and spiritual significant; some celebrate Earth Month with family and friends, recognizing the impact our earth has on our daily life and future; and some celebrate both.
For Easter Sunday all our students in RE will have joint class, hearing the story An Easter Story for Friends: The Power of God's Love. Following class, we will have our annual Easter Egg Hunt in our yard. Bunnies of all sizes are welcome to join us and “guard the yard”. The collected eggs will be exchanged for a goodie bag with treats for each “bunny” (student). I hope you can join us for this traditional and fun event. A shared Easter Potluck would need to wait another year, and something I think we all are looking forward to.
On the Sunday before Easter, Palm Sunday, our Intermediate students will have a guest teacher who will talk about Palm Sunday and Easter traditions. Our guest teachers are much appreciated by our students and they are an important part of our RE program in creating intergenerational relationships and making it possible for participating adults to meet our students where they are. Guest teachers bring knowledge and perspective to the class which is important both from the educational aspects as well as those of a religious and spiritual experience being shared. Let me know if you are interested in being a guest teacher, either this year or next year. As things look for the moment it seems we will have a Primary, an Intermediate and a Middle School class.
Our Primary students will continue hearing stories from the Bible and one Quaker story until June 5, Recognition Sunday, when all students will have a joint class hearing the Quaker story Listening for God, before we will join the upstairs for our special celebration. Sunday, May 29th is a fifth Sunday and we will join the upstairs after a shorter RE class.
As mentioned, April is Earth Month and for many of our students our earth, nature, and the climate change is a reality that is close to their hearts. Our Quaker testimonies include stewardship of the earth as well as simplicity. How can we live in simplicity? How can we live with more sustainability? There are many ways to do this – some are small everyday things, others are a larger judgement with a greater impact. One way we do this in our RE classrooms concerns the toys and materials we use. We have nice bamboo boxes for our crayons and pens, our parable story boxes are handmade in wood and painted, we have wooden building blocks and plants – yes, we do also have some plastic toys in the Nursery, however overall, the toys are made of natural materials. This was a conscious choice, a statement, and follows our religious and spiritual path. Being in nature can be done in so many ways; walking in the forest, sailing on the open sea, climbing rocks and mountains or just playing in the yard of EFM. Many people find a spiritual and religious experience in nature which both connects and grounds them. So, let’s spend some time in nature and connect to that which is bigger than us and to ground ourselves both to the earth and to ourselves.
A wonderful opportunity to experience Quakerism, friends, and nature is to join us, in person this year, Wednesday, June 15 – Sunday, June 19, all the days or just one or two, at the Illinois Annual Session at McNabb. For more information, please feel free to see me, read next month’s RE article or go to https://ilym.org/ilym/2022annualsessions/