Directions
for use of: Who Are Our Partners
Around the World?
A UU Partner Church Council Curriculum
by Betsy Hill Williams <bwilliams120@charter.net>
The
following advisors have collaborated so far on this project:
Gretchen
Thomas (the UUPCC RE Materials Group chair and field test coordinator)
Darihun
Khriam, Nangroi Suting, and Derrick Pariat (for the Khasi Hills lesson),
Jozsef
Kaszoni, Istvan Kovacs, Kinga Reka Zsigmond, and Ruth Gibson (for the Transylvania
and Partnership lessons),
Pat
Hoertdoerfer (for the Khasi Hills and North America lessons),
Jory
Agate and Rebecca Quimada Sienes (for the Philippines lesson).
David
Room daveroom@yahoo.com
(for web site and downloading expertise)
Gretchen
Thomas gthomas@attglobal.net
is the coordinator of the field test. She will give each field test site
coordinator easy-to-use feedback forms to fill out by the teachers after each
lesson. Of course you will have questions
as you go along, and you should send them to Gretchen who will do her best
to answer quickly. But if you have questions about or problems with
downloading the materials, please contact David Room daveroom@yahoo.com
directly.
The
final curriculum will be written
after we incorporate your suggestions for changes and additions. We plan to add photos and coloring pages
(for the youngest participants) to each of the traveling lessons. The final curriculum will include additional
lessons on Unitarians in the Czech Republic, and Britain, and perhaps a
division of the North American lesson into two separate lessons for the United
States and Canada Unitarian Universalists.
We plan for it to be completely final and ready in January of 2004.
We have made a commitment to
produce all our materials so they can be downloaded from the Partner Church
Council’s website at http://www.uua.org/uupcc/resources/rematerials . This will make it possible for our partners all over
the world (as well as interested parents of RE class members, UU History
classes, and Partner Church Committee members) to use these materials. On the one hand, this means that our users
must add the steps of downloading and printing out the curriculum and
materials. On the other hand, this
means the curriculum is free and accessible to any congregation with a computer
and printer.
Introduction for Fall 2003
Field Testers
Welcome
to the new Partnership curriculum! We greatly appreciate your volunteering to
try out this new curriculum and tell us how it can be improved and
clarified. There are many congregations
(including ones in other partner countries) eagerly waiting for your results so
that they can then use these lessons.
You
will need to form the following set of volunteers
to help you provide this curriculum:
1. A
coordinator of this effort whose job is to recruit the following team members,
organize and encourage their work, and make sure the field test feedback forms
are filled out and sent back.
2. Teachers: Ideally, a team of three teachers, two of whom
are at each lesson. A set of rotating
teachers’ helpers. Or you could do
this with the same one teacher each week assisted by rotating helpers.
It all depends upon how large your class is.
Your partner church committee members may be eager to take turns serving
as a teachers’ helper and snack provider.
3. One
knowledgeable, patient computer person with a quite fast (broad band) internet
connection who can download Adobe Acrobat and winzip (or stuffit) files, whose
computer is connected to a color as well as black and white printer that can
print on both regular paper and card stock.
4. A
large Games Assembly Team who will attend one (or maybe two?) workparties
to make multiple copies of the games for the four traveling lessons. We suggest partner church committee members
and quilters as well as those good at arts and crafts and working with paper.
There’s mostly assembly line style cutting and gluing involved.
5. A
vital member of the Assembly Team has to be a good paper cutter. (More than one is even better.)
6. Someone
with a digital camera and color printer who will take and print passport pictures
(see passport page for the correct size) at the first lesson and continue
to make more during later lessons for any late joiners.
7. Cooks
to buy, make, and deliver snacks for the four traveling lessons. (see #2 above)
8. Someone
to donate an old, interesting, large suitcase.
9. Anyone
who speaks the languages of the partners and/or has visited there and brought
back souvenirs and photos.
10. A
good song teacher to help the class learn “Under One Sky “ with its new partnership
words (first used in Lesson #2)
We’ve
made some last-minute changes to our original curriculum plan to accommodate
this curriculum being presented in 6 (or more) consecutive sessions during the
summer and fall of 2003. There are six lessons. The first is an introduction,
titled Opening Lesson #1: Our Partners
Around the World, and should definitely be done first. Four of the
remaining lessons are “traveling” lessons, in which you visit and learn about
four different countries where the PCC partners with Unitarian or Unitarian
Universalist congregations. We suggest you pick two of these for Lessons # 2
and #3. (If your congregation has a partner church, choose that session as one
of these early sessions.) The Mid-way
Lesson #4 gives you a break from the game format. It is titled What Is
Partnership? It is similar to the
lessons in what will hopefully be a second curriculum (probably 6 lessons,
which we hope to write next year) about how and why we do international
partnerships. Lessons #5 and #6 are the remaining “traveling” lessons. If your
congregation is in North America we suggest saving Our Partners in North America until last.
Opening
Lesson #1: Our Partners Around the World
Our
Partners in the Khasi Hills
Mid-way
Lesson #4: What Is Partnership?
Our
Partners in the Philippines
U.S. Closing Lesson (Host) (Traveling)
Curriculum Assembly
It
is necessary for you to recruit an Assembly Team from your congregation’s
Partner Church Committee and Friends (the Friends might be quilters and other
people who enjoy/are good at arts and crafts and working with paper) to assemble
the games for these lessons as well as prepare the snack for the participants
(particularly the snack for the Transylvania lesson which requires cooking).
One or even two persons absolutely cannot make all the games. Instead of gluing up any of them by
yourself, put your effort into recruiting a Team and gathering the materials
and tools they need to meet and put together the multiple copies of the four
games for the class.
The
person downloading these documents for you (downloading
is transferring the documents to your own computer so you can print and use
them) needs to have a broad band internet connection, ideally with a connection
to a high-speed color as well as black and white printer.
Quite
a few of these documents are PDF files that contain graphics. The highlighted ones are in color. To download
PDF files you need the software program Adobe Acrobat on your computer.
If you don’t have Acrobat, it can be easily downloaded for free in
about 10 minutes or less from the internet site http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
These
documents appear as links on the
list of materials you will need for each lesson. For instance, to download
Lesson #1, start by opening “Lesson #1 Lesson Plan.” First print a copy of the
Lesson Plan itself. (It’s easy to forget to print it.) Then, click the links in the Materials
Needed section to download the documents for that lesson.
But
there are two ways to do this:
The
files for each lesson can be downloaded one-by-one from the links you will find
listed in the Lesson Plan for each lesson. Or (much better) they can be
downloaded more quickly, and take up much much less room on your computer (some
of these files are huge because they are all graphics) if you download them
from the zip link (if your computer uses windows) or the stuffit link
(if you use Macintosh).
Documents to download and
print
[The
number of copies needed is one, unless noted otherwise. All can be copied in black and white, but
color is much preferred; it makes the games much more attractive and fun to
play. Color documents are highlighted;
they come out well in black and white.
Most files should be copied on paper, but a few are better copied on
light colored card stock. This is also
noted. OR you can copy everything on paper and glue the papers to card stock
where its stiffness is needed—but this means an extra cut/glue step.]
For
Opening Lesson #1 “Our Partners Arund the World” you will need to download and
print:
For
Mid-way Lesson #4: What is Partnership? you will need to download and print:
For
each of the four traveling lessons
you will need to download and print:
For
each of the four traveling lessons games you are making you will need to
download and print:
The
traveling lessons are the ones where you will need the most help. After
downloading and printing, each game
set (and you will need one for every 4-6
participants you expect for the lesson) requires an hour to assemble by one
person working alone with a sharp paper cutter. Longer if you use a rotary cutter or (don’t try this!) good paper
scissors. A work party of your Partner
Church Committee and DYI Friends would accomplish this well. It is definitely
too much for one person to do.
Game Assembly Materials
Game Assembly Instructions
The Partnership Suitcase
We
suggest you use an old, large, interesting suitcase as a storage place for all
the materials for this curriculum. Use the suitcase for dramatic effect,
pulling out props throughout the lesson as needed and keeping the participants
passports safe, as a trip leader would do.
Storage of the Lesson
Material
We
suggest you use several accordion-type folders to keep the components for each
lesson (game board, cards, and stories) together and to keep the different
lesson materials separated from each other.
Snack
Snack
suggestions have been made for the four traveling lessons. We suggest you
involve the Partner Church Committee in your congregation with making the snack
for each lesson. Two (the Transylvania and Philippines snacks) have special
recipes that are linked to their lesson plans. The other two simply require
shopping ahead and assembling familiar foods. The first and fourth lessons
(non-traveling lessons) do not have snack suggestions. If you customarily have
a snack, use whatever you usually have for those two lessons. If you don’t
usually have a snack, you won’t need to provide one for these lessons.
HAVE
FUN!