My church held its summer Vacation Bible School this week. I helped out with the music. Our theme hymn for the week was Lutheran Service Book #666 (yes, that is the number), "O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe." Below is a short video I took of our Associate Cantor going over the words of the hymn with one of the groups of children we worked with (there were four groups in all that we saw each day). By this time the children had memorized the first two stanzas of the hymn and we were in review mode. To aid in reviewing the words, I drew some pictures on the chalkboard to serve as memory triggers--one picture per phrase of the hymn.
Teaching "O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe" from Cheryl on Vimeo.
This is not what many would call an "easy" hymn. It is in a minor key. The text is rich in doctrinal teaching. But the children embraced this hymn and by the last day of VBS were requesting it as one of their favorites from the week. My 7-year-old has been humming it nonstop since VBS finished. I think this is a great illustration of the truth that children, like all people, love what they are taught to love. They embrace what their parents and teachers embrace. And they develop an appetite for what they are fed on a regular basis. I'm glad my church is feeding them the best.
Here are the children singing the hymn at the closing chapel service yesterday. The piano accompaniment was arranged by my husband. The little guy in red in the front row is Evan.
6 comments:
You know, even before I was a teacher, I would talk about how children rise to our expectations. It seems to me that over the past twenty plus years, the expectations for children level has dropped so very low. They are capable of so very much. Thanks for sharing this lovely reminder to aim high, so to speak.
Thank you for the comment, Myrtle. You are spot on!
I am too weary and shell-shocked to write what I want to about this, but when I taught second grade, my children ended up with the highest reading scores in the district.
When applying for a position, the Superintendent (I interviewed with him having come late into the game since I had been in Africa as a missionary until June) asked me what graded I wanted. I told him nothing less than third, because while I was teaching in Africa I realized how unprepared I was to actually teach reading. I was given a 5th grade class, but was switched to 2nd grade the week before school.
As an ex-literacy professor, I know now why what I did worked, but my second graders read books and wrote stories all year long. In a low-income area, they excelled because I never stopped to entertain the idea that they would be poor readers and writers.
When I was in 5th grade, my teacher wanted to win a bet with another teacher regarding which class would collect the most aluminum cans. When all was said and done, a semi-truck had to come to collect our cans...tens of thousands of them...the most ever collected in the nation even when entire schools were compared to our class. She never let us think that we wouldn't "win."
When I was an undergrad, we were told the "story" about the teacher who was looking over her student's IQs before the school year began and sweated about how she was going to keep them from being bored, how she was going to teach an entire class of brilliant students. At the end of the year, she was talking about how relieved she was to have been able to do so when someone pointed out the IQ scores were actually locker numbers.
The story is probably a fake one, a pre-Internet SNOPES entry. Yet, I believe with my whole heart the essence is true. Children rise to our expectations. It grieves me how low we aim.
Even with adults we aim low...resigned to 4th grade writing in our public pieces and being able to grab someone's attention in 15 seconds and hold it for no more than 10 or 15 minutes.
I really enjoyed this blog entry. Truly.
Love that hymn, Cheryl. And I like you, Myrtle. :-)
At the congregation where our firstborn was baptized, the organist / choir director has the kids singing entire Bach cantatas. They can do it because no one informed them that it's too difficult, or that they are too young to do major works.
I get really cranky if my child breaks the 2nd commandment. I am almost equally as cranky if I hear (ooooh, it's pains me to write this 4-letter word!) CAN'T.
I think this is a great illustration of the truth that children, like all people, love what they are taught to love. They embrace what their parents and teachers embrace. And they develop an appetite for what they are fed on a regular basis.
How true. Thanks Cheryl.
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