Ecojustice and music education

I’ve started reading an article about combining ecojustice education with music education. It’s kind of theoretical, but there’s good content buried beneath the academic prose style. I’m fascinated with the topic, because our ecojustice camp curriculum includes singing and natural soundscapes as crucial curriculum components.

Below is the abstract of the article (followed by a full citation and a link to the full article):

“Children who are supported throughout childhood and adolescence to both
maintain their sense of wonder in nature, and honor and explore their
wild human nature, are well positioned to mature into soulcentric adults
capable of living into their purpose in service to both their culture
and the whole of life. However, our society’s ecocidal culture and
unjust institutions often replicate oppressions and promote egocentric
behaviors that preclude thriving. Additionally, many children are
alienated from nature and are thought to have nature-deficit disorder,
which can include both mental and physical maladies. In this article I
explore conceptions of ecojustice education to further illustrate
pathways for curriculum development in music education that might
encourage children and adolescents to maintain their sense of wonder in
nature, fully develop their sensory capacities, support their mental and
emotional wellbeing, attune more carefully to their wild nature and
soul’s purpose, and contribute to the environmental and social
commons — all which might support human flourishing and the continued
survival of our species.”

Citation: “Music Education for Surviving and Thriving: Cultivating Children’s Wonder, Senses, Emotional Wellbeing, and Wild Nature as a Means to Discover and Fulfill Their Life’s Purpose,” by Tawnya D. Smith, Music Education, School of Music, College of Fine Arts, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States. Frontiers in Education, 16 April 2021, Sec. Educational Psychology, vol. 6, 2021 — https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.648799 — Link to the article.

Child protection resource

Our congregation here in Cohasset, Mass., operates a preschool. The school is currently updating its child protection policy. As part of their research, the school’s governing board found the YMCA’s Child Abuse Prevention Policies.

If you deal with child safety issues, the whole policy is worth reading. But I especially appreciated three parts of this policy document.

1. First, they offer guidance on what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate physical interactions. Appropriate physical interactions include:

  • Side hugs
  • Shoulder-to-shoulder…hugs
  • Pats on the shoulder or back
  • Handshakes
  • High-fives and hand slapping
  • Verbal praise
  • Pats on the head when culturally appropriate
  • Touching hands, shoulders, and arms
  • Arms around shoulders
  • Holding hands (with young children in escorting situations)

Personally, I’d be more restrictive than this list— e.g., I’d be very reluctant to pat a child on the head, or touch shoulders. And I’d only put arms around shoulders in extreme situations, e.g., when comforting a crying child. Nevertheless, I think this is a good summary. I’ll let you look at the actual document to see what constitutes inappropriate touch. (No sitting on laps! No piggyback rides!)

2. Also worth looking at is the YMCA’s straightforward summary of appropriate electronic communications. No private messaging with a Facebook “friend” who is under age! No “friending” under age people on any social media!

3. Third, I really appreciated their policy on “Managing the risk when one staff member is alone with one youth.” We have policies where you should never be alone one-on-one with a legal minor. And there are always times when it seems necessary, e.g., when talking about a young person about behavior issues. Straightforward guidance — if you have to have a one-on-one, do so in a public place where you are in full view of others (I’ve done this where I made sure my supervisor was nearby, and deliberately watching). If you have to meet in a room, leave the door open. If a young person discloses abuse, etc., document it immediately.

A final comment: What I especially like about this document is that it answers just about all the questions I’ve ever gotten from volunteers and paid staff when I’ve done training in child abuse prevention policies.

History resource

Our congregation — as is true, I suspect, of many older congregations — is in the process of researching our past relationship with non-White people. Some of the questions we’re currently wondering about:

  • Was slave labor used to build our 1747 meetinghouse? (Almost assuredly yes, but we can’t document it yet.)
  • What was the social status of non-White people? (People of African and Native descent could not sit on the main floor in the 18th C.; we believe this was also true of indentured White servants, but we can’t yet document that.)
  • Did the congregation have non-White members in the 18th or 19th centuries? (A couple in the first half of the 18th century, both Native, then apparently none until the 20th century.)

These questions are difficult to research. So I was grateful to learn about the Atlantic Black Box website. The subtitle of the website sums up their efforts: “Researching and Reckoning with New England’s Role in Colonization and Enslavement.” I’ve been finding lots of resources for doing local history research on non-White people. Their short essay on “Researching Slavery and Black Life in Early New England” alone has already proved to be quite helpful to me.

If you’re part of an older congregation in New England — definitely worth checking this out.

Update, 23 April: Of related interest: Congregational Library’s “Black and Indigenous Research Guide” for New England Congregational churches, whichincludes a number of digitized 18th C. documents.

Tortoise and a man named Tela

Another story for liberal religious kids. This one is from the Yoruba tradition. While this story has a mythological elements — it tells how Tortoise got the joints in its shell — it is also a morality tale. Tortoise is another animal trickster figure who is featured in many stories — sometimes he gets the better of others, but sometimes, as in this story, his greed gets the better of him. Another Yoruba story about Tortoise.

Once there was a shortage of food throughout the land. Àjàpá the Tortoise, who was a very sensible animal, was friendly with a man named Tela. Tortoise was sick with hunger, because he didn’t know where he could get food. But Tela knew where he could get food. Now and again Tela went to this place, and got food and ate it there.

At last Tortoise said to Tela, “You look well-fed, but I get nothing to eat. You are my friend, yet you never show me where you get food.”

“I thought of taking you,” said Tela, “but I know you to be very clever. I fear that you will go to my place without my permission. Because of that, I have not told you.”

Tortoise kept asking, though, and at last Tela promised to take him to the place. When they got to the place, Tortoise saw it was just a rock. But Tela sang:

“This rock must open because I, Prince Tela, the owner of the house have come!”

Then the rock opened and Tela and Tortoise went inside. They found plenty of food, and they ate until they were full. After they had finished, they left the place, each going to his own home.

The next day Tela was away from home. So Tortoise went all around the countryside, inviting all the people to come to Tela’s place to get food. When everyone arrived at the place, Tortoise sang:

“This rock must open because I, Prince Tela, the owner of the house have come!”

The rock did not know that it was not Tela who sang, but Tortoise. So the rock opened, all the animals went inside, and they finished all the food in the store.

When they had finished eating, Tortoise said, “I will be the last to go.” But just as Tortoise was leaving, the rock closed and trapped him, half in and half out.

Just then, Tela felt hungry. When he got to the rock, he saw the head of Tortoise sticking. Tela said, “How is it that I find you here? When I brought you here the day before yesterday you promised you would not come, but now you have come, and from all the footprints in the dirt it looks like you brought friends with you.”

But Tortoise was in pain, and said only, “Get me out and don’t talk.” Tela, being hungry, commenced to sing:

“This rock must open because I, Prince Tela, the owner of the house have come!”

Just as before, the rock opened. Now Tela was very hungry, and because of the food he thought lay before him, did not stop to talk with Tortoise. But when Tela went in, he saw that all was eaten, and nothing was left.

Tela was so angry that he caught Tortoise up and was about to crush him. “Have patience and I will tell you all,” said Tortoise, and he told the entire story. And Tortoise added, “I have to admit that there is something that always makes me tell things I ought not to tell.”

“I have no time for this sort of thing,” said angry, hungry Tela. He dropped Tortoise on the rock and smashed his shell all to pieces.

Then the big ants and other insects gathered round, and tried to put Tortoise together again. They did the best they could, but they could not mend his back properly. So it is that the joints where the insects mended the Tortoise show on his back to this day.

Source

John Parkinson, “Yoruba Folk-Lore,” African Affairs, vol. VIII, no. XXX, January 1909, pp. 180-181 doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a098993

For a different version of this story, see ?gb??n ju agbára on The Yoruba blog.

Line drawing of a tortoise
Centrochelys sulcata, from Tortoises, Terrapins, and Turtles (London: Sotheran Baer & co., 1872).

Tortoise and Elephant

Another story for liberal religious kids, this time from the Yoruba people.

Tortoise one day told the other animals that he would ride Elephant, the way humans ride horses. But all the other animals said: “No, you can’t ride Elephant.”

Tortoise said, “Well, I will make a bet with you that I will ride Elephant into town.”

All the other animals agreed to the bet.

Tortoise went into the forest and met Elephant. He said, “Elephant, all the animals say you are too fat and too big to go into town.”

Hearing this, Elephant grew angry. He said, “The animals are fools. I do not go into town because I would rather stay in the forest. Besides, I do not know which path leads to town.”

“Oh, if that’s all,” said Tortoise, “you can come with me. I will show you the path that leads to town, and you can put all the other animals to shame.”

So Elephant followed along, and when they were near to town, Tortoise said: “Oh, Elephant, I am tired. Will you kindly allow me to get on your back?”

“Of course,” said Elephant. He knelt down, and Tortoise climbed up on his back. Then they continued along the path to town.

Then Tortoise said, “Elephant, you need to put on a good show when you get to town. So when I scratch your back, run. When I knock my head against your back, run faster. Then you will impress all the other animals.”

Elephant agreed that this sounded like a good idea.

When they came near the town, Tortoise scratched Elephant’s back. Elephant began to run. Next, Tortoise knocked Elephant’s back with his head. Elephant ran even faster.

The animals, when they saw this, were frightened. They went into their houses, but they looked out of their windows. And Tortoise called out to them: “Did I not say I would ride to town the way humans ride horses?”

“What do you mean that you ride me like humans ride horses?” said Elephant, growing angry.

“I am only praising you,” said Tortoise.

But Elephant saw the other animals laughing, and grew more angry. “I will throw you down on the hard stones here, and break you to pieces,” he cried.

“Yes, yes, that is right,” said Tortoise. “Throw me down here. That will be all right. Then I shall not be hurt. If you really wanted to kill me, you would carry me to a swamp. If you threw me in a swamp, I would die at once, for the mud and water would drown me.”

So Elephant ran to the swamp, and threw Tortoise into the mud. Then Elephant stretched out his foot to kick Tortoise, but Tortoise dived in the muddy water, and came up in another place.

The other animals were there, looking on, and Tortoise called out to them, “Did I not say I would ride Elephant the way humans ride horses?”

When Elephant found that he could not catch Tortoise, he ran back to the forest. There he said to the other elephants, “Do you know what Tortoise has done to me?” And he told the other elephants the story.

But the other elephants only said, “You were a fool to carry Tortoise to town.”

Since then Elephant has not come to town any more.

Source: Alfred Burdon Ellis, The Yoruba-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa : their religion, manners, customs, laws, language, etc : with an appendix containing a comparison of the Tshi, Gã, ?we, and Yoruba languages (London: Chapman and Hall, 1894).

More copyright-free hymns

This week someone contacted me about the copyright-free hymns I’ve posted online. This prompted me to look in my files, where I discovered I had another ten hymns ready to upload. Those ten new hymns are now online here. I’ll include info about these hymns below the jump.

Four of the newly-uploaded hymns are patriotic hymns. Unitarian Universalist hymnals used to include patriotic songs, but that ended with the 1993 gray hymnal. This was a short-sighted policy. Today, U.S. religious conservatives wrap themselves in the mantle of patriotism and maintain that theirs is the only patriotism. Well, Unitarians and Universalists were key players in the founding of the United States, and we need to reclaim that part of our heritage so that we can inject our own religious vies into contemporary political discourse — our views being that the U.S. is a democracy (not an autocracy) and is not a Christian country; that our country is founded on the separation of religion and the state; and that the revolution continues through our ongoing efforts to make sure all persons are treated as equals. With the approach of the 250th anniversary of the singing of the Declaration of Independence, it’s time for us to show our patriotism again. I’ve uploaded America, My Country ‘Tis of Thee, and The New Patriot, all taken from pre-1993 UU hymnals. I also uploaded Chester, a patriotic song actually written during the Revolution — it’s of limited use, but can be useful for Massachusetts congregations that recognize Patriots Day.

The other six hymns include African American spirituals, a hymn allegedly by Rabindranath Tagore, a South African song, etc. After you read the descriptions below, look for the songs on my music website.

Continue reading “More copyright-free hymns”

It came from a plant press

Back in early March, I wrote about how to make a cheap pocket plant press, showing a Common Snowdrop (Galanthus Nivalis) in the press. I finally got around to mounting the prseed plant, and here’s what the finished product looks like:

A pressed and dried flower mounted on cardstock.

I used polyvinyl acetate (PVA) glue (Elmer’s Glue) to mount the pressed-and-dried plant onto a piece of cardstock. PVA glue dries fairly clear, is reasonably non-acidic and flexible, will fill small gaps, and is cheap, making it a good choice for gluing dried plants to a base.

If you’re mounting a plant for an herbarium, you’d include the whole plant, roots and all. But I’m doing this for fun, so I didn’t include the roots. I mounted the plant with a bit of the stem extending off the cardstock. Then when the glue dried, I used a sharp knife to trim the stems at the edge of the card. Notice how I glued the petals down so that the inner parts of the flower are visible.

The end result is attractive, and even though it’s scientifically useless, I’m happy to have it for my own reference. I’m thinking of making a somewhat larger cheap pocket plant press — maybe 4 x 6 inches (10 x 15cm) — for slightly larger flowers.

As always, don’t collect plants unless you have permission to do so. These days, written permission is typically required for collecting on most federal lands (including national parks, Forest Service land, and often even BLM land), on many state lands, on nearly all wildlife sanctuaries, etc. — don’t collect unless you’re sure you’re allowed to do so. If it’s in your back yard or you know the landowner personally, you should be fine. PLUS, never collect rare or endangered plants, and never collect more than about 5% of a given species in a given location. The only exception would be invasive plants — e.g., here in Massachusetts, go ahead and collect all the Purple Loosestrife, Yellow Iris, Rosa Multiflora, etc., that you want.

Where do we learn from?

Carey Nieuwhof is the founding pastor of Connexus Church — a conservative Christian church that would probably give hives to most Unitarian Universalists. Carey Nieuwhof also has a leadership podcast that’s insanely popular, and a website and blog that reaches tens of thousand of people.

I may not agree with Carey Nieuwhof’s theology, and he’d probably call me a heretic or an apostate (I’m never quite clear on the distinction between heretic and apostate). Nevertheless, I read Nieuwhof’s tips on leadership. For example, I’ve found that his “Post-Modern Church Leader’s Survival Checklist” has given me some good food for thought. One of those tips, by the way, goes like this:

“The challenge for many of us in church leadership is that we listen to the same voices over and over again. You become a fan of a certain preacher, a certain theologian, and you read and listen to only them. I find I often learn the most from people who are least like me. Sometimes the answers to your problem lies outside your discipline, not within it.”

One of my concerns about Unitarian Universalism is that we’ve become an echo chamber. We are a tiny group. There are fewer Unitarian Universalists in the U.S. than there are members of the Living Faith Church in Lagos — fewer people in our whole denomination than there are in one single church.

Yet even though there are so few of us, we often seem reluctant to look for answers outside the ranks of Unitarian Universalism. If one Unitarian Universalist (UU) comes up with an idea, we all get on the bandwagon, and that becomes the only idea to consider. I saw this happen fifteen years ago when Thandeka challenged the prevailing UU opinion on anti-racism, and was ignored or even attacked. I’m actually quite critical of Thandeka’s thought in general, but I read her material anyway because I learn from it. And I agree with Carey Nieuwhof, with whom I have many profound disagreements, that we often learn the most from people who are least like us.

I see this dynamic also playing out in religious education. I learn far more from the Religious Education Association (REA), an international interfaith group of scholars and practitioners, than from the Liberal Religious Educators Association (LREDA). Sure, the REA has its own problems, and like LREDA it has its own little insider group of people who seem only to talk to each other. But the REA is making a distinct effort to include a diversity of viewpoints in its journal; for example, I learned a lot from an article about Korean American Christian religious education. By contrast, LREDA seems to focus almost exclusively on what’s going on within Unitarian Universalist religious education. The REA casts a much wider net than does LREDA.

Most recently, a friend pointed me to an article in Science of Mind magazine, telling about the Mile Hi Church in Lakewood, Colorado. Mile Hi Church, affiliated with the Centers for Spiritual Living (formerly Church of Religious Science), is huge by UU standards. Yet like the rest of us, in the aftermath of the pandemic, Mile Hi Church is struggling. Their “sanctuary is half full.” Instead of giving in to gloom, though, they say this:

“Five years ago, you simply counted the people in the seats. Today, you count the in-person attendance, the online live attendance, the people who watched the online recording over 24 hours, those who watched the message during the week, and the folks who listened to the podcast on Monday morning. And guess what? That’s OK. In fact, it’s exciting.”

I think it’s great to communicate with other Unitarian Universalists. But we can’t live in a UU echo chamber. One of the reasons I no longer attend General Assembly (GA) is that it feels like a UU echo chamber. I don’t learn as much at GA as I can learn by getting out into the wider world beyond Unitarian Universalism.

Most UU congregations are struggling in the aftermath of the pandemic. We can do as we usually do, and look inwards, listening mostly to other Unitarian Universalists. Or we can look outwards, and embrace the wild diversity that is the wider world.

Did he really say that?

“Pastor” John MacArthur — I’m putting the title “pastor” in quotes because he doesn’t sound very pastoral to me — has decided to proclaim that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was not a Christian. And before you ask, yes, MacArthur is an old White guy. Here’s what MacArthur said, according to Religion News Service:

“…Martin Luther King, who was not a Christian at all, whose life was immoral….I’m not saying he didn’t do some social good. And I’ve always been glad that he was a pacifist, or he could have started a real revolution….”

MacArthur was called out by a number of Black pastors. Rev. Charlie Dates, pastor of a Progressive Baptist church in Chicago, said:

“He cannot get away with this. He has to know that Black and Black-adjacent clergy around the country wholeheartedly disagree with him on theological grounds. He’s not the keeper of who’s Christian and who’s not.”

I’m sure MacArthur will simply ignore what Black Christian clergy say to him. MacArthur is another one of those Old White Guys in Power (OWGIPs) who think they get to set the rules. Actually, I’d say that people like MacArthur are the real heretics. They put themselves in the place of their God, trying to take away their God’s power to judge humankind.

With people like MacArthur saying stupid stuff like this, no wonder Christianity has such a bad name these days. Just try to remember that MacArthur is not really a Christian — Charlie Dates and Martin Luther King, Jr., are the real Christians.

A cartoon of John MacArthur saying, "Martin Luther King, who was not a Christian at all, whose life was immoral....I’m not saying he didn’t do some social good. And I’ve always been glad that he was a pacifist, or cluelss White guys like me would have been in big trouble."

Healthy youth programs

On Wednesday and Thursday, I attended a training in “CampWell,” a new wellness program that’s being developed by the Alliance for Camp Health (ACH). Created in cooperation with the American Camp Association (ACA), CampWell emphasizes training front-line staff “to identify, understand, cultivate, and create a community of well-being.” The training I attended was aimed at program directors and leaders, so they can train their staff to promote well-being both in themselves and in the campers they serve.

I wish this program existed when I was active in Unitarian Universalist (UU) youth ministry at the district and continental levels. Around the year 2000, I had a contract with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) to write training materials for youth advisors and youth leaders, and while I did the best I could with the scanty resources I had, the CampWell program makes me realize how inadequate those UUA trainings were.

CampWell benefits from a quarter of a century of research into social-emotional learning, MESH+ (mental, emotional, and social health), psychology of emotions, play, and more. CampWell is also much better funded than UUA youth ministry ever was, and the quality of the training materials is very high. Plus, ACH is engaged in ongoing research in how CampWell is implemented, which will lead to ongoing revision of the program.

While most UU organizations won’t be able to afford to send staff to CampWell trainings, here are some free or inexpensive resources on their website that could be useful in programs such as OWL, youth groups, summer camps, etc.:

MESH+ resource page — Scroll down for links to a variety of online resources. The links connect to other websites, such as ACA’s “Healthy Camp Toolbox” (wish I had this when I was helping plan overnight youth conferences), Search Institute info on fostering connections for positive youth development, and more.

MESH Pocket Guide — Meant to go in the backpacks of camp counselors, this 12 page folding guide gives tips for active listening, tips for when to seek help, tips for self-care, and more. While it may seem expensive at $8 each, the Guide is waterproof and tough, meant to stand up to hard use. I’ll be purchasing a couple to use in our congregation’s summer camp, and I also think it would be a great resource of OWL facilitators and youth advisors.

MESH Resource Guide — At $50, this is not cheap, but there’s lots of good material in here that could be shared with youth advisors, OWL facilitators, day camp staff, etc. Some of what’s included: an excellent overview of trauma in youth; causes and prevention of bullying; interacting with different types of parents; assessing youth participant behavior issues; and much more.

One final resource I learned about from the CampWell training — Mental Health First Aid. Given the epidemic of teen mental health issues we’re all seeing, this should be something every UU congregation learns about. Their motto is “Let’s make mental health first aid as common as CPR.” I completely agree. Now I just need to find a course near me.