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:
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.
Another story for liberal religious kids — well, maybe. I find this to be a challenging story. Buddha walks out on his wife and baby? I’ve known families where one parent walked out, ostensibly to “find themselves,” not unlike what the the Buddha did. But we should tell such a story to kids? Maybe like fairy tales, which put into words some of the things children fear most, this is in fact the kind of story we should share with kids. Another argument for telling this story to liberal religious kids: Sophia Fahs included her version of this story in her book From Long Ago and Many Lands, aimed at middle elementary grades, and Fahs had plenty of insight into the developmental capacity of children to understand difficult stories. Unfortunately, Fahs only included three of the four sights, so I wouldn’t use her version. That’s why I came up with my own version.
For this story I didn’t go back to one original sources, because this story is told and retold so often in the Buddhist tradition. I did the best I could to synthesize what I knew of the story. Consider this a provisional retelling of this tale. Leave any corrections in the comments.
Once upon a time, a prince named Gotama lived in a royal palace in the land of Kapilavastu, which was on the border between the countries we now call India and Nepal. Gotama’s family was very wealthy. As he grew up, the prince had everything money could buy. He had servants to take care of every need. He had the finest food. He had all the toys he could wish for.
The story is told that while Gotama was still young, a sage came to visit his parents, the King and the Queen. This sage was very wise. He looked at the young boy and said, “This child will grow up to be either a great king, or a great spiritual leader.”
Now his father wanted Gotama to become king after the father died. Therefore, the King decided that the young prince must never see anything that might raise spiritual questions in him. The King instructed everyone in the palace that Prince Gotama must never be allowed to go outside the palace grounds by himself, lest he fall into conversation with a wandering spiritual person. The King also ruled that Prince Toama must not see anyone who was ill, or disabled in any way, nor anyone who was old. The King also ruled that if someone died, the prince should hear nothing of it. Thus the King hoped to keep the prince from asking any spiritual questions.
To keep Gotama happy, the King and Queen gave him everything he could want, so that he would want to stay inside the palace grounds. And when he was old enough, they found the kindest and most beautiful young woman in all the kingdom to marry the Prince. Both the prince and his new wife were vary happy, and they became even more happy when they had their first child together. The King and Queen hoped that the prince had forgotten his wish to leave the palace on his own.
One day, when he was twenty-nine years old, Gotama went out of the palace to go hunting, accompanied by his servant Channa. As they were riding along on their two horses, they came upon a man lying beside a rock, groaning in pain.
“What is wrong with this man?” asked Gotama.
“He is ill,” said Channa.
“But why is he in such pain?” said Gotama.
“It is the way of life,” said Chana. “It is just what happens when people are ill.” And they rode on.
When he was back at the palace, he tried to ask the wise men there about illness, but they would not answer his questions.
Gotama and Channa went out hunting again. As they rode along, they passed a woman whose hair was white and whose skin was wrinkled, and who used a cane to walk.
“What is wrong with this woman?” asked Gotama.
“She is old,” said Channa.
“But what do you mean by ‘old’?” said Gotama.
“It is the way of life,” said Channa. “It happens to anyone who lives a long time.”
Back at the palace, Gotama tried to ask the wise men there about being old, but they would not answer his questions.
Gotama and Channa went out hunting again. As they rode along, they came across man lying as if asleep. But Gotama could not wake him.
“What is wrong with this man?” asked Gotama.
“He is dead,” said Channa. “This is the way of life, people must one day die.”
Gotama and Channa went out hunting a fourth time and saw a wandering holy person. Gotama asked Channa who he was.
“He is a wandering holy person,” said Channa. “He wanders around the world begging for his food, and seeking spiritual enlightenment.”
This was something Prince Gotama had never heard of before. That night, Gotama could not sleep. He remembered both the suffering he had seen, and the holy man seeking enlightenment. Gotama realized that he himself would one day face illness, old age, and death.
“I must leave the palace where I’m always protected,” he thought to himself. “I must find answers to my questions.”
He got up, and told Channa to saddle his horse. The he looked in at the bedroom where his wife and their child lay sleeping. If he left the palace, he worried that his his wife and son would not be safe. He didn’t want to make them go with him.
He stood looking at them, wondering what to do. Should he stay? Or should he go?
As it happens, we know what Prince Gotama did. He left his wife and child behind, went out into the wide world, and after many hardships he became the Buddha, the Enlightened One, one of the greatest spiritual leaders the world has ever known. Knowing that, what would you do? Would you stay and become a great king, or leave and become a great spiritual leader? Would you give up the chance of being enlightened to stay with your family?
Siddhartha Gotama taking leave of his wife and baby. (CC-BY-SA 3.0 Nomu420; modified by me.)
The Rabbis taught that if you are going to judge a case between two people, you must not accept any kind of money or gift from either person, you must not accept anything that might look like a bribe. You must show everyone that you will remain completely neutral, and completely honest.
Obviously, a judge should not accept money from either person in a lawsuit. But the rabbis taught that a judge must be so honest that he or she does not accept anything, no gifts, no favors, not even a kind word.
To show what they meant, they told this story:
Once upon a time, Rabbi Ishmael rented part of his land to a tenant-farmer. The tenant-farmer paid part of the rent by bringing fruits and vegetables to Rabbi Ishmael every Friday, the day before the Sabbath day.
But one week, the tenant-farmer brought some fruit to Rabbi Ishmael on a Thursday — a big basket full of luscious, ripe grapes. Rabbi Ishmael loved grapes, but before he took the basket he said, “Thank you for bringing the grapes, but why do you bring me grapes on a Thursday, instead of your regular day, Friday?”
“It’s like this, Rabbi,” said the tenant-farmer. “I have a lawsuit, and I would like you to be the judge for this lawsuit. And as long as I was coming up here to talk to you about being the judge, I thought I’d bring your regular weekly delivery of fruit. So I brought you your basket of grapes.”
“No, no,” said Rabbi Ishmael, “I cannot be your judge. Take the grapes back to your house, and I will go find two other rabbis to act as judge for you.”
Confused, the tenant-farmer took the basket of grapes back to his house, even though they were really Rabbi Ishmael’s grapes.
Rabbi Ishmael went out to find two other rabbis to act as judge in the lawsuit, and brought them to meet the tenant-farmer. The two other rabbis began to ask the tenant-farmer about the lawsuit, and the tenant-farmer answered as best he could.
Rabbi Ishmael stood to one side, watching and listening, and he thought to himself, “Why doesn’t the tenant-farmer give better answers?” At one point, Rabbi Ishmael was on the point of breaking in and telling the tenant-farmer what to say, but he caught himself in time.
“Look at what has happened to me,” said Rabbi Ishmael to himself. “Here I am, secretly hoping that the tenant-farmer will win his case, and I didn’t even accept a bribe. I didn’t even accept the grapes that were really mine, but came a day early. What would I have done if I had accepted a real gift, a real bribe!”
One day, a man came to Rabbi Shamai to ask about becoming a Jew. Rabbi Shamai told him that if he wanted to become a Jew, he would have to learn the Torah, or the Jewish law.
The man asked, “Well then, how many types of Torah do you have?”
“We have two types of law, or Torah,” replied Rabbi Shamai. “We have the written Torah, and we have the oral Torah, the law as passed down by oral tradition.”
“I believe in the written Torah,” said the man. “But I don’t trust laws that are passed on by word of mouth. If laws aren’t written down, they are worthless. I will still become a Jew, on one condition: that you only teach me the written laws, but not the oral laws, not the spoken laws.”
Upon hearing this, Rabbi Shamai grew impatient. He said the man would never become a Jew with that attitude, and he told the man to leave.
But the man still wanted to know about becoming a Jew, so he went to Rabbi Hillel, who told him: “We have two types of law, or Torah. We have the written Torah, and we have the oral Torah, the law as passed down by oral tradition.”
“I believe in the written Torah,” said the man. “But I don’t trust laws that are passed on by word of mouth. If laws aren’t written down, they are worthless. I will still become a Jew, on one condition: that you only teach me the written laws, but not the oral laws.”
“I will accept you as a student,” said Rabbi Hillel, who was a patient man. “First, you must learn how to read Hebrew, so I will teach you the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Repeat after me: aleph, bet, gimel, dalet, he, vav, zayin, khet, tet, yod, khaf, lamed, mem, nun, samekh, ayin, pe, tsadi, kuf, resh, shin, tav.”
The man repeated the entire Hebrew alphabet after Rabbi Hillel — “Aleph, bet, gimel,” and so on, until he had all the letters memorized.
The next day, the man came back to learn the written law from Rabbi Hillel. Rabbi Hillel said, “Let’s make sure you remember the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Repeat after me: tav, shin, resh, kuf, tsadi, pe, ayin, samekh, nun, mem, lamed, khaf, yod, tet, khet, zayin, vav, he, dalet, gimel, bet, aleph.”
The man looked confused. “But that’s not the way you taught them to me yesterday,” he said.
“Yes, that’s true,” said Rabbi Hillel, “and as you can see, you must learn to rely upon me and my teaching. In just the same way, you must learn to rely upon the spoken law.”
A man came to talk with Rabbi Shamai, one of the most famous of all the rabbis, nearly as famous as Rabbi Hillel.
“I would like to convert to Judaism and become a Jew,” said the man. “But I don’t have much time. I know I have to learn the entire book you call the Torah, but you must teach it to me while I stand on one foot.”
The Torah is the most important Jewish book there is.How disrespectful that this man wanted to learn it while standing on one foot. Why, people spent their entire lives learning the Torah. It was not something you can learn in five minutes! Rabbi Shamai grew impatient. He pushed the man away using a builder’s yardstick he was holding in his hand.
The man hurried away, and found Rabbi Hillel. “I would like to convert to Judaism and become a Jew,” said the man. “But I don’t have much time. I know I have to learn the entire book you call the Torah, but you must teach it to me while I stand on one foot.”
“Certainly,” said Rabbi Hille, who was a very patient man. “Stand on one foot.”
The man balanced on one foot.
“Repeat after me,” said Rabbi Hillel. “What is hateful to you, don’t do that to someone else.”
The man repeated after Rabbi Hillel, “What is hateful to me, I won’t do that to someone else.”
“That is the entire Torah, the whole law,” said Rabbi Hillel.
The man nodded.
Rabbi Hillel continued, “Everything else is there to explain this simple law. Now, go study.” And because of Rabbi Hillel’s patience with him, the man spent the rest of his life studying the Torah.
Another story for liberal religious kids. This story comes from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakoth 61b.
Once upon a time, the wicked Roman government issued a decree: no more would the Jews be allowed to study the Torah and the law.
But Rabbi Akiva seemed to ignore the decree. He gathered people together quite openly, and taught them the Torah and the law. Pappas, the son of Judah, took him aside and said, “Rabbi Akiva, do know what could happen to you? Aren’t you afraid the Romans will punish you?”
“Let me tell you a story,” said Rabbi Akiva, and he told this story….
Once upon a time, there were many small fish who lived in a stream. One day, fox walked alongside the stream, and noticed that all the fish were darting to and fro, as if they were afraid of something.
“O fish, o fish,” said the fox, “why are you swimming around so? What is it that you are trying to escape?”
“We are trying to escape the nets that the humans have put in the stream to catch us,” said the fish.
“Oh, ho,” said the fox. “Then perhaps you should come up here and walk on dry land alongside me, just as your ancestors used to walk beside my ancestors years and years ago. That way you can escape from the nets of the humans.”
“What, go up on dry land!” said the fish indignantly. “You have a reputation for being smart, but that is a stupid thing to say. We may be afraid of what’s going on here in the water where we feel comfortable, but it would be much worse for us up in the thin air where we would surely die.” And so the fish stayed in the water, and did not try to walk beside the fox on dry land.
Rabbi Avika said, “Now you can see that we are just like the fish in the stream.”
Pappas asked the rabbi to explain.
“It’s like this,” said Rabbi Avika. “If we neglect the Torah, if we neglect what is central to our religion, we would be like fish out of water, and we would die. It is written in the Torah, ‘For that is your life and the length of your days.’ Perhaps we will suffer if we do study the Torah, but we know we will surely die if we don’t.”
Not long after that, the wicked Romans arrested Rabbi Akiva for teaching and studying the Torah. He was roughly thrown into the Roman prison, and there to his surprise he found Pappas.
“Pappas, what are you doing here?” asked Rabbi Akiva.
“O rabbi,” said Pappas, “you were right. I have been thrown into prison for nothing important. At least you have been thrown in prison for something worth dying for.”
And when Rabbi Akiva was killed by the Romans, he died in peace with the words of the Torah on his lips.
I’ve been researching the race riot that happened at the high school in my hometown in 1978 (I hope to have a blog post about it on the 45th anniversary of the actual event). Part of my research led me to a 2002 oral history interview with Phil Benicasa, for many years an elementary school principal in Concord. I never knew him, but my younger sister worked as a reading tutor in his school for a few years, and always had good things to say about him as an educator.
So here’s what Phil Benicasa said about parents and education back in 2002, not long before he retired:
“[S]omething is going on with the youngster who comes to our door in kindergarten [in 2002] as opposed to the youngster that came to our door 20 or 25 years ago. They are nowhere near as well prepared for the conventions of learning as kids were some time ago. I think parents are confused about parenting. I think kids therefore are confused about their role as children. In 1975 if you took the chunk of time out of my week that I spent doing discipline, 80% or 90% of that would have been at the fourth and fifth grade level, and more often than not it was mischievous sort of stuff. It was the kind of stuff that you could chew out a kid for and send him out of the office and chuckle about what it was that the kid had done. Today 80 to 90% of my time in discipline is spent in kindergarten, first, and second grade. That’s astonishing. And it’s not mischief. There are really a tragic number of kids with social and emotional baggage that they are having great difficulty casting off….
“I think parents have bought into the business about, the sooner my kid learns to read, the better they’re going to be. If my kid learns to read by age 3, that’s a direct line to Harvard. That’s absolutely nonsense. There are so many more important things that need to be learned before they get to us [in elementary school]. You know that business, ‘everything I needed to know, I learned in kindergarten’? — to clean up after myself, to share, to listen to others, to wait my turn, not cut ahead — all that’s true. Generally speaking kids had much of that in place before they arrived in the door.… [K]ids are not coming to school in kindergarten as well prepared to take advantage of what it is we are offering than they have been in the past. That means we have to modify what we are offering.”
Three obvious caveats — (1) This statement represents the observations and opinion of just one educator. (2) Phil Benicasa’s observations were limited to Concord, a predominantly White town in New England. (3) The demographics of Concord’s schools changed from 1975 to 2002, from an economically diverse cohort of children, to a nearly homogenous upper-upper middle class cohort.
Yet even with these caveats, what Phil Benicasa said back in 2002 resonates with what I saw in a different educational setting, religious education in Unitarian Universalists, back in the late 1990s. But I was working with the same upper middle class predominantly White children that Benicasa worked with. To use a current catchphrase, I felt children in the late 1990s were often deficient in social-emotional learning. I don’t know why that was true, but it was.
Things have changed since 2002. I’m no longer in religious education, but I still see the same upper middle class predominantly White children that I’ve been working with since 1994. Up until the COVID pandemic, I felt that children became more able to fit in to structured social situations. Some of that change came from a bit more social-emotional learning, and some of it came from children simply becoming more compliant with authority.
I also felt that some of that change came at the cost of children’s mental and spiritual well-being. In the years leading up to 2020, I felt that I saw increasing amounts of depression and anxiety in children; at least, in the populations I worked with. Children had internalized the message that they need to do everything they can to gain (as Phil Benicasa put it) “a direct line to Harvard.” And, to quote him again: “That’s absolutely nonsense.” What you do in elementary school or middle school is not going to get you into Harvard.
Then the pandemic hit. The pandemic accelerated some of these trends. To succeed at online school, kids had to become even more compliant. And the rates of depression and anxiety went up even faster, as near as I could tell. But the pandemic also meant that children lost a lot of ground in social-emotional learning. We’re barely out of the pandemic, so it’s too early to know if children will regain that lost ground or not. The pandemic also meant that children stopped participating in extra-curricular activities that promoted social-emotional learning, programs like Sunday school. Participation in sports keeps rising, but while sports does tend to make children more compliant, in my observation it doesn’t do much to improve social-emotional learning.
The pandemic also accelerated a trend I’ve been watching when it comes to the spiritual development of upper middle class children. The upper middle class consists of the “cultured despisers of religion,” so spiritual development tends to be low on their list of priorities (spiritual development won’t get you into Harvard). The upper classes limit spiritual development to meditation, mindfulness, and yoga — which are considered worth doing because they allegedly help children tolerate stress better. Unfortunately, what I’ve seen is that meditation, mindfulness, and yoga mostly seem to work to make children more compliant. Nor do they address the root causes of children’s anxiety and depression; instead, they simply cover them over.
I’d like to say that Unitarian Universalist (UU) religious education would help advance children’s social-emotional learning, improve their mental health, and (instead of making them more compliant) help them discover who they are and what their purpose is. But I’m less than impressed with the way most UU congregations implement their religious education programs. Most of these programs today seem to be run for the convenience of the staff and the child-free lay leaders. As an example, think of the many UU congregations that set monthly themes for worship services, then force children’s religious education curriculum to follow those themes regardless of the developmental and educational needs of the children. The adults come first; the children are supposed to be quiet and comply with the needs of the adults. No wonder UU religious education enrollment has been plummeting in recent years.
I don’t have a happy little conclusion for this blog post, except to say I’m worried. I’m worried that the selfishness of Unitarian Universalist adults is driving children away. I’m worried about children’s mental health, and limited social-emotional learning. I’m especially worried about the way children are being make more and more compliant — this in a time when fascism is on the rise.
(See also this post on why Sunday schools are declining.}
I finally finished writing a short essay titled “Reimagining Sunday school” for my curriculum website. This essay has been in the works for a while, both as a response to the “death of Sunday school” movement, and as a response to the de-funding of religious education programs that we’ve been seeing denomination-wide. I’m copying the entire essay in below the fold, or you can read it on my curriculum website.
