The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Special Needs Kids and The Best Ways to Teach

Rich and Dr. Ani Patel at the Neurosciences Institute on Tuesday, talking music and the brain.

My buddy Scott Ness emailed yesterday asking about ideas for connecting with kids with special needs, H. Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory talks about different modalities of learning and different kinds of intelligence. For decades they’ve talked about some kids being kinesthetic learners, some auditory, some visual, etc.

John Medina (www.brainrules.net) would argue that the visual trumps everything.

I was with Dr. Ani Patel at the Neuroscience Institute on Tuesday, and he argues that music is absolutely the best brain/mind tool we have at our disposal.

Plato agrees: “Music is the most potent tool of education.”

The fact is, some people may lean in a certain direction or favor one kind of learning, but EVERYONE learns best when ALL the kinds of learning are integrated and focused on the theme. I believe this holds true especially for special needs kids.

Teach the way the brain learns best. (Music, art, theater, motion)

Employ the tools kids love most.

Engage parents every night in every home.

It's a no-brainer because it's a whole brainer.

Everyone Who Thirsts

Here's a little song I wrote for this Sunday's Isaiah 55 text. I gave it to my buddy Robert Robinson of the Twin Cities Gospel choir, and he knocked it out of the park. If you want the sheet music, let me know.

 

05 Ho, Everyone Who Thirsts

Preschool Incubators Project (PIP) Logo

Here's the logo for our Preschool Incubators Project. We use a six-colored hexagon in the six primary colors to represent the six areas of study:

1. Language (Spelling, Vocabulary, Phonetics)

2. World Language (Spanish, Mandarin, American Sign Language)

3. Math (Numeracy, Concepts)

4. Science (Animals, Universe, Green Science, Concepts, Engineering/How Things Work)

5. Life Skills (Social Science, Health, Food/Nutrition/Character Development)

6. The Arts (Music, Visual Arts, Drama, Movement/Dance)

The arrow swirling out from the center represents launching out into the world as a healthy, curious, prepared child, ready for whatever lies ahead.

Confirmation With No Class

The adolescent brain is starved for meaningful touch, meaningful interaction, meaningful bonds, meaningful challenges, a meaningful touch.

This morning a pastor posted a question about starting confirmation this fall in a new unfinished space. She was wondering if she should get rid of the tables/chairs and put bean bags on the floor to change the class mentality. Here's what I posted:

If I may be so bold, here's my 2 cents: Forget the bean bags. And forget the word "class". Sit on the floor twice a month and invest the other two weeks a month in small groups doing service and fellowship on the theme. When you're together, have some theme related music, then some theme related games, then a big circle holding hands or locking arms for opening prayer. Then have: 1. Someone share a faith story on the theme, 2. Someone share a visual image/prop/analogy on the theme, 3. You do a little Bible teaching on the theme. Then break into small groups to share highs and lows, highlight the key scripture in their bibles, talk about how the scripture relates to their highs and lows, pray for one another's highs and lows, and bless one another. Then come back for a mellow closing where they lie on the floor with soft music and candles for a poetic prayer journey. Then break out the bread and wine (hey, you're a lutheran), then end with another big circle locking arms and praying the Lord's Prayer and benediction. Then have everyone bless and hug at least 6 other people before they walk out the door.

As I said above, get rid of "class." It has little meaning. Create a warm, learning, relevant, personal (ie small groups doing highs and lows) WORSHIP community that goes out in servanthood and fellowship the other two times a month and they'll not only want to be there, they'll bring their friends. You'll be known as the church with no class.

And you'll absolutely love it.

The Future, the Sanctuary, Porn and the Incarnation

As long as we're talking technology and worship, here's a thought for the weekend: It may very well be that the "sanctuary" of the future will include 3D "Help Me Obi Wan Kanobi, You're My Only Hope" projections of the elderly who can't actually get to church, college students who still want to feel connected to the youth group, and drop-ins from all over the planet who find you online, think the topic of your worship might be interesting, and just float in and out to see if it's relevant.

When they finally perfect the pressure-sensitive haptic gloves, they'll be able to hold your hands in prayer. When you sing the songs, they'll all sing along with you and you'll hear them.

When they sing certain songs, even the avatar of your dead grandma will show up to stand by you again and sing with you. (She may record her 101 favorite hymns and give everyone who wants it as a parting gift at her funeral so she can still bless them).

When that day comes, the thought that we ever fought about putting a screen in the sanctuary will seem rather humorous and quaint.

But seriously folks, the porn industry will lead the way long before the church even considers what WE need to do to touch people deeply, lovingly, and in a way that builds up rather than a way that destroys and demeans. We nee...d to be thinking NOW how to be the church - neither in catacombs nor the skyscrapers (ie. Heschel) - but in the virtual. And then we need to create a way to make the virtual real.

Incarnation anyone?

The Sad Stupidity of Age Segregated Sell Out Sunday School Classrooms

Andrew Root is right on, as far as I’m concerned.

Is Modern Youth Ministry Multiplying of Dividing the Church?

I think age-specific (I call it age-segregated) ministry is fine for the mega churches who have a bajillion dollars and like to hire program directors to play the music louder and louder in hopes that the Titanic won’t sink, but in this moment in the mainline, we don’t need to segregate the children from their parents, isolate them from the elders, and leave them alone in their own little Lord of the Flies segments. We need people who know us and love us and can hold us when we can’t hold ourselves. We need people who will be there when we’re crazy, when we’re lazy, when we’re hurting ourselves and when we’re hurting others. We need the wisdom of the elder and the wonder of the child. We need the one thing the church can give us that no place else in society can give - a true cross-generational faith family.

The church is the only place left in American society where all five living generations are gathered under the same roof every single week. And what do we do the moment they get there? We sell out. We send them all off on their own to their separate rooms. That's just plain bad stewardship. That's just plain stupid.

Skills

The skills you practice as a child and preteen become much sharper in the teenage years and those you practice reluctantly if at all will diminish on your brain's hard drive - Judith Newman

Dopamine (the pleasure drug) kicks in when you're having fun, feeling accomplishment, and feeling loved while we do things together. It tells our brain what to pay attention to, what's important to remember, and what is only background noise.

A Minute of My Life

If I live to be a hundred, 365,000 sunsets will come and go. Will I catch even a thousand of them? Here's a short song/poem for the morning:

A minute of my life
that I'll never get again
I spent it in the watching, waiting
for a sunset with a friend

A sunset on a hill
that would never again be
It came, it saw, it conquered
and it slid into the sea

Catch a sunset tonight. There'll be another, and another and another. But tonight's sunset will never be again.

 

Yesterday my friend Pastor Anne emailed:

I'm excited that two confirmands are attending church regularly after confirmation! The congregation has noticed that this is different. However, it will be several years now until I have any confirmation age kids in our small church.

Anne

I responded:

Woo hoo! Now, tell them you want to take them out for coffee and pick their brains as to:

1. How THEY think God wants to use them to make the world a better place (ie, what's their calling?)
2. How THEY can enlist their friends to be part of a small group weekly breakfast club
3. How THEY think worship can be enhanced for people their age

A monthly breakfast with you for six months, and you’ll have your next batch of magnetic, young, energetic leaders. It’s the “Peter and Andrew” Principle... As opposed to the Peter Principle.

Blessings,

Rich

A Song: The Littlest of the Little

The littlest of the little
And the poorest of the poor
Have something quite in common
And perhaps a far bit more
The brokenest of the broken
And the barest of the bare
Invisible, yet tangible
There's something that they share

They have no voice
They have no choice
They have a hope that someonone somewhere
Will hear their silent prayer
They have a plea
That you will see
And they will one day be considered
Part of their family

The littlest of the little
And the poorest of the poor
Have something quite in common
And perhaps a far bit more
The brokenest of the broken
And the barest of the bare
Invisible, yet powerful
There's something that they share

(Bridge)
How can you let a child that you don't know
Stand lonely, lost and barefoot
Forgotten in the snow?

The littlest of the little
And the poorest of the poor
Have something quite in common
And perhaps a far bit more

They have you