Across the country, progressive school districts are investing their money, time, and resources in the green classes. These outdoor learning spaces are living, breathing learning laboratories where educational standards find a new life among butterflies, vegetables and rain gardens. Interaction and enthusiasm in learning up, apathy and absence are absent.
Yes, you say. How wonderful for a school environment. What does this have to do with our churches?
Well, away from the excellent reasons above - a lot.
Here are three more reasons why open classes SO SO!
1. Outdoor classrooms offer many opportunities that allow our children to solve the problems of our planet on a much smaller scale. A rain barrel, a hill, and two or more groups of children with opposing goals are all that is needed to teach young children about water use policies. The Butterfly Garden offers a tangible way to actively engage students in a global push to save our precious pollinators. The act of intergenerational work to create a common space that meets the needs of all members, which allows our young people to participate in the sometimes difficult process of democracy.
2 Outdoor classrooms are the ideal multi-generator laboratory for teaching environment, community and community management using our 7 principles. How does a rain garden help our watershed? What is the most environmentally friendly ethical way to provide food for birds? Can elderly people work together with experienced members of the congregation to solve the problem of the recycling method of the gray water of your church? Small children can conduct action-based brainstorming about how leaders look like during a game, and an artistic committee of members can create a series of outdoor plaques to help educate everyone who uses space! What an amazing opportunity to communicate with the community! Outdoor bedroom never happens. This is a long-term commitment to consistently revising goals and priorities that use the basic principle of governance: to leave the world in better shape for your successor than your predecessor gave you.
3 Outdoor classrooms offer sacred spaces not only for honor, but also for teaching our 6 sources. As a UU, we draw from a rich and varied tapestry from sources, and the gorgeous appearance is the perfect canvas to highlight the beautiful traditions that each of them contributes to. Contemplative labyrinth? American medicine wheel? Celestial pole? What about the garden of the soul? All our sources can find a place of honor in the open class - the sky - the limit. Literally.
The next time your congregation wrinkles around the usual disappointments about how to revive your RE program - think green. An open class provides unlimited potential to shape global learners who value diversity, collaboration, and innovation, and who are not only prepared, but also laid off, to take their place as the next generation of blind blazers.
What could be more UU than that?
