Percy The Park Keeper

[Guest]

hi folks,

am normally too shy to ask for help but i am in a bit of a pickle which is why i am still awake at this hour!!! ......but am hoping you will be able to inspire me

am having to re think next half terms planning as have just had a jehovas witness child join my class and her parents wishes are that she does not participate in any religious activities. bearing this in mind i don't feel celebrations is an appropriate topic!

 

so i thought i could use the percy stories as there is 'After the Storm' which i can incoporate autunm into and the hegehogs balloon. i am hoping to use the books over the next half term, i really did want to develop an awareness of the cultures and beliefs of others and thought i could focus on the differences between percy and his friends, likes and dislikes, being kind and helpful, and compare differences between us.

has anyone used the percy books before or got any exciting ideas?

 

would really appreciate any feedback. thank you

 

am going to bed now

funnyf

[Guest]

what about all the other children in the class? You can't disadvantage them surely. We used to provide alternative arrangements for Christmas etc. Perhaps you need to talk with parents and explain about the curriculum and how you will be covering things.

[Guest]

Hi it sounds to me as though you already have some great ideas for using the Percy Books.

 

We have just planned for next term but have been very careful not to over plan because we really want to respond to the children's own ideas etc (as I think we are supposed to do) so you could see where the children lead you with the Percy books ....or otherwise.

 

ALSO we have atleast 3 weeks to dedicate to xmas (which most children seem to LOVE and we often feel rushed) however I know this really dosen't help you with your JW.

 

PS we had a little girl who was a JW a couple of years ago and mum was really cool about lots of things - especially after we had a good long chat together and she explained things - it really wasn't that much of a problem and we didn't feel that we weren't doing things because of the situation or that the others were missing out. Have you spoken to the parents?

[Guest]

There are a series of books about each one of Percy's animals friends which are very good eg Percy's friend the mole, they cost about £2.99 each. The books tell you all about the animals likes and dislikes and how each animal is special. This might be a nice idea for PSED, I know the year 1 children I taught last year really enjoyed them.

[Guest]

thank you for your feedback. i think i will have another chat with the parents but they were quite against their child participating in any celebatory activities, including listening to stories! their solution is to keep her out of school on such days which i feel isn't always going to be the best solution.

[Guest]

Dear funnyf

 

No its not a silly question and you shouldn't really be nervous to ask for help - this is why we all post here - to learn from each other. I think that you are really thinking on the right lines - providing equality of opportunity and an inclusive programme does not necessarily have to revolve around celebrations based on faiths. It is far more important to look at the values people hold and the greatest being learning to respect one another and looking at the different relationships which is afterall what you are trying to achieve through the Percy books. There are lots of ways you can progress this and it does not necessarily have to be done through the celebrations which afterall can sometimes be stereotypical. I have tried to move away from this as I think there can be a certain amount of tokenism attached to it.

 

To give an example what do we think about when we think about the culture of white english people? Is there a typical white english culture - no of course there isn't - certainly I am white english but I am certainly very different to the next person and my culture is probably quite different to other white english people. I may have similar values to some of these people but there are as many variations within groups as there are among groups. I am just as likely to have similar values to my catholic, buddhist, or islamic friends.

 

What about looking at the Elmer books too, there are all sorts of titles which incorporate values and friendships, this could be extended into areas such as looking at where the elephants live, who are the people who live there, do they live in similar houses, plenty of photographs of African children in African dress - what you are not doing is looking at any particular faiths you are looking at all children and explaining to them that there are different people in the world, with a different culture - I don't necessarily think that you have to go down a faith route which I think is the issue with JW's - its about learning respect, sharing and getting the children to think about others. I am sure if you looked carefully at the PSE type books in your book corner, you would be able to look at them in a completely different light. I think most of the racial equality books and equality books talk about values, developing self esteem and self identity and there are hundreds of ways of doing this without having to introduce faith based teaching. It's important to recognise that people are different but also people are the same.

 

I may get shot down by others but these are my thoughts on this very emotive subject and I look forward to other peoples views.

 

So keep going and I am sure you will come up with some great ideas for achieving this and keep posting we all need help that is how we learn.

 

Nikki

[Andreamay]

we have a jw child with us at the moment and find they understand they are not to be included in christmas,if we have the staff they will go and help set up etc while we have stories etc and mum picks up early while practising and performing nativity.Also they still do a card but without the words christmas or birthday on it.Parents were ok about diwali or chinese new year etc because we did not preach to the children but spoke about how some people celebrate this way.

[Sue R]

Hi funnyf,

 

Nicola's comments are great - just shows how blinkered one can be in approach whilst not realising it! I would think her suggestions would enable you to develop a really useful sceme of work, covering some of those aspects of PSE, KUW that can be a bit tricky. Also, Andreamay's observations (also my own experience) show how it's still possible to include more usual things.

 

Nicola - thanks for those very useful thoughts

 

Sue

[Guest]

thank you nikki, i feel a lot better now.

 

thank you others for your ideas.

 

funnyf

[Guest]

I agree with Josiebrad that it is unfair to deprive the majority of your children from the usual fun that Christmas entails, and also from the opportunity to find out about other people's beliefs and customs. I was literally just looking through my book collection to see how many Christmas books I have, and briefly thought about the handful of children I have in the nursery whose parents may potentially prefer them not to participate in such things. I have decided to speak to them directly to find out what their views are and whether they are happy to have the child doing something else during that time.

I have had JW children in previous classes: during the run-up to Christmas with lots of Christmas events happening, the parents did used to keep their children home. If there were smaller scale religious occurrences, such as a Christmas story, or an R.E. lesson, these children had their own 'special book' (provided by Kingdom Hall) which they would go and read outside of the classroom. I always felt really sorry for these kids as they really seem to miss out: birthday parties, Christmas parties, Christmas plays - even to the extent of having to leave the room when we sang happy birthday to a child. Also, the rest of the children learn about tolerance and acceptance of people's beliefs, whereas these JWs seem to block out anything which isn't their own religion, which I disagree with.

[Sue R]

Hi,

 

I understand completely where you're coming from, and agree to a certain extent. However, I have known many JW families in my time, the children have never seemed in the slightest bit unhappy to be 'missing out' - indeed to them, they aren't! Parents i've spoken to (both professionally and as personal friends) have always made a lot of their children. One point that was made to me frequently was 'why should we have to wait for a special time to give our children treats? Any day can be made special'. However, I do agree with you completely that there seems to be an attitude of exclusion of anything non-JW within their culture

 

Sue