The first day of Religious Exploration classes each fall usually has the highest attendance of the year. The campus teems with children and volunteer teachers scrambling to take class pictures, locating new classrooms and reuniting after many months apart. The air bristles with energy; the excitement is palpable.
But this, our COVID-19 year, has required us to relinquish our former ways of delivering religious education. Rather than just tweek, adjust or revise our typical array of RE classes for online use, the campus shutdown has called the RE leadership to re-envision what we do and how we do it. The essential work of Religious Exploration at UUCF is to raise children and youth in a beloved community of people living and modeling UU values. Community and connection has always been our indirect curriculum. This pandemic has forced us to center it as the direct curriculum instead. The result was the creation of QUUilt.
The QUUilt initiative shifts the focus of RE away from Sunday morning classes and creates new opportunities for children, youth and parents to connect and care for one another throughout the week. Approximately 150 families participated in RE at UUCF last year, and about 30 other adults from the congregation volunteered to teach children or mentor youth, creating a dynamic RE community. QUUilt is developing innovative ways where that community can feel supported during the current political, social, economic and environmental upheaval that coincides with this pandemic.
This month, two parent groups formed to provide forums for guided conversations, connection and support. Monthly QUUilt Community Check-ins began to bring parents and families together to socialize. Additionally, for parents, RE and Adult Programs are co-sponsoring the course “Parents and Caregivers as Sexuality Educators” this fall, designed for parents whose children missed the Our Whole Lives sexuality education classes (OWL) for elementary students last spring or who are missing 8th Grade OWL this year. This 10-session course will help parents and caregivers navigate conversations with their children and youth about gender identity, sexual orientation, sexual health, healthy relationships, consent and pornography. UUCF remains committed to providing comprehensive sexuality education to our children and youth, but this year is partnering with parents to deliver information on these critical topics.
For youth, the QUUilt initiative includes a new Middle School Book Group, currently reading and discussing “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.” UUCF has also purchased the Jackbox suite of online games and has begun holding game nights for youth. Our youth will also have opportunities to bridge the Potomac virtually and join youth game nights at the River Road and Cedar Lane UU congregations this fall.
For younger children, a family story time is forming that will enable families with young children to visit twice a month and read a favorite story together. We have also just launched RE At Home, for younger children who need a break from online instruction. RE At Home provides three UU values-based lessons each month to parents who want information and resources to support UU learning at home on their own schedules. The October theme is Deep Listening, and the three lessons are: Listening to the Small, Still Voice Inside; Listening to BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color] Voices and Listening to Nature.
Sunday mornings look different now too. Under QUUilt, we have created multi-age classes where siblings may find themselves learning together. Also, new curricula have been selected that work better online. Rather than Coming of Age or 8th Grade OWL, the Middle School students will compare and contrast Unitarian Universalism with other world religions in Crossing Paths. This update of the former Neighboring Faiths curriculum will include virtual visits to other faith congregations and interviews with leaders of other faiths. Instead of using Tapestry of Faith (the wonderful, but very hands-on regular curricula), younger students will work through Soul Matters, the same curriculum provided for RE At Home. The fourth and fifth graders will explore social justice topics with Harry and UU, a curriculum based on the children’s Harry Potter book series. In this curriculum, the class studies social ills like illiteracy, animal cruelty and food insecurity, and joins Dumbledore’s Army to develop projects that address these ills in the local community.
The Sunday morning schedule has also shifted. Classes are scheduled before and after the worship service, allowing time for all family members to watch the service together. Sunday classes also occur on alternate Sundays, so there are fewer classes in total. The QUUilt initiative recognizes that families need a break from their screens and virtual gatherings to enjoy time together and in nature.
The QUUilt initiative is all about connection. Just as patches of a quilt are stitched together, QUUilt seeks to provide an array of opportunities (patches) to keep the RE community stitched together during these turbulent times. Whether you participated in RE in the past, are a family new to UUCF or are an adult with time to share with the congregation’s youth and children, I invite you to wrap yourself in the warmth of our QUUilt community. You are welcome here!