Exploring Testimonies

This week I've been thinking about how we might examine our interactions and our actions through the lens of Quaker testimonies. 

It's still the time to consider how testimonies can be personal guideposts as we try to live a right life. Today, more than ever, our Quaker identity calls us to act, reflect, love, learn. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked us to build the beloved community - one of justice, peace, love. Margaret Fell asked "What canst thou say?"- not necessarily a literal question, a reminder to listen to others, to the earth, to our own inner teacher. It was a call to act. It was a call to love.

We have explored the Quaker and personal testimonies through the course Testimonies Rock! You can read more about our interactive course by clicking here.

Let's take this opportunity to look carefully at the Quaker testimonies of

truth, community, equity, and fairness. 

Begin by taking some time to think about each of these. You might write each testimony in the center of a piece of paper. Around the word on the center of the page, jot down your thinking - don't edit yourself, just write what comes to mind as you think about each of these testimonies.

You might ask:
What comes to mind when I think about truth? 
What do I feel makes up the idea of _____? Why is ____ important? 

How do I define ____? 

Once you've done this for each of the four testimonies, take a few moments to reflect on your visible thinking. What are the main ideas for each that seem to be popping out? Circle those ideas. Are there any common threads between all four? Where are the differences?

Take some time to capture (through writing, drawing/painting, recording, dictating) these big ideas.

Which of these testimonies feels the most relevant at this time for you? Using your chosen testimony, create a reflection and an intention:

The testimony of ________ is important/resonates now more than ever.

• What do you see, feel, know, believe that makes your claim true for you? Consider all the ways that you have defined this testimony. Ask yourself "what makes me say that?"
• What's left unanswered or unknown? What isn't explained? What new questions or issues does this claim raise?
• How does this draw me to act? What part do I play in this?

https://www.quaker.org.uk/blog/lets-explore-the-quaker-way

For added information about testimonies:

https://www.pym.org/introducing-pym-quakers/quaker-testimonies/

https://www.afsc.org/testimonies/introduction

https://www.fgcquaker.org/resources/quaker-childrens-activities-pages

https://www.sffriendsschool.org/quaker-values/quaker-testimonies

Types of thinking encouraged: 

• Develop Questions

• Explore in Depth

• Examine Differing Points of View

• Begin to develop sensitivity to big ideas

• Deepen emerging understandings about global questions/challenges
• Develop thoughtful interpretations by encouraging reasoning with evidence
• Identify truth claims
• Explore strategies for uncovering truth

Source:

https://pz.harvard.edu/resources/claim-support-question

A Query for Remote/Crisis Learning

This week we will begin distance learning as a school community.

We believe that it is more important than ever that we hold onto core elements of our Quaker identity.

We must continue to think about how we might let our lives speak and our lights shine during a confusing, unsteady, and often scary time.

Regardless of circumstance, we are still called to reflection and action. What might that look like for our young learners as we embark on new and strange times of social distancing, online learning, lack of face to face connection?

We will begin with a Query.

Consider the big idea of your individual responsibility to the community.

• Why does the role of the individual matter? 
• How does each person's actions affect the immediate community? Why does that matter? 
• How might this affect the goings on in our world?

Reflect using art, writing, making, playing...

What query or queries might serve our community as we proceed?

Holding you all in the light.


For added information about queries:

• A Word About Quaker Queries, Friends General Council https://136hfg2lvsjp18ha1b2f9z26-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/A-Word-about-Quaker-Queries_1.pdf
• What is a Quaker Query, QuakerSpeak
• A Query Buff Looks at Queries, Friends Journal

Types of thinking encouraged: 

• Develop Questions

• Explore in Depth

• Construct Narratives

• Examine Differing Points of View

• Begin to develop sensitivity to big ideas

• Deepen emerging understandings about global questions/challenges

Source:
https://www.smore.com/4zycy-the-3-y-s-thinking-routine

Testimonies Rock! A course for personal growth

This is a wonderful article describing an interactive course around using testimonies to teach character development and growth.

https://www.sidwell.edu/about/news/news-detail/~board/homepage-news-panel/post/using-weighted-words-to-find-a-personal-testimony

Come join us for Testimonies Rock!



*Note: We credit Jessica Beels' installation of Weigh Your Words with inspiring this course. After Kathleen and I experienced this powerful art exhibit, we were drawn to the idea of creating an interactive experience with the Quaker Testimonies and something of the earth - seashells, rocks, branches... We eventually found that rocks were the best suited for our course. You can read more about Beels' exhibit here: http://www.jbeelsdesign.com/blog/?p=160



Text of article from Sidwell Friends School Website:

Using Weighted Words to Find a Personal Testimony

MARCH 10, 2020

“I think testimonies are one of the big tentpoles of Quakerism at a Quaker school,” Coffin said. “It’s listening to that still, small voice and looking at how you travel through this world constantly making yourself and the world a better place. As a Quaker school, there are no better tools than testimonies to teach reflection, making good choices, personal identity, and growth.”

Denise Coffin enters the pre-K classroom a little slowly. After all, she’s weighted down—literally. She’s pushing a dolly with three milk crates full of rocks in front of her.

“I’m getting ready to add another cart of rocks,” she said. “I want there to be even more rocks.”

Coffin isn’t a geology teacher; she teaches kindergarten. The rocks are part of a course—“Testimonies Rock!”—that she and preK teacher Kathleen Geier developed to open up a discussion about the concept of personal testimonies. Together, they’ve guided multiple grades of Lower School students, as well as faculty and staff, through the course over the past four years.

“A testimony is what’s either lacking in me that I have to work on, or something calling to me that I want to make stronger,” Geier said. “It comes from the inside out; you’re moved by how you should be and then the words are given to those actions.”

Geier and Coffin used the work of Paul Buckley from the Earlham School of Religion to boil down the concept of a personal testimony into five basic points: (1) a personal testimony is a calling, not a choosing; (2) it is a public act; (3) it is reflective of the shared values of a community; (4) it requires effort; and (5) it is an expression of love. The rocks, therefore, have words like “respect” and “service” written on them. If a child cannot find a word that speaks to them on the prepared rocks, Geier and Coffin have blank rocks for students to write their own words on.

“The rocks have different weights; they’re solid and they’re sturdy, and they’re part of the Earth,” Coffin said. “They’ve been around forever, a lot like our testimonies.”

The physical weight of the rocks also imparts an important lesson: Quantity does not equal quality.

“Sometimes they’re balancing them or they’re trying to hold as many as they can in their hands, which tells you something about how many testimonies you should really be working on at the same time,” Coffin says. “There’s such a thing as too many at once.”

In addition to a tactile experience, the rocks are also interactive—sometimes in surprising ways.

The teachers assigned the words to the rocks arbitrarily, but the children found meaning in these details. For example, Coffin said that a student might think the reason “fairness” is on a big rock and “kindness” and “community” are on small rocks is that “kindness” and “community” build up to “fairness.” Coffin found this exciting: “That wasn’t part of the design, but because of the physicality of it, it’s helping them think of a testimony in very different ways than we even anticipated.” 

The course begins with students arriving at their individual testimonies, but then they expand the idea to the larger community.

“We think about something we’re working on personally, and then we talk about it as a class,” Coffin said. She asks the students for ideas of testimonies that make sense to them and then asks them to figure out a way to apply the idea to the whole class.

There’s also something to be learned when students notice the rocks that they’re not attracted to.

“Sometimes the mission is to look for the ones that are pushing you away, that are almost repelling you,” Coffin said. “The ones where you’re think, ‘Oh, that is really uncomfortable for me. I can’t look at ‘patience.’”

Geier added that noticing those awkward rocks allows the children “to just wonder why.” Then they can say to themselves, “That’s telling me something about the work I need to do with patience.”

As Coffin and Geier developed the class, they learned as well.

At first, Geier said, she worried that some groups might not understand the exercise and become silly. “That’s just never happened,” she said. “I’ve learned to trust the silence and the exploration and them moving into the rocks without very much guidance.”