A Curriculum for First Day School Sixth to Twelfth Graders
by Harriet Heath
By caring Quakers demonstrate their compassion, their concern for others. This curriculum provides students with an opportunity to think about what it means to care for another. During the classes students have a chance to learn how to care. While the parents of the younger children participate in activities of the meeting, the students care for the young children and, thus, have an actual experience of being responsible for another person, of caring.
In the process students will ask themselves:
1. What will they, as caregivers, need to know about the children in their care, and how can they obtain this information?
2. What activities and resources does the environment offer?
3. What will be their role as caregivers to ensure the safety and happiness of each child?
4. What do they as caregivers want to learn from this experience?
Contents
Acknowledgments
Caring: An Overview
Organizing the Program
Session 1 Getting Started: A Model of Caring
Session 2 Who Are the Children You Will Care For?
Where Will You Do It?
Session 3 What Will be Your Role?
Session 4 What Worked? What Didn’t?
Reflecting on the Childcare Experience
Mini Lesson 1 Brainstorming: A Practice Session
Mini Lesson 2 Dealing with Conflict
Mini Lesson 3 Dealing with Meanness
Mini Lesson 4 Reading to Children
Mini Lesson 5 Talking with Children
Mini Lesson 6 Temperament Patterns
Mini Lesson 7 Caring as Part of a Quaker Way of Life
Figures
Figure 1 Caring: A Process
Figure 2 A Caregiving Experience: An Example
Figure 3 Sign-In/Sign-Out Chart
Figure 4 Caring for Children: A Process
Figure 5 Questions to Ask Parents
Figure 6 Three Reports of the Same Afternoon
Figure 7 Questions that Guide: The Observation Process
Figure 8 Example of a Developmental Chart
Figure 9 Example of a Plan for Caring for Young Children
Figure 10 Brainstorming: A Skill
Figure 11 Temperament Patterns