Responding to
The Baltimore Yearly Meeting
11th Month Query
by Rita Willett,
RFM Ministry and Worship Committee
Do you provide religious education, including study of the Bible and of Friends’ history and practices, in your Meeting? Do you ensure that schools under the care of Friends exemplify Friends’ principles? Do you support and strive to improve the public schools?
Do we, at Richmond Friends Meeting, provide religious education?
Of course we do! Our dedicated Religious Education Committee is mindful of the importance of teaching Bible study, Quaker history and Quaker practice to the children and teens in our Meeting. Our First Day School curriculum is planned with sensitivity to the diversity of our Meeting – teaching thoughtfully about Jesus in a faith community that includes Universalists and Christians, for example. Teachers design age-appropriate activities – preschoolers are working with the sheep and shepherd play figures while the high school students conduct their own Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business. In the summer, many Friends get involved, teaching children the role of each Meeting committee. Religious education is provided for adults as well. Friends gather for Bible Workbench on First Day. Quakerism 101 provides both newcomers and seasoned Friends an overview of Friends’ history and practice. Other adult religious education opportunities include Fall Retreat, Spiritual Formation groups, First Day forums, and other gatherings. Yes, with care and dedication, we provide religious education in Meeting.
While “providing” religious education is important, perhaps we should ask an additional question… what do children and adults learn about being Quakers in our Meeting? When John Woolman wrote about education, he addressed, not what should be taught, but rather what might be learned. From Woolman’s essay, “A Plea for the Poor”:
“When we are thoroughly instructed in the kingdom of God, we are content with that use of things which his wisdom points out, both for ourselves and our children, and are not concerned to learn them the art of getting rich, but are careful that the love of God and a right regard for all their fellow creatures may possess their minds, and that in all their learning their improvements may go forward in pure wisdom.”
As we nurture the children of meeting, are we “careful that the love of God and a right regard for all their fellow creatures may possess their minds”? How might we shape our religious education program – and our inclusion of children in our Meeting community – toward this goal? How do we, as Friends, share our experience of God’s love so that all of us, adults and children, will be “instructed in the kingdom of God?” Are we developing, in ourselves and our children, “a right regard” for all our fellow creatures?
With this month’s query, Richmond Friends might examine how our religious education program fosters our spiritual growth.
Do we, at Richmond Friends Meeting, ensure that schools under our care exemplify Friends’ principles?
While Richmond Friends Meeting does not have a Quaker school under our corporate care, a number of Richmond Friends work as educators in diverse settings in our community. Some Friends are employed as teachers for children or adults in traditional schools and colleges. Other Friends teach in varied arenas, helping refugees learn the skills they need, facilitating a learning environment at a botanical garden, or sharing their knowledge of the arts. Teaching is the chosen ministry for many Friends in Richmond Meeting. How do we, as teachers, incorporate Friends’ principles in our work? Do we respect the equal worth of persons, finding that of God in everyone? Do we recognize the ideas and needs of all instead of the usual “majority rules”? Are we careful to speak the truth in our role as teachers?
Richmond Friends Meeting does not have a Quaker school under our corporate care, but we do have a number of teachers under our care. Do we support those Friends in discerning their call and in developing their teaching as a ministry? With such care for the teachers among us, Richmond Friends Meeting might help bring Friends’ principles to a number of schools in the Richmond community.
Do we, at Richmond Friends Meeting, support and strive to improve the public schools?
Individual Richmond Friends have differed in their approach to public schools, some choosing private schools or choosing to homeschool their children. Friends who are teachers work in both public and private institutions. Those decisions have sometimes involved a difficult process of discernment or a series of attempts before settling in a particular school. Does Richmond Meeting support and respect the difficulty of those decisions when no school seems “right” for a particular family? How does Richmond Meeting support those who study or work in public schools?
As I think about the support that Quakers as a group might provide to public schools, I am again drawn to John Woolman’s essay, “A Plea for the Poor.” Woolman writes about the central importance of the relationship between teacher and student and the problems created when teachers have too many students:
“A large number of children in a school is often a heavy weight on the mind of an honest tutor, and when his thoughts and time are so much taken up in the more outward affairs of the school that he cannot so attend to the spirit and temper of each individual…, there the minds of children often suffer and a wrong spirit gains strength, which frequently increases difficulties in a school and like an infection spreads from one to another.”
Woolman points out that the resources required to maintain a low student-teacher ratio would be available if we lived more simply:
“Were we thoroughly weaned from the love of wealth and fully brought out of all superfluities in living,… there would on a reasonable estimate be so much to spare on the education of our children that a plain, humble man with a family like himself might be furnished with a living for teaching and overseeing so small a number of children that he might properly and seasonably administer to each individual, and gently lead them on…”
Are we, as Friends, willing to live more simply so that resources might be more available for the general good, such as support of public schools? How do we, as Friends, promote the right use of public resources for education, especially at a time when our nation has tremendous expenditures on war? With this month’s query, Richmond Friends might examine the importance of public education as one of our social concerns.