Hey FINKS,
Well, my Mac took it upon itself to fry the hard drive in Nashville last week, so a quick visit to the Genius Bar (and they are) left me computerless from there to home yesterday. I've got a brand new Mac now, and will be a raving Mac fan for life. In the meantime, I missed posting about Nashville, St. Louis, Lincoln, Sioux Falls, and Mankato. Suffice it to say, they were all marvelous!
Here's something you might find helpful in case you are trying to change your systems at church and run up against a Christian Ed board who thinks FINK is all fun and games - and looks like too much fun to have any depth and be effective. ("Confirmation Lite?" as old Margret Gritch at Phillie Sem used to tell her students.) It comes in the form of a question that hit me this morning, and my voluminous answer. (Hey, I've been Mac-less for a week. I deserve to wax a bit. It just feels so good to be typing again!)
Rich,
I would be interested to hear more about your family systems focus. Are you referring to Bowen/Friedman systems theory? I am seeking ways to apply this to all areas of ministry...
Thanks!
Tom
Hey Tom,
Okay, you asked for it.
Friedman was pivotal in my early systems work, but...
It all started with a mom and dad who loved me, read to me, and had home devotions every night.
It moved from my little world to a broader world at Bible camp, where I learned that faith could come out of the book and into your life in powerful ways when music, skits, games, servanthood and the arts were combined with the love and care and fun of a small group. (And a few cute girls.)
It moved from there to my dozen parish pastor years, where I tried to combine home with education with worship, and make them all LOOK like Bible camp. My biggest struggle was trying to find effective ways to pull in parents into the process of their own kids faith lives.
Therein lies the rub. And that's the aim of my next 15 years of ministry. The first 15 at FINK were focused on making the PROGRAM better at church. The next will be focused on bringing it home in simple, elegant, fun and effective ways.
If the biggest piece of the faith incubation system is the parents, then we've got to get to them or we'll be missing our most important asset.
You can't fix a broken system by ignoring the most important piece.
First things first.
Now, back to Friedman for a moment. I tend to call the FINK approach "Friedman Plus." In building our model for family ministry, I tend to combine his "Generation to Generation" family systems thought with:
1. The systems theory of MIT’s Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline)
2. The educational philosophy of Bill Glasser (The Quality School/Schools Without Failure)
3. The social engineering of Malcom Gladwell (The Tipping Point/Blink)
4. The experiential pizzazz of Pine and Gilmore (The Experiece Economy)
5. The dance/movement philosophy of Carla Hanniford (Smart Moves)
6. The arts philosophy of Betty Edwards (Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain)
7. The brilliance of my good friend Dr. He Qi
8. An absolute fascination with his childhood idol Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood)
9. And a love of music, the theater, dance and the visual arts.
I combined all that with my own infectious enjoyment of humor as a learning tool, an intense curiosity of the neurology, psychology, and sociology of learning and a deep desire to harness and drive the latest technologies of learning into the hands of children.
And, if you want to go deeper and Google to your heart's delight...
My understanding of a child’s acquisition of knowledge is influenced by Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories on cognitive development. Both believed that children are active participants in learning new knowledge. Piaget’s constructivist approach (assimilation and accommodation) focused on four stages of cognitive development (sensorimotor and preoperational stages are characteristic of young children). Vygotsky focused on the transitions from one stage to the other (Zone of Proximal Development) and believed that the construction of knowledge can be socially mediated by adults and peers. The teacher and peers can be agents of scaffolding the child’s current knowledge to new concepts of learning.
My thinking about children’s social emotional development is guided by Maslow’s theory of a hierarchy of basic needs and Erikson’s theory of a sequence of issues that need to be resolved for healthy development (Eight Stages of Man).
Smilansky’s research on how children learn through play and the four types of play (functional, constructive, dramatic or pretend play and games with rules) all play a central influence in the design of everything PIP is creating – from the curriculum as a whole, to the delivery systems for information, down to the daily schedules.
Reggio Emilla’s work influences our project’s thinking about the importance of art and architecture as a symbolic language. In our building design and teaching space, the room is, indeed, the third teacher.
(Clear out the crap from your Sunday School rooms, please! Take everything out of the room, wash the walls down, paint them bright white and only put back a couple of beautiful pieces of art that you will focus on today!)
Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences is embedded throughout our learning experiences, planning, curriculum, and technology designs. You've got to understand and embraces the fact that each child AND parent is different and unique. The project honors these differences by designing resources that take into account the various learning styles and cognitive abilities of children.
Eric Jensen’s work on brain-compatible teaching has had a foundational influence on our arts-based processes, platforms and learning products. Every aspect of this project – from the colors on the walls to the beat frequency of the music during new information acquisition, to the size and shape of the learning environment, to the ebb-and-flow of the scheduled days, weeks and units, to the cartoons to the curriculum and online home resources – all of these pieces are designed with the neurology of the young mind in mind.
Add Gail Godwin: "Good teaching is 1/4 preparation and 3/4 theater", George Bernard Shaw: "If you're going to tell the truth, you'd better make them laugh or they'll kill you", Pablo Picasso: "Art is the lie that helps you see the truth", and our friend Wm. Shakespeare: "The play's the thing whereby I'll catch the conscience of the king."
As you study what we do at FInK, you’ll see that everything we create is brain-based learning built on an arts-based platform. Scripture music, movement, theater and visual arts are engaging means to impact intelligences often overlooked and under-utilized in traditional educational programs. In FINK all learning is presented TO the children AND their parents through the arts, then explored, dissected, rebuilt, and re-presented BY the children and their parents through the arts.
We want to open the kid BEFORE we open the book. We want to retain the kid AND the information. We want to fill in blanks in lives... not just workbooks.
And we want everything we do on Sunday or Wednesday to go home into a nightly home huddle seven nights a week.
So... is that enough for you a Tuesday morning?
(-;
rich
(PS I'm at Esperanza in Phoenix, AZ Wednesday the 10th, Messiah in Yorba Linda, CA on Thursday the 11th, St. Andrews Presbyterian on Friday the 12th, and Christ in Mililani, Hawaii on the 13th. Then it's Napa, Las Vegas, Sammamish, WA, Kalispell, MT, Park City, UT, and Wheat Ridge, CO before getting home for church on Father's Day. Come on over!)
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