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Remember how I said in a previous entry that all streetcar drivers mumble the names of the upcoming stops? Well, the exception proves the rule. There's a fellow who's usually found on the King St. line who has the clearest, most nasal clarion call of any driver I've ever encountered. "LANSdowne! LANSdowne is NEXT!" He announces stops like he's selling ballpark hotdogs. "LANSdowne, GET yer LansDOWNE!" People exchange looks, teenagers openly mock him, but nobody with an ounce of hearing ever misses what stop is next. A character I've heard of but never had the pleasure of meeting is the singing streetcar driver...apparently most often found on the College car (a car I rarely take) he sings in a mutilated Middle-Eastern scale, "We are goiiing to Spadiiiinaaaa!" A great humorist, he has also been seen offering his seat (this is the driver, remember) to solve a dispute between bickering passengers. I think I'll find an excuse to ride the College car this summer, in hopes that I will board his streetcar. I'm working on an assignment for Old Testament, comparing and examining Sunday school lesson plans. Because most rectors haven't the time to write their own curriculum, nor do they often teach the class, the goal is for us to be able to recognize a decent pre-packaged deal that can be employed without too much tinkering. One important aspect is to see if the lesson plans ask good questions. By this I mean "open toward" questions, such as "Abraham argued with God to protect the city of Sodom. Why does Abraham not argue when God tells him to sacrifice Isaac?" or "There's no record of discussion on this three-day journey to sacrifice Isaac. Do you think they talked? About what?" "Open towards" questions start discussion. A "closed toward" question is OK now and then..."What did Abraham carry up the mountain, and what did Isaac carry?" The question is still about the text, but there's a simple, correct answer. These are good to get things rolling, to get students comfortable answering questions. More interesting would be the open question, "Why did Abraham carry the knife and fire, and Isaac the wood?" Bad questions mostly lead away..."open away" would be "How was your weekend?" "Closed away" would be "What's that actor's name, the one in the Spiderman movies?" I tend to think that some questions which fall in the "open away" ought to be in the "open beyond" category...by this I mean that they start in the text but ask how we apply it ourselves..."How do we respond when God calls us to do something difficult?" (It's here that the Binding of Isaac example starts to break down...one would have a hard time teaching this in Sunday school, eh? "What if your father tried to kill you? What would you do, Timmy?" Child sacrifice doesn't sell well to the under 10 crowd.) There are also "behind" questions, that deal mostly with the world in which the text was written..."Was child sacrifice common in Abraham's society?" These can be fascinating in adult Bible studies, and can open some avenues of discussion, but too often they're questions that only the discussion leader can answer. They tend to make participants feel stupid, or like there's so much behind the text that it's just not relevant to them. Anyhow, I'm wading through material now. I went to the Anglican Book Centre to browse, and the fellow working there showed me a shelf of out-of-date lesson plans that I could have...free! He was the most help I ever encountered in a store. He deserves the employee of the month award. Huh...I sure can type. As far as raw word output is concerned, I'm a regular Victor Hugo. |
