Lesson Plan: Zentangles

We did such a wonderful activity as part of our Buddhism unit in World Religions.  One week we focused on Zen Buddhism, which has a great focus on being in the moment.  I wanted the students to have a Zen experience, so we did three activities in a row in complete silence (a total of 30 minutes, which is a LONG time not to talk when you are 12-14).

First, we did a silent Zen meditation that focused completely on the breathing.  That lasted for 10 minutes (and felt like a LONG 10 minutes for some of them, although others found it relaxing).  We ended up with a 5 minute silent journaling activity, in which they wrote down their experience of the three events.

In between those, however, we did 15 minutes of this wonderful thing called Zentangle ®.

We used Zentangle as a drawing meditation.  It is an art form created by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts that is supposed to improve the artist's focus, awareness, feelings of freedom and relaxation, and artistry by creating repetitive patterns on a small (3.5 inches) square of paper.  The square is first divided into sections by a few lines, and then each portion of the square is filled with a different pattern.  In its purest state, it is supposed to be only black and white, but some add colors as well.

The students and I all LOVED doing this.  It was very liberating, because even those who claimed "I can't draw" felt like they could draw lines and "doodle."  It does capture your focus and your attention in a very relaxing way, and is mostly spontaneous, and yet repetitive.  And it does draw you into kind of a Zen experience.  Apparently, people are using it all sorts of way, including doing it before tests to get students into a relaxed and focused way, or as part of the process of addiction recovery and other related theraputic uses.

It's the sort of thing that is hard to explain.  But I highly recommend you visit the Zentangle website, or other online resources about this new art form (one of my favorites is Zentangle Patterns), get the basic instructions, and try it yourself!

Below we have the beautiful tiles (as they are called by their creators, Maria and Rick) created by our class.  As always, even though everyone was given the same materials and directions, the results turned out to be very different and reflective of the varied personalities in the group.  

Curriculum Resource: The Islam Project

We are beginning our study of the religion of Islam, and I ran across what looks like a wonderful educational resource for middle school and high school students.  There are lesson plans and discussion guides for educating tweens and teens about Islam developed by The Islam Project.  

The goal of The Islam Project is to produce multimedia materials and associated lessons to help American youth explore the great diversity among the vast numbers of Muslims around the world (currently estimated to comprise almost a quarter of the Earth's population).  In the wake of the attacks on 9/11, they produced two PBS series:  Muhammad:  Legacy of a Prophet and Muslims, which displays the variety in the way that Muslims around the world practice their faith.

Their latest project is a video program called American Muslim Teens Talk.  In this half hour video, nine American Muslim teenagers discuss the issues common to all teenagers--fitting in, dating, having fun, dealing with parents--and the impact that practicing Islam has for them in these areas.  They also discuss negative stereotypes around being Muslim, as well as demonstrating the difference between teenagers raised under Islam.  

I haven't seen it yet, but it looks like a terrific resource to help this age group understand more about their Muslim peers and to consider the impact of religious stereotypes in general.

Christmas 2010 Blog: Angels

So even with my belief about lighting up the darkness...It's now Christmas week, so maybe it is time to do some seasonal blog posts.  So today's topic is Angels.

When I was working on a lesson plan this past week for our World Religions class, I did some research on the topic of Angels.  I was amazed to find that numerous polls by different organizations (news, university research, and religious organizations) over the past two decades reported that the majority of Americans believe in angels, particularly guardian angels.  The data shows that this majority (generally ranging from 55% to 72%) is consistent within different Christian or Jewish religions or political persuasions.  Actually, studies among adult Americans in the past few years say that more people believe in angels (55%) than believe in evolution (39%), human-created global warming (36%), or either ghosts of UFOs (each had 34% believing in them).

The believe in angels among adolescents is even stronger.  It has grown steadily from 1978, when only 64% of the 13-17 year olds polled said they believed in angels, to 76% angelic believers in 1994.  Belief in angles outstrips those among teenagers who reported believing in other supernatural people or activities, beating belief in astrology, ESP, mind reading, witchcraft, ghosts, Bigfoot, or vampires.

So it seems that for the majority among us, no longer do we need to sing only about "Angels We Have Heard on High."  Most of us, particularly among perhaps not middle schoolers, but certainly high schoolers, believe that angels play a role in our personal lives, protecting us from harm or conveying important spiritual messages to us.