Antiochian
Orthodox Department of Christian Education
Interview
Series: Church School Directors Throughout the Archdiocese
Nancy McNeil, St.
Andrew Antiochian Orthodox Church, Woodway, TX
March 2019
Interview with
Nancy McNeil: “The Best Way to Learn is to Teach.”
Please share with us a little about yourself and the St. Andrew Sunday
School Program:
I have had the privilege to serve
as Sunday Church School director in several different Orthodox parishes for
over 20 years. In the 40+ years I have been Orthodox, I have continually worked
with GOYA programs and Sunday Church Schools. My job as a public school teacher
apparently just carried over into working with children at church.
How many students attend St. Andrew Sunday school? How is the program
organized for Sunday classes and how many teachers are assigned per class?
St. Andrew is a smaller, 6-year-old
mission parish and has a possible 24 students. Our average SCS attendance on
Sundays is 17. We have divided the students into four classes this year with a
2-4 year-old class; a 5-8 year-old class; a 9-13 year-old class; and a high
school class. Our youngest class has been blessed with a talented pre-school
teacher who works with an aide. Our elementary class has two extremely
dedicated teachers who have been working together since before their arrival at
St. Andrew. I teach the intermediate/middle school class. Last year we added
the high school class and enlisted a wonderful young couple to teach this
class. Since we are still a young parish, we have been using the same teachers
in each class since our inception. We did have to recruit for the high school class,
and I reached out to a young couple who had recently converted and married in
the Orthodox Church. They both teach in a local private school. They were
slightly hesitant to take the call due to their newness to the church, but I
reminded them that sometimes the best way to learn is to teach. They have
brought their best teaching methods and their tremendous Biblical background to
create a very effective high school class.
Which curricula is used for Sunday classes?
Our curricula fluctuate with our
needs. Our pre-school class works without specific curricula and helps the
students with the very basics from making the sign of the cross to stories and
activities around the feasts or saints of the day. Our elementary class chose
to use the “New Life in Jesus” OCEC curriculum this year. When their student
group was younger, they used a variety of resources. I have also used a variety
of curricula with the intermediate/middle school students. This year we are
using the new GOARCH 5th grade “God Calls Us” series. The last several years I
have used the OCEC materials for 7th and 8th grade. When we were just beginning
our parish and I was teaching all the students together we used an excellent
Old Testament curriculum developed by a deacon at our sister church in Austin
along with “Let Us Attend.” I will comment that using the “Let Us Attend” with
such a wide age group worked quite well for the short time we employed it. As
I’m retired, I have the time to glean quite a bit of material from online
resources. Our teachers seem to appreciate my sharing my finds with them as
additions to our regular curricula.
Do you hold staff meetings? If so, how often and please briefly
describe the meetings.
Our short time of being a mission
parish, yet, our continuous time working together has allowed our SCS staff to
be able to communicate via email thus avoiding physical meetings. This year we
had a short meeting in August after our weekly Wednesday vespers service to set
our agenda and goals for the coming ecclesiastical year. Since we have been
doing much of the same work for several years, we are able to do things such as
our Nativity program without extra meetings. We talk at coffee hour, confirm,
and communicate via email/text messages.
Describe how the parish recognizes or shows appreciation to Sunday
School staff (year-end recognition, appreciation gifts, etc.)
As noted above, our being a
small, younger parish means we are short of folks to rotate in and out of
parish roles. Many of us have been doing the same work for the parish since its
inception. As this is the case, the parish does not tend to recognize
individuals; we are all working hard.
Parishioners have shown individual appreciation to our SCS staff and
myself; and I attempt to acknowledge my staff at the Nativity. I look forward
to when I can hand over the reins of the SCS to someone else and we can rotate
roles in a timely manner.
Do St. Andrew Sunday school students participate in the creative arts
festivals? If so, how are workshops organized to create entries?
St. Andrew parish is looking
forward to participating in the Parish Life Conference in Fort Worth this
coming summer. Our physical proximity to the conference will finally allow us
to attend, though, one or two of our parishioners have participated in the
past. As we are new to the PLC we will not be participating in the creative arts
festival but hope to have several Bible Bowl teams. I have encouraged our older
students around the creative arts festivals, though, we have yet to organize
parish entries or workshops.
Do St. Andrew students organize and participate in events with other
Orthodox Christian Sunday schools/youth in the area?
St. Andrew parish has had two
events with the local Greek Orthodox parish this past year. My hope is to be
able to host Vacation Church School together in the future along with other
youth events. St. Andrew has had five successful VCS programs and I look
forward to sharing our successes. Other Orthodox parishes are over 50 miles
away so our interactions with their youth is difficult. We do encourage our
children to participate in the diocese summer camp program and have had good
attendance from our parish in the past several years.
What is one piece of advice you would share with fellow Sunday School
Directors?
I have been blessed to work with
a number of gifted and dedicated church educators and clergy over the years. My
godmother, Irene Cassis, has been my inspiration and mentor for all my time in
the Orthodox Church as she served as the Religious Education Director for
Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral and for the Metropolis of Denver. Many years ago I was able to participate in
several area and/or national Orthodox religious education and youth
conferences. I encourage our Sunday Church School teachers and directors to
take advantage of as much personal education and networking via conferences,
workshops or retreats as they can. I am delighted that both GOARCH and OCEC
work hard to keep our religious education materials updated and have been
surprised with the number of Orthodox online groups sharing educational
materials. I pray that our Orthodox religious education programs continue to
develop as beacons of wisdom.
