The following interview comes from Matthew Duncan, Sunday Church School Director at St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church (Pawtucket, RI). Matthew served his first year as director in the
2018-2019 school year, and brought enthusiasm and new ideas to the role.
2018-2019 school year, and brought enthusiasm and new ideas to the role.
This is my first year as Sunday School Director at
St. Mary. Before that I taught our teen Sunday School class and was the SOYO
adviser.
How many students
attend your church school? How is your church school organized
for Sunday classes and how many teachers are assigned per class?
We have about 50 students on our rolls (but we don’t
get that many on a weekly basis). Currently, our Sunday School is made up of
four classes: preschool-kindergarten, 1st-3rd grade, 4th/5th
grade, and middle school/high school. Each class has one teacher, except the
middle school/high school class, which has two teachers. We also have a music
teacher who teaches our students Liturgical music every other week. Our
teachers—Jiana Dayekh, Nancy Muller, Holly Lazieh, Elijah Vollendorf, Andrea
Vollendorf, and Maureen Gurghigian—are all extremely hardworking and dedicated.
We’re very lucky to have them in our Sunday School.
Which curricula do
you use for Sunday classes?
Right now each teacher is responsible for their own
curriculum—in consultation with me, the other teachers, and our priest, Fr.
Elie Estephan. But we are working toward developing a more consistent, coherent
curriculum—particularly for the younger classes. Specifically, we are starting
to implement an Orthodox version of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (https://www.cgsusa.org/default.aspx).
We’ve done a lot of research on this and talked to a lot of other Sunday School
Directors, and Catechesis of the Good Shepherd seems to be the best game in
town.
How do you use summer
months to prepare for the next church school year?
Last year we started a (now-annual) summer camp for
our Sunday School students. It goes all day for a week, and includes Bible and
music lessons, arts and crafts, games, etc. We have also been working to
provide our parents with resources so that they can continue their students’
religious education at home—whether during the summer or just during the week.
Is there some type
training/orientation for teachers during summer/fall months? If so, please describe.
We haven’t had any formal
training for our teachers in the past. But we have started meeting regularly to
discuss all things Sunday School. We met a bunch of times this past summer and
have been meeting monthly during the school year. Also, this summer we hope to
have two of our teachers participate in a week-long training session for the
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.
How do you approach
potential volunteers for church school? What approach have you found to work
best?
I suppose my general approach has been to just start
a conversation with potential volunteers—at coffee hour, over email, on the
phone, or wherever. These conversations aren’t always about signing up for
anything or even about the particulars of Sunday School. Oftentimes I just want
to hear their ideas. I suppose this has made it easier to bring people into the
Sunday School fold and to ask for help when we need it, though that’s not
generally been my intention in starting these conversations. Our parishioners
are pretty good about stepping up to the plate when we ask for help—especially,
I think, when their ideas are taken seriously.
Please describe how
the church school year opens.
Our summer camp is in August. So that serves as a
springboard into the Sunday School year. Then, in September, on the first day
of Sunday School, Fr. Elie blesses the students and teachers, we then do
introductions in the classrooms with students, teachers, and parents. Then we
have a special Sunday School luncheon.
Are there plans to develop/implement
any new programs or events in the new church school year (2019-2020)? If so,
please describe.
As a new project, we have started
a series of liturgical demonstrations—led by Fr. Elie—either before the Liturgy
or during the Homily. Topics have included the preparation of the blessed
bread, the censer, vestments, confession, and the bier. The aim is to give our
students (and adults!) a behind-the-scenes, nuts-and-bolts education about the
Liturgy. And the more general aim is get our students more involved in the
liturgical life of the church. To this end, our music teacher, Maureen
Gurghigian, has also led our students in singing the Communion Hymns during
Communion. We aim to have them do a whole Liturgy sometime in the Fall.
We’ve also added a bunch of social/fellowship events
to our calendar—my wife, Megan, and another parishioner, Nancy Sterpis, have
been handling event planning. We’ve gone bowling, roller skating, had a harvest
party and a one-day Church camp, for example. This year we hope to have some
events where the adults can interact more with each other while their kids are
doing some activity.
By the time this interview comes out, we will also
have hosted a YES (Youth Equipped to Serve; https://yesnorthamerica.org/) trip
at our parish. We hope to make that a regular thing. And, toward the end of
this summer, the folks at “Be the Bee” are coming to our parish to lead a
retreat for our kids, parents, and teachers. Then, of course, there’s also our
implementation of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, which has benefited from the
hard work of our teachers—especially Nancy Muller and Jiana Dayekh, whose
classes are most directly impacted.
So we have a lot of new things going on. The goal is
be engaged with each other—students, teachers, parents, Fr. Elie—on a more
consistent basis, because we realize that Orthodox education isn’t, and can’t
be, just be a once-a-week, one hour thing.
Please describe almsgiving/outreach programs at St. Mary Church School.
In addition to our YES trip, our
students have been involved in several one-off outreach events. For example, each
year we put together thanksgiving baskets for some nearby folks who could use
some help. Also, this past year, around Christmas time, we collected gifts that
we then distributed to kids in less fortunate circumstances. Our SOYO has also
done some things—I know this year they plan to start a monthly raffle during
coffee hour that will directly benefit outreach. We have also partnered with
our parish-wide outreach committee to help with their soup kitchen and food
pantry.
I want to do more of this. And I
would love to find a consistent, long-term connection with some outreach
program. This is super important to me. In fact, I consider outreach to be
absolutely essential to Orthodox education.
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