Total Period Learning
Can you imagine this scene? It is a Sunday morning in Everywhere Church, Any City, USA. Sunday School starts at 9:30 a.m. but at 9:30, the only people there are you, the teacher and three sixth graders. You wait fifteen minutes and make small talk about the soccer team and the new movie at the mall. The energy level is low and by the time all of the youth trickle in and you are ready to begin the session, even you have a hard time being excited about it. You decide to skip the introductory activity because you are so late and so you plunge right into the body of the session. Your text for the day is an obscure Old Testament passage and as the youth read the text, taking turns "round robin style" and stumbling over the unfamiliar sounding names and looking oh so bored, you think, "there just has to be a better way to do this!"
There is a better way! It’s called "total period learning" and designs the session in such a way that youth are involved in learning experiences from the moment the first, punctual youth enters the learning area until they rush out at the end of the hour, headed for the donuts and juice in the fellowship hall. With a little forethought and intentionality about everything that happens during the hour, the time can be maximized and the learning experiences enhanced.
Total period learning is a format of making every minute "count." The moments while you are getting ready to start the formal session, the transition times, the "down" time waiting for groups to finish group tasks, and the "clean-up time" before dismissal are all "learning times" that can be maximized. Two keys for total period learning are forethought and intentionality. Every moment can be a learning moment using "total period learning." Think of the entire hour as a learning time and make every moment a session.
Those Early Minutes Waiting for the Group to Gather --Stand in the doorway and greet the youth at the door with a task that any number of youth can do. The more active and engaging the task, the better, but it needs to be something that one or two youth will not feel silly doing. Use posterboard on a wall with a probing question and ask youth to write responses with finger paint or magic markers. Hide something in the room and ask the youth to search for it. Give youth a notecard and a pencil or pen and have them make a "Top Ten" list that pertains to the topic of the day. Give them a pipe cleaner or a piece of clay and have them make a symbol of the past week. The keys to success of the "early moments" are immediate engagement and variety.
Transition Times: What to do between?--Prepare youth for transitions by letting them know that the current activity is ending and the next activity will soon begin. Give the youth a transitional task that will keep them focused upon the topic of the day. The task should be easy, specific and carry them through the transition to the next movement of the session. Give each youth a key word from the text and ask them to take as many steps toward the group area as the number of letters in the word. They have to crawl (or jump or hop) the rest of the way. (Servant would enable seven steps.) The purpose is to keep the youth focused and to do something a little crazy and fun. Let your imagination be your guide to creating transition times.
Clean-Up Time--One of the best ways for youth to learn about caring for the property of the church and to develop ownership about the church building is for them to be habitual about cleaning up and "leaving the area better than we found it." Help youth to understand that the way we treat the property is a theological statement and our responsibility in leaving it "better than we found it" is an act of love and service toward those who come after us. (This is especially true in churches that share space.) Build the clean-up time into the session by having each group that was formed during the session take a task. Emphasize that everyone works until all the work is done. You could also specify the way the tasks are to be carried out. For example, you might ask everyone to complete the tasks walking backwards, in 2 minutes or less, holding hands with a partner. Again, variety and intentionality are keys for this.
By following the guidelines of forethought and intentionality, total period learning can come to your group and you can know that every moment was maximized for effective learning.
From Intersection, Volume 10
