Encounter Christianity: To Change the World lesson plan 6

Lesson six - pages 12-13 Changing faces

Text from the book

What do the clowns' faces show us?
Does your face always show how you feel?

How can one face tell so many stories? What lies behind the changing mask of the clown?

Learning objectives

To enable pupils to recognize they present a range of different public image
To help pupils recognize that only they know their true self and that Christians would add that God knows them also.

Bible reference

Genesis 3.8-10

Background

Clowns wear make-up and masks, but so do we. We all have ‘masks’ to hide our feelings from time to time. Sometimes we don’t want others to know how we are feeling. Christian teaching says that God always knows what is in our hearts and minds and we can hide nothing from God, however hard we try and whatever ‘masks’ we wear. We can use make-up or set our face in a fixed smile but, underneath, only we know how we feel – and Christians would say, so does God.

Ways of using the pictures

Discuss when and how pupils try to hide their feelings. How do we recognize how others are feeling?
Is a clown always happy? Could a clown be a sad person?
Why do we hide our feelings from others? What sort of feelings do we hide?

Key words

Pert
Antonym
Pretence
Hiding
Revealing
Superficial
Disclosing
Disguise

Activity

Make masks with the children, highlighting eyes and mouth. There are several examples on the web sites listed below. Try to make masks to match different emotions and expressions (happy and sad, fierce and frightened).

Design a clock that shows the different expressions the children use at different times throughout the day. What does your face say early in the morning, before and after lunch, etc?

Learning outcomes

Pupils will have:

understood that people often put on ‘faces’ to hide their feelings;
understood that eyes and mouths are very expressive;
understood that Christians believe that God knows what is truly in peoples’ hearts.

Extension work

Pupils can write a poem on why, or if, wearing a mask transforms them. Do they think or behave differently when they are wearing a mask?

Web sites

http://www.clownstuff.co.uk/
Here you can view famous images of clowns and see The Circus Directory – a series of links to other web sites on clowns.

Individual clowns have also shared their vision of their work at sites such as http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/kechew/kpage2.html and at http://www.mrdoo.co.uk/

There are also a number of sites that enable pupils to explore different cultures. At http://pbskids.org/africa/ children can make a rabbit, bird, antelope or hunter mask.

You can discover more about all kinds of cultures through their use of masks. The masks of the Yup-ik Eskimo people are explored at http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/yupik/

A Javanese mask collection can be viewed at http://www.fieldmuseum.org whilst a site of African masks can be seen at http://community.middlebury.edu/~atherton/masking.html

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