Encounter Christianity: To Change the World lesson plan 9

Lesson nine - page 18-19 Change poem

Text from the book

The Change Poem
Judith Nicholls' poem explores the vocabulary of change, pictured in a very familiar life-cycle.

Learning objectives

Pupils will:

reflect on how attitudes can change depending on the image of the person, ignoring what lies beneath;
recognize that life is change and encounter.

Bible reference

Luke 24.13-35

Background

As we grow, we change. We are transformed from childhood through many stages until adulthood. Changes continue to happen as we age, change opinions, live in different homes and make new friends. The changes may seem less dramatic than the change in the frog, but Christians too grow and change throughout their lives. Change is what life is all about. How we deal with it is another matter! That is why there are so many words for ‘change’. The Emmaus story (in the bible reference) reveals how Christians ‘see’ and experience Christ in the breaking of the bread. Some Christians have a very personal experience of the risen Christ; others do not, experiencing him in the Eucharist, in the breaking of bread at the shared meal. The companions of Jesus on the road were moved on through their conversation with him. They understood more clearly what the meaning of Jesus’ life was, perhaps only fully understanding when they shared together in the breaking of bread, fulfilling the request made by Jesus that they remember him in this way. So Christians remember Jesus in different ways, and, like these two travellers on the road to Emmaus, they know that life will never be the same again.

Ways of using the pictures

Discuss with the pupils what changes they are aware of in their lives.
Ask them to discuss when they notice changes. Do they suddenly realize they have a new skill?
Do the pupils think the frog spawn, the tadpole and the frog are the same animal? Has it really been transformed? What, if anything, stays the same? Do people change, or do we think we are the same this year as last year and as next year?

Key words

Evolving
Elongate
Re-shape
Metamorphosis
Encounter

Activity

The main activity is to work with the words in the picture to draw attention to the different ways we see each other and treat them differently depending on what we see. How does this relate to the way we view people? What about the way we view people with a disability. Is it different to how we view others?

The story of Jesus on the road to Emmaus ( Luke 24.13-32) is a story where God is recognised in the stranger. A good story where we suddenly see something that has been in front of us all the time. The person is changed, transformed, as is our understanding.

Learning outcome

Pupils will:

recognize there is more beneath the surface;
be familiar with a Bible story where lives were changed, metamorphosed;
be aware that life-changing experiences will happen throughout life.

Extension work

Pupils could use music and colour to illustrate and demonstrate the moment of the impact of change - for the tadpole, the egg and the men on the road to Emmaus.

Web sites

http://www.fi.edu/tfi/units/life/living/living.html
The Franklin Institute has provided a helpful introduction to the ‘circle of life’, explaining how each family of living things has its own life cycle.

http://allaboutfrogs.org/gallery/photos/index.html
Six amazing pages of frog photos, including colour-poison frogs and red-eyed tree frogs. The horned frog looks particularly fierce.

http://www.hhmi.org/coolscience/butterfly/index.html
One of the most dramatic life cycles and the most popularly used one is that of the butterfly. Here, a simple craft activity is used to explain the transformation from pupa to butterfly.

Another useful butterfly site can be found at http://www.mesc.usgs.gov

Here children can find colouring pages, learn about the life cycle of the Monarch and look at images of different butterflies.

Other life cycles can be explored on the web, such as:
Life cycle of a salmon: http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us/salmon/report.html

Ant colony life cycle: http://research.amnh.org

Scorpions life cycle: http://www.desertusa.com/oct96/du_scorpion.html

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