Columnists
Introducing - A New Section: 'Kids Corner'
by VERONICA SIDHU
At Vaisakhi time we renew our commitment just as the earth is renewed.
Children are our most precious gift. What is the best gift we can give them? The ship of the Naam will guide them to the safe harbor of God's light and love.
The lessons we can teach them are simple truths and gurbani.
Would you like some help?
Today, we start a NEW "Kids Corner" - please see the icon on the orange bar at the top of our HomePage - where, inter alia, we'll post, every Friday, a resource page for parents to use with their younger children in teaching them about Sikhi.
Hopefully, these weekly lessons will give you the tools and courage to teach.
The lessons that will follow are a course called 'Living Sikh Religion and History' originally taught at the Gurdwara Bridgewater over several years. They can be taught to a family of children or a class at your gurdwara. They can be adapted for older or younger children. The course is loosely based on 'Stories from Sikh History' by Kartar Singh and Gurdial Singh Dhillon.
Gurbani and simran are integral parts of the program.
We have entered a century where the spiritual life and science, especially quantum mechanics, are coming together. Gurbani is the perfect vehicle of the science of spiritual life; saakhis, stories from the lives of the Gurus, are the illustrations of this science.
Some very knowledgeable sevadars have qualms about using saakhis. We are not naïve as to the veracity of some of them.
Appropriate for 2nd or 3rd grade when we begin these lessons, they end when students are in 9th or 10th grade when they may begin a more scholarly approach and/or one in which seva is practiced outside the classroom in regularly scheduled meetings.
May Waheguru bless your efforts and that of your students. Be yourself. Forgive any errors and please send corrections.
Please click on the KIDS CORNER icon and it will take you to the lesson!
April 16, 2010