This particular show was about interior design. The show began with two designer/hosts trying to pin down the style of the homeowner. They threw around lots of terms. None of this has anything to do with teaching, you are most likely saying to yourself — I would be. But here is what I’m remembering today as I think about teaching young people. One of the show’s designers, in trying to describe the homeowner’s “signature” style, called it Modage, a blend of modern and vintage. “I love that,” I told my husband.
I actually was not re-decorating but ripping off — that great church educator, youth director, teacher, pastor skill. I quickly typed the word and definition into the notes section on my laptop. If ever there was a term to describe the best way to engage youth in learning it is this lovely little dreamed-up term from reality television, Modage, a blend of classic, well used, trusted practices blended with contemporary, new, and introductory concepts.
So, how does this concept of modage look in youth ministry? And how does it even begin to address the complex issues regarding learning, connecting, and imprinting with today’s student? Let’s take the basic assumptions of modage and then tweeze the educational implications from them.
Concept 1: The goal of the “design” is the transmission of comfort, inspiration, and an economy of materials.
Educational incarnation: In a classroom of young people our chief concern (whether the education is secular or spiritual) is that the young people are receiving the information and then taking it into themselves in such a manner that they make use of it in their lives. Whether this is fractions or Ten Commandments, our hope as teachers is that our students get it and practice it and are transformed by it.
Spiritual outcome: In preparing for this amazing transmission we have to keep in mind the things that make our young people feel safe, accepted, comfortable (as in comfort that equals safe and accepted, not a recliner and a Nintendo DS), and engaged. Teenagers are a choosy constituency. They fool us. Their semi-detached, seemingly uninterested demeanor makes us feel that they would much more appreciate donuts and current events than real, old-fashioned Bible reading and Q&A. So, we scramble to find the world’s ugliest couches, and whatever snack we can rustle up, put it in front of them, and think that they’ll be thrilled. We forget something critical here: youth/ adolescents, by nature, are egocentric. Their frame of reference for pretty much everything is how will it affect me? How will it matter to me? What will happen to me? And the “me” needs to know that they’ve been prepared for!
Teaching tips: Atmosphere matters. The teaching space should demonstrate preparation, warmth, and some link to the content of the lesson. Even in the most simple of classrooms there are ways to tweak the space economically and thematically. Shift the tables around to indicate that something new is going to happen during the time you’re together. Change the lighting, lay out the supplies, consider the arrival time as the first invitation to the students, the first opportunity to know that they’ve been prepared for and anticipated. Ask youth to assist you with the lesson.
Borrowing some theory and language from the Godly Play model by Jerome Berryman and Sonia Stewart, create some mystery about what is going to take place. Provide an entrance into the time and lesson that invokes a sense of purpose and a feeling of warmth. Ask youth leaders or extra adults to serve as greeters and leaders for the activities. Seeing others engaged helps students “know” that something is worth attending to. Subconsciously, to a teenager, this translates as “someone is thinking about me.”
Concept 2: There is a natural relationship between what is old and trusted, and what is new and surprises.
Educational practice: Young people need to see and experience elements, both environmental and academic, that are both familiar to them and new to them. They need some sense of trust in what is ahead; not necessarily complete knowledge of the plan but the knowledge that there is a plan. Young people, particularly middle school and early high school aged, thrive on ritual. Ritual helps them know that what is happening is a part of a plan to include them not just talk at them. They want to talk about themselves. They receive energy and affirmation when they talk about their “favorite” things, their ideas, and their experiences. In educational theory this is known as the Relational Layer of learning.
In youth ministry, this isn’t an altogether alien concept. There has been, for about 10 years, a way of being with teenagers, guiding them, accompanying them, known as “relational ministry.” It means that it is not solely, or perhaps, most importantly, about catechetical achievement but personal witness and reflection — getting to know a young person, listening to them, extracting their ideas and sense of faith, and then introducing and encouraging faith in Jesus. We in the world of youth ministry are sniffing about for the latest idea and are feeling a need to deepen the personal witness and profession of faith in Jesus. But, we need to keep in our wandering vision the foundation of the relational youth ministry model, that knowing and attending to young people IS essential in instructing them. It is neither the old nor the new; it is the Christ-like way to instruction.
Spiritual Outcome: If we parallel the modage outcome to the student’s spiritual outcome we see something eerily similar. In a home outfitted using the modage philosophy, you are likely to see familiar elements with new, surprising and often whimsical twists, a wingback chair covered in an animal print, for example.
In the youth room of a congregation, where they are studying the Psalms, we might observe the instructor standing outside the classroom door, handing out slips of paper to the students inviting them to “take a different path” to the classroom today. “Just go with it,” the teacher might say as the students squawk and moan (but who secretly might just be wondering what is happening). After their treks around the church and back to the classroom you might see students creating a psalm, based on Psalm 119, about God’s path, but updating the ideas of the ancient psalmist to the feelings and environments of the modern 16-year-old.
They might engage in a conversation together about times when they might have been asked to follow a particular path or direction. They would be invited to tell their stories, to talk about how it might have felt scary or exciting, boring or anger producing. Someone might disengage completely and slump into the bad youth room couch. But the teacher will push on because just past this bump there might be transformation. The lesson continues; the old psalm updated by young minds. Their psalm might be received in the form of a Twitter or a text message. Their psalm might be displayed on feet printed off of YouTube and then stuck to a bulletin board. Their experience might end with a guided prayer through images of different paths they might encounter. The student has experienced the fundamental principal of modage. Design that leads to a purpose and the purpose gives pleasure.
Teaching Tip: Find the element of the lesson that you feel is most important, most critical for your group. Choose three ways of exploring that element. Include a method that connects with the visual learners, students who learn by seeing pictures, or descriptions. Include a method for the tactile learners or physical learners, the path taken around the church, a new space in which to sit for that particular lesson. Balance the new with the familiar.
Don’t toss reading of Scripture out the window. Reading Scripture connects us with the ancient, the collective, and the global Christian community. It is where we get our first glimpse that God’s story is constantly renewing itself for us. But don’t imagine that simply reading a passage transmits the passage. It takes 3-7 times for a message to implant itself into the adolescent memory. Think of three other ways you can help students to hear, or see, or experience that passage. It does take a willingness on the part of the teacher to think outside the lesson plan sometimes. If you feel anxious about this — don’t. You are in good company. Jesus taught outside the lesson plan. So did a few other great teachers. Be inspired by preparation. Preparing a lesson is as sacred a practice as is meditation or liturgy. Young people know when they have been considered. Their monitors of lackadaisical planning are finely tuned, as are their intuitions about care and commitment. They know.
Inspiration for teaching comes in all forms. Sometimes it’s sentimental; someone who took time to teach us impacted our lives. Sometimes it’s a sense of duty; if I don’t step up I’m A) Not fulfilling my call and/or B) No one else will do it. Bottom line, we all feel this at some point. Sometimes we feel a need to give ourselves to the people of God and in doing that we give ourselves to God. Teaching as a way of giving ourselves to God is not unlike any other sense of obedience. It requires time, sacrifice, prayer, and risk.
The design philosophy element in this essay on teaching youth has one further word for us. The featured homeowner said: “Our home is a destination; a destination that EACH DAY we seek to find.” A destination that always carries the familiar, the sacred, and the treasured can get covered by the mundane, the dust, and the weariness. It needs to be uncovered and brightened.”
The word of God has a destination and that is the human heart. And our youth, our students, are exactly the collection of human hearts ready for receipt of God’s word and the undeniable transformation of it. If we’ve done our job as teachers, we’ve attempted to help our students be open to receiving this word. We cannot guarantee this exchange will happen. But we can pray for it and prepare for it. We can read the lessons, try out the creative suggestions we often ignore because we’re too tired, or too scared. We can add to the lesson or write our own. We can use the opportunity to help our students claim the goodness of the traditions of our faith but in their way, and with our help and careful preparation.
Gina Yeager-Buckley is General Assembly Council associate for youth in Louisville, Ky.
