ACTIVITY 4: WINDOW/MIRROR PANEL — A CIRCLE OF WORKERS (15 MINUTES)

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  All participants' Window/Mirror Panels
  
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  Blank paper, cut in strips
  
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  A variety of illustrated magazines to cut up
  
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  Optional: Paint and paintbrushes, pastels or other art media
  
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  Basket(s) of Window/Mirror panel materials:
  

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  Sheets of Mylar(R) in several colors, shiny gift wrap, aluminum foil and other reflective paper
  
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  Sheets of plain or construction paper
  
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  Scraps of fabric
  
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  Color markers (permanent markers work best on Mylar)
  
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  Glue sticks, tape (including double-sided tape) and scissors (including left-hand scissors)
  
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  Optional: Stick-on sequins, a hole-puncher, yarn, ribbon and a variety of magazines to cut up
  

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  Gather old magazines for participants to cut up, with images of people of all ages engaged in a variety of work. Jobs need not be paid; look for images of people clearly fulfilling a responsibility. Magazines such as Highlights (at www.highlightskids.com/default.asp), National Geographic Explorer (at magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/index.html) and Time for Kids (at www.timeforkids.com/TFK/) are likely to have images that suggest work children can do.
  
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  Cut strips of paper approximately 2" x 11" for all participants. (If participants are working on very large Window/Mirror Panels, use larger and longer strips of paper.)
  
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  Make a sample Mobius strip: Hold strip of paper in a straight line with both hands. Twist one end, reversing which corner is up and which is down. Then bring the two ends of the strip together and tape them closed.
  
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  Have materials easily accessible.
  

Participants will cut out images of work to decorate a never-ending Mobius strip, representing the equal respect and dignity that all kinds of work deserve. Show the group the sample Mobius strip you made. Explain how it is made. Make another sample to demonstrate.

Ask the children to bring their Window/Mirror Panels to work tables. Distribute magazines to cut up, blank strips of paper and Window/Mirror Panel basket(s). Tell them they will decorate their strips first, and turn them into Mobius strips later. Say:

We are learning today how to use our first Unitarian Universalist Principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person, in thinking about work—the work adults do to support themselves and their families and the work you do. Each of you will make a Mobius strip to represent many kinds of work and to remind us that we value all work and believe everyone has a right to dignity of work.

Invite the children to find and cut out images from the magazines that represent people at work, and use them to decorate both sides of their paper strip. They may also draw images to suggest a variety of different kinds of work, using materials from the Window/Mirror basket, and add any finishing touches they wish.

Encourage children to decorate both sides of their strip of paper; once they twist it into a Mobius strip, both sides will show.

When a few participants have their strips decorated, demonstrate making a Mobius strip with one that is finished.

Give the group a two-minute warning so they have time to affix their strips to their Window/Mirror Panels, clean up materials and store their Window/Mirror Panels. If any participants' strips need to dry before they can be twisted, taped and attached to panels, ask them to remain and complete this work and put materials away after the Closing.

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  Newsprint, markers and tape
  
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  Taking It Home handout
  
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  Optional: A copy of Session 1, Leader Resource 2, Namaste (included in this document)
  

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  Identify a place for participants to store their Window/Mirror Panels between sessions. Keep in mind, there may be times the panels are not entirely dry when the session ends.
  
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  Write the closing words on newsprint and post.
  
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  Download and adapt the Taking It Home section and copy as a handout for all participants (or, email to parents).
  
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  Optional: Review the leader resource so you can briefly explain the origin and meaning of "namaste" and demonstrate the accompanying gesture.
  

Explain that the session is almost over and we now have to work together as community to clean the meeting space. First, everyone should clean up their own personal area, put away materials they were using and store their Window/Mirror Panel. Then they may clean another area or help someone else. No one should sit in the circle until all are done.

Then bring the group back to the circle. Ask them to think about what happened today that was good or what they wish had gone better. If you are running short of time you can ask them for a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on the session.

Invite each participant to say, in a word or sentence, why it is important for them to be a part of this faith community. You may go around the circle for responses; allow individuals to speak or pass.

Then ask everyone to hold hands and say together:

Keep alert;

Stand firm in your faith;

Be courageous and strong;

Let all that you do be done in love. — 1 Corinthians 16

If this is the first time the group is using "namaste," briefly explain its origin and meaning. Then, lead the group in the word and bowing gesture. Or, substitute "thank you." Invite each participant to bow their head to the individuals on either side and then bow to the center of the circle and say "thank you" together.

Distribute the Taking It Home handout you have prepared. Thank and dismiss participants.

FAITH IN ACTION: LET JUSTICE ROLL (20 MINUTES)

Preparation for Activity

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  Visit the web site of Let Justice Roll (at www.letjusticeroll.org/), an economic justice partner of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, or contact the UUSC (at www.uusc.org/). Find updates about the "$10 in 2010" campaign to raise the federal minimum wage and identify actions the group can take to support a higher minimum wage.
  

Tell the children that your congregation, through the UUA, is part of a national movement to improve dignity of work for people who work at low-paying jobs. The UUA, along with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), has joined the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign (at www.letjusticeroll.org/), a nonpartisan coalition of more than ninety faith and community organizations that support raising the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour in 2010.

Explain that "minimum wage" is the least amount per hour an employer is allowed to pay a worker. Mention enterprises most children will know that pay minimum wage, such as supermarkets, fast food restaurants and gas stations. Say:

Minimum wage laws are intended to make sure a full-time worker can support themselves and, if necessary, family members. But the minimum wages are in fact so low that many full-time workers cannot earn enough money to take good care of themselves and their families.

In June 2008, the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly passed an Action of Immediate Witness to Raise the Federal Minimum Wage to $10 in 2 0 10 (at www.uua.org/socialjustice/socialjustice/statements/115810.shtml). The action called on congregational leaders to educate themselves about poverty and a minimum standard of living, mark "Living Wage Days" with worship services (January 10-11, 2009), and sign a Faith Leaders Letter to Congress which stated:

An adequate minimum wage is a bedrock moral value for our nation ... For too long, the minimum wage has not provided even a minimally adequate standard of living ... A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.

You may wish to share these stories from the UUSC web site (at www.uusc.org/content/fedwageraise2008):

Celeste Cook cares for disabled people in their Atlanta homes, preparing meals and medicines, giving baths, and wheeling clients into fresh air on sunny days. She loves her job. It's her passion to make sure that those she cares for live in comfort and dignity.

But Celeste cannot afford health insurance for herself or her family members because she is paid just $5.15 per hour, the state minimum wage. As a healthcare worker in Georgia , she is not covered by the federal minimum wage.

In downtown Cleveland , Rodney Campbell gets up at 5 o'clock every morning to clean office buildings for $6.55 per hour. He makes the floors shine and the bathrooms sparkle—and he takes pride in his work. But when Rodney goes home, he struggles to provide for his children, sometimes relying on food banks to put dinner on the table. He worries about his kids' future.

Celeste and Rodney are not alone. One out of every four U.S. workers—more than 28 million workers between the ages of 18 and 64—works in a job that pays minimum wage or less.

If you have chosen an action for the group to do, tell them what it is—for example, making posters or writing letters to congressional leaders or local government representatives. Distribute materials and explain what children will do. Or, lead a brainstorming session to elicit children's ideas for taking action at a later date.

Reflect on and discuss with your co-leader(s):

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  How did the timing go today? What might we do to make it work better?
  
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  What worked well? What didn't?
  
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  What connections did children make with the activities and/or the central ideas? How could you tell that was occurring?
  
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  What connections did you make with the children? What connections did the children make with each other? How was this evident? How could a sense of community be improved with this group?
  

Our Unitarian Universalist belief in every person's inherent worth and dignity tells us that everyone, no matter their occupation, has a right to dignity of work—the ability to earn a livelihood (a living wage), a work environment that supports their self-respect and the respect of others who acknowledge their work as bringing value to society. Yet, as a society we tend to value some work more than other work. When someone's work is disrespected, undervalued or taken for granted, both that person and their community suffer.

Children identified their own work, whatever it consists of, and worked on a Window/Mirror Panel to express the universal dignity of work. They heard a story, "Beautiful Hands," about a child ashamed of her work-worn hands, until a teacher articulates how her hands show the beauty of physical work. Children saw and talked about photographs of children at labor. Faith in Action engaged them in an advocacy project promoting a fair minimum wage and universal dignity of work.

EXPLORE THE TOPIC TOGETHER . Talk about ... 

What do the adults in your family do for their jobs? Tell your child about jobs you have had—what you did, where you worked, what tools you used, what you wore. Tell some things you liked about your jobs including ways you were successful, satisfied and appreciated, financially and in less tangible ways.

Research careers with your child in bookstores and libraries, online and by guiding your child to talk with a variety of working adults about what they do. Find out about the training needed for jobs which may exist when your child reaches adulthood. A federal government web site, Kids.gov (at www.kids.gov/k_5/k_5_careers.shtml), spotlights an array of jobs and includes annotated links to career-oriented web sites for children. The Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium (Washington State) offers career discovery workshops (at www.pdza.org/page.php?id=50), described online.

Play Monopoly or Life as a family, noticing the ways the game confers status and power on players. When a player achieves or loses wealth or power by a roll of the dice, what message is implied? How are these games like, and unlike, real life?

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  The picture book Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type by Doreen Cronin ( New York : Simon and Schuster, 2000)
  

The book, Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type, is written for younger children, but provides a jumping-off point to discuss the labor strike as a tool to make working conditions more fair. On the Ohio Employer's Law Blog (at ohioemploymentlaw.blogspot.com/2007/05/lessons-from-childrens-lit.html), Jon Hyman writes:

Farmer Brown's cows and hens decide that they need electric blankets to keep warm at night in the barn. They deliver their demand to Farmer Brown on notes typed by the cows on a typewriter. When Farmer Brown refuses their demands, they go on strike, withholding milk and eggs. Ultimately, in a deal brokered by the duck, Farmer Brown agrees to accept the cows' typewriter in exchange for electric blankets. The labor dispute ends, and the cows and hens go back to producing milk and eggs. The deal backfires on Farmer Brown, though, as Duck absconds with the typewriter and leverages it into a diving board for the pond.

Read the story aloud to the group. Lead them to analyze:

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  Why were the cows and hens dissatisfied?
  
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  How was their dignity of work compromised?
  
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  What method did they choose to speak out? Why was their effort successful?
  

You may, for your own reasons, wish to use this activity to speak up for working animals. Be mindful, the group may include children from vegan households or whose parents are activists for humane treatment of farm animals. Tell the children Click, Clack, Moo! points out, in a silly way, that farm animals are, in fact, workers that do not have a voice about their working conditions.

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  A copy of the songbook, Rise Up Singing!
  
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  Newsprint, markers and tape
  

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  Choose one or two songs from the Work and Labor section of the songbook to teach the group. Write lyrics on newsprint and post.
  
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  You may wish to invite someone who is musical to play piano or guitar and/or lead the singing.
  

U.S. and international labor movements have popularized many songs that are easy to teach and sing. Choose one or two to teach the group.

By Barb Pitman, in uu&me! Collected Stories, edited by Betsy Hill Williams (Boston: Skinner House, 2003).

She was bewildered. Bewildered and ashamed. The other hands in the classroom were smooth with nails cleanly cut. Hands raised to answer the teacher's question. Hands engaged in the age-old art of spit-ball forming. Hands writing on the blackboard. They all seemed so new, so unused, so beautiful.

May hid her hands. In kindergarten she hid them under the table. In first grade she hid them under the table. In second grade, third grade, and even fourth grade, she hid her hands in this way. Winters were always easier, thanks to Grandma's handmade mittens. Colorful and bold, decorated with baby ducks and later, with purple and blue stripes, the mittens meant May felt no shame walking to school carrying books and lunch for herself and her sister.

Exclamations like, "Oh, how beautiful," and "I wish my grandma would make some mittens with stripes," stirred up hope inside May and for a brief moment she would tell herself she was one of them, for they would forget her hands and remember instead her beautiful mittens.

Back in the classroom, May would catch someone looking in her direction and shove her hands back under the desk. She never raised her hand, never applauded with excitement. She wrote in hurried strokes of the pencil so as not to have her hands in full view for very long.

One day she was walking through the school hallway, with her hands shoved into her pants pockets. In the hallway that day, she saw a poster for an art class. It was a special art class, it was going to be taught by her favorite teacher, and each student was going to be able to learn to draw and paint. She signed her name on the poster and all the way home, she thought about the kind of art project she might make. Her mom worked all night long while she watched her younger sister, and she thought maybe Mom would like a pretty picture to look at when she got home from work. She also thought about how tired Mom was during the day, trying to sleep while the rest of the world was awake, and May thought she might make a "Do-not-disturb!" sign for the front door. And then she remembered her beautiful mittens, and thought she might draw a pattern to send to Grandma so Grandma could make new mittens, even some for her sister.

As soon as May got home, she sat her sister, Kate, at the kitchen table for a snack. As she did the breakfast dishes and tried to keep Kate quiet so they would not wake up Mom, May thought of all the wonderful art projects she could try. May was so busy planning her project, she forgot about her hands. She finished the dishes, got out the mop to clean up the milk that didn't quite make it to Kate's mouth, and chopped potatoes for dinner. Mom was up by now, and was rushing out the door to get to work. Mom kissed May on the head, told the girls she loved them so-o-o-o much, and went off to work.

May helped Kate with her bath, tucked her into bed, made up Mom's bed, and vacuumed the front room. After doing her homework, May went to bed and dreamt of being a famous artist. Everyone in town marveled at her beautiful paintings, she won awards from her school, and even got to give a speech in front of the governor.

When May woke up, she jumped out of bed, excited about the art class. As she braided Kate's hair, she saw her hands and suddenly realized she could not paint or draw without the other children seeing her hands.

She could not get Kate ready fast enough, and practically pulled her all the way to school. May ran to the hallway to cross her name off the poster. It was not there. The poster and sign-up sheet were gone. She went to class and told her teacher she needed to drop out of the art class. The teacher said she would have to go to the art class and tell the art teacher that she was no longer interested in the class.

When May went to the art class that day, she tried to get the teacher's attention, but there were so many other children in the class and such a lot of noise that May decided she would wait until after the class to talk to the art teacher.

After the teacher got the class to quiet down, she talked a little bit about drawing things, how important it was to draw what you saw, even it no one else saw the same thing. She said they would eventually draw their pets and maybe even a family member, but that their first lesson was to draw their own hand. May was stunned, and tried her very best not to cry in front of the other children. Though there were many things she wanted to draw, her hand was certainly not one of them. Still, she did her best though she was ashamed to even look at the rough redness around her nails. She had little bumps on her palms, and the lines in her hands reminded her of Grandma's hands. May finished her drawing and left as quickly as possible, even before the teacher had collected the hand pictures and told them what they would be doing the next day.

The following morning, May was determined to tell the art teacher she could not take the class anymore. When she got to art class, the teacher talked about all the wonderful hand drawings she had gathered from their desks the day before. The art teacher laughed about the hand drawing that showed pink-and purple-dotted fingernails. She laughed about the hand that had diamond rings on every finger, and four diamond rings on the thumb. Then she held up a hand drawing that was familiar to May. It showed a small hand, with fingers curled toward the palm as if holding a precious stone or delicate butterfly. May shoved her hands under the desk, and wanted to crawl under there to hide along with her hands.

The teacher said, "Of all the hand drawings I saw yesterday, this is the one I could not stop looking at. This is an interesting drawing, a beautiful drawing, for it shows a hand that is not idle. It shows a hand that has worked hard. The fingers are curved, as if to protect something fragile." She walked to May's desk, and asked May, "Could I please see your hand?" May did not want to show her hand, but being accustomed to obeying teachers, she pulled her hand out from under the desk. The teacher took May's hand into her own.

"Now," said the teacher, "as I hold in my own hand the hand from this drawing, I can see that I was not wrong. It is a hand that has caressed little kittens and held small daisies. It is a hand that has washed many dishes, folded laundry, given baths, and combed hair. Yes, this is a very interesting hand. It is a beautiful hand."

With that, the teacher went back and started talking about that afternoon's drawing assignment.

After class, May ran all the way home, dragging Kate part of the way, and carrying her the rest of the way. She put the drawing on Mom's bed, and with her rough, red hands, she washed the dishes, fixed dinner, bathed Kate, and finished her homework. As she lay down in bed, she noticed that the glow from the moon was shining on her hands. They look different tonight.

May thought of the many dishes and counters she washed when Mom was sleeping. She thought of the times she had bathed her sister and cleaned up the house when Mom was at work. She thought about the way her palm fit over Kate's cheek, and how wonderful her sister's skin felt to her hand. She remembered the tender kisses Mommy gave her hands when she came home from work in the dark hours of the early morning. She would hear her mommy say, "Thank you, May, for all your help. I could not do this without you."

Just as the little girl with the red, rough hands was starting to nod off, she looked one more time at her hands. And she smiled, for they really were most interesting hands.