Paying teachers is a sign of not only a religious education program in trouble, but it’s a sign of a dying congregation. Religious Education should be part of the mission of any congregation in any denomi
nation. With our deep history around Sunday School, it should especially be the mission of any Unitarian Universalist Congregation. If the congregation doesn’t care enough about the spiritual development of their children and youth to volunteer to guide them along their paths then I have trouble seeing why that congregation should continue to have a religious education program.
Children and youth need connections to members of their congregation. As religious educators, part of our job is to help the congregation build those connections across generations and form a true multigenerational community in our congregations. We should not be outsourcing those connections. Our job is to help build this authentic multigenerational community where we’re all learning about being in community. We should not be outsourcing that community building. As Maria Harris says, “the congregation is the curriculum.”
Why would a youth come back to a congregation where the people who invested the most time in their spiritual upbringing were paid to do it rather than doing it out of love? Why would they not then approach their spiritual development later on in life as a matter of classes they buy rather than a congregation they participate and volunteer in?
This model approaches Religious Education from a consumerist mindset, which we should be actively trying to combat as Unitarian Universalists. It comes from a place where if we value it, we have to attach a monetary figure to it. It comes from a place steeped in economic privilege. “Oh – we shouldn’t have to teach our children how to be good people when we can pay someone to do that for us!”
There’s another side to this – we’re robbing volunteers of the opportunity to teach. It’s a common saying that the teachers learn more than the students in religious education, and it was certainly true for me. I started off as a volunteer teacher and now I’m a full time Director of Religious Education. If I hadn’t had the opportunity to teach, I might never have discovered my true calling. Who knows who else might be robbed of that opportunity if we start paying our children’s religious education teachers? We do a disservice not only to our children but our adults when we resort to paying outside religious education teachers to come in and do the hands on work with our children and youth.
Let me talk about some of the reasons I’ve heard in support of paying RE teachers that I saw lifted up in both this article on the UUA Blog Call and Response and through some conversations over the past day.
There’s a belief out there that assuming that the days of volunteer teachers are over, because volunteer mom teachers hark back to pre-feminist days. Even if this is true about volunteer mom teachers (and I ask about the volunteer dad teachers) this does not need to and should not lead to hiring teachers. The answer is much simpler – other congregants, and not parents, should be teaching.
I frankly long for a problem where no parents are teaching, or where the only parents that are teaching are the ones who actively wish to be teaching. We’re not there yet, but the most dedicated teachers in my program are those without children in the program. It is possible for a congregation to rely mostly on non-parent volunteers, but it takes a philosophy change in the congregation (which is far from easy to do, but is essential to do.)
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There’s also a belief out there that paying teachers is good because the kids see the same teachers week to week. I think it is important for kids to see the same teachers week to week so kids can build those bonds. But it should be bonds with a congregant, not with a paid teacher brought in from outside the congregation. People assume volunteer teachers would refuse to be there every week. I can testify first hand that this is not the case of all teachers in your congregation.
I was there every week as a volunteer teacher. I have congregants who are here every week as a volunteer teacher. A volunteer teacher can serve as the lead teacher without being paid because of their passion for religious education. It’s part of our job as professional religious educators to develop that passion. It’s part of our job to take a multiyear approach and develop those volunteers, train those volunteers, to become lead teachers. (This is a tie in to the Connect volunteer development book, but Lead Teacher is at the top of my RE Teacher Volunteer Ladder.)
I understand that others argue that paying teachers is a first stop for young adults wanting to work for congregations. To this, I would argue that if congregations were doing this with the mission of helping young adults get started in a career as a religious professional, there are other ways besides teaching RE that can happen. Hire young adults to help with social justice organizing. Hire young adults as RE Assistants to help organize the program and set up our volunteer teachers for success. Hire young adults to be a young adult group coordinator. There are many, many other options if the congregation is trying to help young adults begin careers as religious professionals.
But I truly doubt congregations are approaching paying RE teachers with the mindset of helping young adults get started as religious professionals. This is an unintended positive side benefit of a poor religious education philosophy and a philosophy, and congregation, steeped in privilege.
I can understand the supposed benefits of paying RE Teachers. There’s consistency in the classroom. Teacher recruitment is, quite frankly, a pain in the neck at times and is a constant battle for religious educators and having paid teachers makes this easier. I really can understand these benefits.
None of those benefits matter if the congregation has demonstrated they don’t care about their children and youth’s spiritual upbringing by refusing to have a part in it.
And a disclaimer to end this piece: I know this post comes off as extremely fiery, but I am passionate about religious education and I personally find the idea of paying teachers to teach Children and Youth RE to strike at the heart of what makes a congregational religious education program essential. Nothing is intended here to disparage any colleague as I am not in their congregational system. This is simply part of my personal religious education philosophy and may very well not be the religious education philosophy of any of my colleagues. But in the spirit of “Call and Response,” I felt called to respond with a different view.
Tim, I always love hearing your take on things. My own religious education philosophy doesn’t include a strong take on this issue, so I’m still exploring. But I will say that one thing I’ve wondered about is how many of the other smaller churches I’ve attended have volunteer Sunday School coordinators. I’m personally very thankful that UUs value religious education so much as to hire even (very) part-time religious education professionals. I think that maybe if we extend that philosophy to the idea that teachers can be professionals, too… it opens up the debate a little more. A congregation might be hiring lead teachers because it cares so much about its ministry, rather than the other way around. From a logistical/economic standpoint, this model wouldn’t fit every congregation. And if there are people who volunteer and get something out of it, and you have a good volunteer culture in a congregation that works – great. But I’m finding that many of our volunteers – even those who will tell you they get a lot out of teaching – are saying that they’re afraid of getting burned out, because the last group of volunteers burned out, and a new group hasn’t come in to relieve the current workload, either. I think there’s ways of incorporating lead teachers into an existing volunteer teaching scheme which would benefit both the volunteers and the children. Just some thoughts. Still processing all this. 🙂
Howdy Howdy Anna: I’d argue a very substantial component of RE ministry is building that community – both within each class and among each student and a congregant/member of their community who cares about them. So I’d argue that if the congregation is caring so much about its ministry and are hiring teachers to enact that ministry, the purpose/mission of the RE program should be looked at and revised. Because it sounds like the mission of the RE program is to impart facts rather than build multigen community.
Well said Tim! I am one colleague who shares your view.
Go Tim! passion for mission!
When I started at my current position, most of the RE teachers were paid. Some were paid so well they truly relied on it for their income. Now only the nursery staff is paid, and the quality of our program has improved to the point where our RE enrollment has doubled since I changed the policy. Don’t apologize for having a strong viewpoint on this. Just make it clear and put it forth, which you have done brilliantly!
A question for you, Tim: Do you feel the same way about paid professional ministry? There should be no need to pay a minister because we should be able to carry out those functions and provide that continuity for ourselves?
Interesting discussion, thanks.
Carl
(member of First UU Church of Winnipeg)
Hi Carl:
Yes, the question about what staff should be paid at all did come into my mind while writing this. And I don’t have a well thought out answer to that yet other than “I know it when I see it.” My initial, scattered thoughts that are unfinished: I do think staff positions that are created to support the ministries of the congregation in terms of organizing, in terms of volunteer support, management, training, etc., should most certainly be staff positions.
I think ministers should be staff positions based on a couple of reasons in addition to that – one, the minister should be a prophetic voice in the congregation that challenges the community to be better (which a community can’t always provide for itself – the outside prophetic voice.) Another is around pastoral care where if it’s not a professional doing pastoral care, severe harm can be done to the person.
But this is a sticky question that is worthy of more thought than what I’ve got time for in a comment here right now! My comments here are directed at RE Teachers as that’s where the discussion is right now in our greater DRE community.
I’ve seen some comments on social media that takes this argument and slides it to “so, should we be paying any staff?” I would suggest that you also take the initial argument for paying RE teachers and say, “so, should we be paying every former-volunteer in one of the ministries of our congregation?”
Actually, that is not an appropriate analogy. Teaching RE is not analogous to being the minister of the church. RE teacher is to church what Pastoral Care visitor or Small Group leader is to church.
[…] Tim Atkins believes congregations shouldn’t pay religious education teachers. […]
What a good conversation you started I’m sorry to be adding to it so late in the game but even late I thought it worked just throwing a few thoughts into the mix. In late elementary and early middle school attended and was very involved with a church that had a very close relationship with the seminary at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster Pennsylvania. So well occasionally we did have some church members as our Sunday School teachers usually and especially as we grow older it was much more common for us to have students from the cemetery leading R religious education classes. They were paid for the most part in recognition of their need for some income as a student at the way to honor of the work that they were doing so I’m sure it wasn’t much. And I myself was extremely grateful when when I moved to Cambridge to start Divinity School that the then head of the re department makna Morris s was able to connect me with a church, her church in fact, where they were looking to hire irregular teacher for the 6th grade class. In truth I think it was more a situation of they had the budget available to hire a teacher I’m not sure how actively they were working at filling that spot with a bad person. Later when I started my first ministry I found it the blessing to be able to have paid individuals helping with the children’s programming every Sunday there is a bad teacher but the very youngest children + 4 the four-year-old group. One of these teachers was in fact a member of the church and somebody who really survived on support from her family and doing odd jobs mostly for people at the church. In addition to that I was able to pay a modest amount 2 teams interested in working as a teaching aid during the morning re program. This have a number of advantages not only was the age somebody who was a regular face that was mostly in the room all year long but every now and then we would have somebody who hadn’t thrown up in the church so we get involved in the youth group and by having the work as one of the paid teaching aids for in a couple cases they actually took over the teaching responsibility and we paid the most a bit more but this gave us an opportunity to do some ketchup religious education and introduce them through their teaching work with some things that they would be more familiar with how they grown up Unitarian Universalist. So I guess I’m challenging the notion that its unrealistic to think that churches would be providing paid teaching opportunities as a way of nurturing future leadership I think there’s lots of opportunities for doing this to work in just that way maybe not everybody that you would pay as a teacher is going to go into paid ministry or even necessarily be particularly active in your given congregation and you may be providing a ministry to somebody who isn’t a part of the church but will benefit from this opportunity and through doing it gets introduced to Unitarian Universalism and baby finds that that’s the path for them somewhere down the road. Where I would agree is to the extent that that would depend on it I think we could run into problems.