LOWER PRIMARY: Hospitality and accepting others
Sharing
Younger students might explore the Palm Sunday Gospel reading and what it means to share with this Gaming the Gospels activity called 'Sharing with Jesus'.
Hospitality
1. Read the Bible accounts of Jesus entering Jerusalem in Luke and John’s Gospels (Lk 19:28-40; Jn 12:12-19). Break students into groups and ask each group to re-enact Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to consolidate understanding.
3. What is hospitality? Look up the dictionary definition.
4. What does hospitality look like at home, at school, when you visit your wider family, when you visit a friend’s house, or God’s house (Church)? You can list the results in a table.
5. How did people show hospitality to Jesus when he entered Jerusalem?
6. Create a calendar of significant days of the year that acknowledge inclusivity and diversity (e.g. Harmony Day, NAIDOC Week). How are these celebrated in your community? Choose one of these days and find out more about it. Present your finding to the class in oral or digital form (Consider using PowerPoint or Prezi).
7. Is there an opportunity where you can demonstrate hospitality at school? Make a class plan to demonstrate hospitality at an upcoming school event. Consider offering your hospitality on a day that celebrates inclusivity and diversity (e.g. Harmony Day, NAIDOC Week, Bullying No Way Day).
8. Research how different cultures celebrate Palm Sunday. Try making plaited palm leaves or a plaited donkey.
Accepting others
1. Classroom Survey – Similarities and Differences with our Peers:
a. Teacher selects names from a hat and students are organized randomly into pairs.
b. Students work in pairs to take turns interviewing each other. They must find three things they have in common and three differences.
c. Students come back together and report their findings to the class. The teacher records results on a table (older students can enter the data to a central point that the teacher then displays on the data projector or interactive whiteboard).
d. Analyse the data: How many responses related to physical appearance, family, hobbies, interests, and/or others?
e. Is it OK to be the same? Is it OK to be different? Why? Explain.
f. What can you learn from each other’s differences?
2. Consider this verse from the Bible: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me (Matthew 25:40). What does it mean? How can you use this verse as guidance in your own life?
UPPER PRIMARY: Famous catholic refugees, famous Saints who were refugees. Understanding inclusivity and diversity.
1. In 2021, Pope Francis updated the Litany of St Joseph, adding two invocations that address 'support in difficulty' and name him the 'patron of refugees'.
a. Who was St Joseph? Write a paragraph outlining his life and contribution to the Catholic Faith.
b. The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments published the additions to the litany of St Joseph on May 1. What is the significance of this date? Why do we celebrate this date and how?
c. What is a litany and when do Catholics use them?
d. Do you think St Joseph is a good choice to be the patron of refugees? Why/why not? Write a paragraph explaining your response using a topic sentence, explanation, evidence, and a concluding sentence. Consider Matthew 2:1-23 in your response. Check your work using the writing success criteria:
i. I think before I write (brainstorming).
ii. I planned my writing
iii. I used a title that introduces the explanation.
iv. My sentences are in the right order.
v. I used helpful words to order my sentences (e.g. linking words).
vi. My paragraph gives information.
vii. My paragraph answers questions.
viii. I can write my name as author (own working, not plagiarised).
ix. My layout is clear, and my paragraph is indented.
x. My vocabulary includes technical language, precise details, formal language.
xi. My explanation gives an impersonal view.
xii. I used a suitable voice and tense.
xiii. I read my paragraph over carefully.
xiv. I corrected mistakes in my paragraph.
xv. How many stars would I give my effort in writing this paragraph out of five?
xvi. How could I improve my paragraph next time?
2. What does this verse from the Bible mean? ‘Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly’ (Romans 12:3-18). Write a paragraph explaining your response using a topic sentence, explanation, evidence, and a concluding sentence. Check your work using the writing success criteria in the preceding question.
3. Use a dictionary to find out what the words ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusivity’ mean. Write the definition in your books, then write a new definition in your own words. List three synonyms for each. Create a word wall with your and your peers' understanding of their meaning.
4. Inclusion and diversity go together like ‘peas and carrots’ or ‘sun and sand’. What other things can you list that go together? Draw pictures of things that go together and display the pictures on your word wall.
5. Make a list of examples of inclusion and diversity at your school.
6. Reflection questions: why is it important that everyone feel included? How do you feel when you are left out of an activity or from a game? What can you do to help other kids at school feel included? How are you going to do this? Why is it worth it? Did you get anything out of it? Is that a good or a bad thing? Why? What would Jesus do if he were a kid in the playground with you? Is that the same or different to what you would do and why/why not? Can we learn how to include others by learning about the life of Jesus? How? What else are you wondering about?
LOWER SECONDARY: Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Catholic Social Teaching, and being an ally.
1. Watch this video created by the Catholic Education Office in Melbourne.
a. We hear a lot of negative attitudes toward asylum seekers in the community. In Australia, who are the people we hear from the most? Who are the people who feel most welcome? Who are the voices we listen to every day? Who are the people on the margins? Who are the people trying desperately to have their voices heard?
b. Our own families have people who are diverse. What are the unique gifts and talents of those in your family? How are everyone’s differences appreciated and respected?
c. Who did Jesus listen to the most in the Gospels? With whom did he spend the most time? Why? What message was he trying to send?
2. What does it mean to be an 'ally' for those in a minority? Look up the definition of ally in the dictionary and then watch the TED talk by Dwinta Mosby Tyler called 'Want a more just world? Be an unlikely ally.'
3. List three examples of where Jesus was an “unlikely” ally.
4. There is a striking contrast between how Jesus was received into Jerusalem and how he was treated after the Last Supper. Are there any clues in the Gospels that help us to understand why the attitude to Jesus changed? How can we relate this to the experience of refugees in Australia?
5. Investigate one of the following aspects of Catholic Social Teaching: Solidarity, Participation and Subsidiarity, Dignity of the Human Person and Common Good. In your own words, explain what it means. Alternatively, students could be broken into four groups and each group must research one area of the Catholic social teachings and report their findings to the class.
6. Read the article about Palm Sunday and Refugees in Australian Catholics: ‘Remembering Refugees on Palm Sunday’ by Father Andrew Hamilton SJ. Suggestion: students can take turns reading a sentence around the class. Students can highlight the main points of the article during reading. After reading, using small group or whole-class discussion, ask students to summarise the main points of the article. Answers can be scribed on the board or added to a shared digital space that can be displayed on the digital projector or interactive whiteboard. Consider using a one of these methods.
7. Read the article 'Refugee to PhD student' by Emilie Ng. Students independently read the article.
Before reading, remind students of the following metacognitive comprehension monitoring strategies from Reading Rockets to use while reading:
• Identify where the difficulty occurs
• Identify what the difficulty is
• Restate the difficult sentence or passage in their own words
• Look back through the text
• Look forward in the text for information that might help them to resolve the difficulty.
Students then read the article a second time and underline the main points. They then repeat the process of summarising the article in the same fashion as was used by the whole class in the previous activity.
8. Create a T-chart to compare the pints Fr Andrew Hamilton makes in the first article about how we should treat refugees and the experience of Thae Oo Khaing in the second article. Is she a good example or a poor example of how to help and support refugees? Explain why in a well-constructed sentence or paragraph. Use the writing success criteria above to check your work.
UPPER SECONDARY: Compare and contrast – how was Jesus like a refugee?
1. Jesus identifies himself as a stranger to be welcomed in Matthew 25:35. Where else in the Bible are strangers welcomed?
2. When did Jesus’ family experience exile?
3. Investigate the Church’s teachings on asylum and consider the following in your response:
a. A person’s right to live in their homeland
b. The right to seek asylum
c. Human dignity
d. Regulating migration
e. Justice and Mercy
f. Solidarity
g. The right to be part of a community.
This pamphlet on what the Catholic Church teaches on asylum and migration is a useful resource.
4. How can we follow the example of Jesus when thinking about refugees? Write a paragraph explaining your response using a topic sentence, explanation, evidence, and a concluding sentence. Follow the writing process in constructing your answer: Brainstorm, Research, Plan, Draft, Edit.
5. Comparing and contrasting Bible passages:
Step 1: Summarise
Break into four groups. Each group will need a timekeeper (to keep everyone on track), a spokesperson (to deliver results to the class), a scribe (to write down the answers), a resources person (to make sure that everyone in the group has what is needed to complete the activity successfully), a trouble-shooter (they also liaise with the teacher is there are any issues or questions) and a reader (to read aloud the section of the Bible that will be summarised). It is the responsibility of each member of the group to participate in the discussion to summarise the main points in the reading. Each group will be given a different Gospel in the Bible. Summarise the events in Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and present your finding to the class.
Step Two: Present and take notes
Students who are watching the presentation are to complete a 'compare and contrast' table, listing what is similar in the four accounts and what is different. A master list will be recorded on the whiteboard or smartboard by means of whole-class discussion after presentations are complete.
Step Three: Going further
Students then complete independent work to answer the following questions:
Each of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem ends in a different way.
a. What does it mean that some facts are the same?
b. Why are some perspectives different?
c. What aspect of Jesus’s teaching and experience is each Apostle trying to highlight and why?
d. Look up and record the dictionary definition of perspective.
e. In your opinion, are any of the Gospels wrong? Why/why not? Explain.
f. How do different perspectives change the way we view refugees?
g. Has looking at Jesus’ experience changed your view of refugees? Why/why not?
5. Read the article ‘Welcome’ by Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ, where he writes about how Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey is a sign of God’s hospitality to all, and a call for us to follow and show hospitality to our brothers and sisters.
• What does Fr Andrew note about how people are feeling in Australia at the time the article was written?
• Who does he say our hearts should go out to and why?
• Is it hard to practice empathy for others when you are feeling anxious and uncertain? Does that mean you are excused from feeling empathy for others? How did Jesus behave when he was feeling anxious and stressed, such as when he was in the garden of Gethsemane? Is there value in emulating his example? Why/why not?
• What does Fr Hamilton write about the actions of the government at the time of writing the article. Is that still the case? What do you think the government should do? Why? If you are calling for change, what can you do to help bring about that change?
• If Jesus were here today, what do you think He would want the government to do and why? What evidence from the Bible makes you say that?
• According to the article, how does the way people in Australia feel today compare how people were feeling on the first Palm Sunday?
• What does Fr Andrew say Palm Sunday means for followers of Jesus today?
• Do you agree? Why/why not?
• What do you think about the idea of people walking together to call for justice for refugees on Palm Sunday?
• Would you ever consider doing such a thing? Why/why not?
• Write a reflection in your journal on ways that Christians can walk together to show their support for those in need. Who would you choose to walk with and why? How does the example of Jesus inspire you to walk with others?
6. Faith in Action: On Palm Sunday, many community groups walk or hold a rally to call for justice for refugees in Australia. What can the school community do to highlight the link between the treatment of Jesus on Palm Sunday and the experience of refugees in our community? Plan your event and how you would advertise it to the school community. When complete, invite the class to vote on the best plan.