French Religious Education Program A brief overview and request for UCM families’ input

This is the introductory letter from the questionnaire I sent out to all Religious Education families and RE leaders and helpers as of 3/23/11. If you would like to complete a copy of the extended questionnaire, please contact my office and we will send you one: dre@ucmtl.ca

The French RE programme is nearing the end of its third year as an integral part of the Religious Education programme at UCM. Lessons have been offered six times a year. The first year, the curriculum was centered around the seven UU principles. For last year and this current RE year, we have been exploring First Nations culture and spirituality.

Originally, the French RE project, which has now created the first French UU RE curricula ever in the world, was started by the Francophone Group and the MUUQ (Mouvement unitarien universaliste au Québec). Its purpose was to attract more francophone families to the UCM, as well as to UUism in general, internationally. In order to have children pilot the lessons, the curriculum was integrated into our RE programme here at UCM.

While our children certainly can benefit from a linguistically and culturally enriched RE programme, with the addition of French lessons created with a francophone audience in mind, the original purpose of the project should be kept in mind. There are several questions to consider when evaluating this programme, such as:

Do we want our children to benefit from an enriched programme, linguistically and culturally speaking—specifically focussing on that of the larger community we are a part of here in Quebec?

Do we feel that this is a way we can participate in outreach, as a member of the UU community?

Do we feel that our children are benefitting from this particular programme, as it stands?

We have prepared the following pages of further questions for which we would love your detailed response, but we would appreciate any of your thoughts on these matters. Please take some time to go over the following questions (or those that feel relevant to you) with your children, and return the questionnaire to us (either by email or paper copy). Some of these issues will come up at the March 27^th Conversation with our Minister and Director of RE –we hope to see you there!

We thank you most sincerely for your input in these matters!

The RE and Francophone Committees