Overview of Confirmation Ministry Process: Tenth Grade Supervised Study (continued)

Serving:  At least 8 hours of participating in any of the Estimate of Serving options.

Additional Learning:  Attend and take notes on one Church Council meeting and one Ministry Team meeting of your choice.

Desirable Dimensions of the Supervised Learning Model

Overt:

1. Spring meeting of parents/Students gets the timing of the units on all calendars
2. Teams can form there (in Spring), during Summer, or at first night’s meeting.
3. Parents sign up for Monitor times &/or Retreat assistants, in various categories
4. A parent or two agrees to contact any missing parents/students with information and need to sign up in office b/4 Fall Unit begins.
5. Parents decide whom they will ask to teach their 10^th grade students in Sunday School and the procedure to secure and report teacher choice (agreed to!) to office.
6. Parents, being directly involved in Monitor and/or Retreat positions, with dates well ahead of time on the calendar, so as to be able to plan ahead, knowing that if an issue comes up, it is their responsibility to switch or find substitute for specific time/date.
7. Parents are fully aware of the schedule, the material and the plan as regards students.
8. Students are free to schedule hours that work for them to complete the unit(s)
9. Students have full freedom to secure answers to the worksheets however they choose, knowing that for the Pastoral Reflection time they need each be ready to answer all questions.

Covert:

1. Monitor parents usually spend time reading some of materials for their own benefit.
2. Monitor parents know exactly what is happening in terms of progress of all students.
3. All parents have a vested interest in student completing on time, knowing they will be the Overtime Monitors should their student fail to complete in assigned time.
4. Parents are “owning” the process and participating in it.
5. Students are free to divide up the researching of the various books, articles, videos and/or internet sources however they wish, but each must come to Pastoral Reflection time ready with answers to all questions, thus they end up explaining to & teaching each other, not just copying answers from each other.
6. They will invariably end up talking about many aspects of school and life as they work together, intermixing it with “faith talk” as they learn and share what they have learned with each other.
7. Almost necessarily there will be discussion between parent(s) and student(s) about the course and where they are at; even, as parents read this or that resource, some faith sharing as to what they read, and how they understand it.
8. Intentionally having students exposed to more than one author/presenter to realize that all Lutherans don’t necessarily think exactly alike, bringing a freedom to “prefer” one author/presenter over another, as they are forming their own understanding of different faith dimensions covered.