The Workshop Rotation Model for Sunday School began in 1990 when a Presbyterian church in Chicago decided it was time to reinvent Sunday School or close it down. By 1995 enough churches in the Chicago area had successfully adopted the Model to call it a movement. www.rotation.org was created in 1997 to provide resources, lesson plans, and community for the grassroots movement. Many of the original Chicago Rotation educators began organizing conferences. Several started publishing ministries. In 2005, it is estimated that over 8000 churches in the U.S. and Canada had adopted or adapted the Model. And after a decade of showing little interest, several major denominational and independent publishers began publishing Rotation-style curriculum. Last time I counted it was 8. (You can view a Flash Presentation about the Model at rotation.org by clicking here.)
"We weren't trying to invent a new model, -we were just trying to solve our problems," said Melissa Hansche, D.C.E. at the Presbyterian Church of Barrington, -the church in Chicago Presbytery where the model got its start. What problems is she referring to?
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Bored kids and teachers
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Declining attendance
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Lack of Bible literacy
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Drab and uninviting classrooms
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Sedentary teaching
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Expensive curriculum (that's half used)
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Poor teacher preparation
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Trouble recruiting teachers
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(your problem here)
The decline in Sunday School is one of the worst kept secrets in the Church. Some say "it's a sign of the times." Others of us wonder out loud whether the traditional model EVER worked. (Where are all those kids we had in our Sunday Schools back in the so-called "good old days" of the 50's and 60's? They're at home reading the Sunday paper.) "Like a lot of other churches in our Presbytery, we knew we had to do something and soon." said Hansche. "And we knew that looking for yet another ‘new and improved' curriculum wasn't the answer either. Been there, done that."
Here's the Workshop Rotation Model in a nutshell:
Teach
major Bible stories and concepts through kid-friendly multimedia
workshops: an Art workshop, Drama, Music, Games, A-V, Puppets,
Storytelling, Computers, and any other educational media you
can get your hands on. Teach the same Bible story in all of the
workshops for four or five weeks in a row, --rotating each class to a different
workshop each week. And here comes the extremely teacher friendly
part: The teacher stays put in their workshop for all five weeks
-teaching the same lesson week after week (with some age appropriate
adjustments) to each new class
coming in. The results, says Linda Beckham, D.C.E. at Tampa's
Palma Ceia Church are astounding. "The kids love it, the
teachers love it, and we can't ever imagine going back to the
old way."
Here's why it works: The Workshop Rotation Model concentrates on the major stories of the Bible over and over again. It eschews the popular but educationally and practically unsound lectionary approach of changing the story each week. That model has only created a preparation nightmare and generations of Biblically illiterate children. It's too fast for the kids and teachers, -everybody but the publishers. The model's philosophy recognizes that kids not only thrive with creative repetition, but they need repetition to develop a lasting memory and understanding of content. The multi-intelligence-informed (creative methods) foundation in the model isn't a fad or merely an attempt to entertain. The Rotation Model recognizes and harnesses our student's God-given thirst and enjoyment for multi-modal learning. Traditional designs have long attempted to teach creatively, but the weekly change of lesson coupled with the frenetic lesson plans that featured six or more different steps, --a game, a craft, Bible study, discussion and music all within 45 minutes --left our teachers breathless. And few of our volunteers had the gifts to teach in each mode properly, or get the lesson right every week.
Rotation recognizes that our volunteer teachers need a slower rate of change too, to improve their teaching and lessen the preparation load. By the second week of the rotation, the teacher is already improving the original lesson plan for the next class. No more "if I only would have...." in the parking lot after class. No more Saturday night planning. Fewer recruitment hassles, --teachers are happy to sign up for five week rotations, and "re-up" again and again because the pace isn't killing their enthusiasm). And because the teacher is assigned to teach in the creative mode they are comfortable with, the teaching and learning experience are enriched. No more lectures and music cassettes still in their cellophane wrappers, no more overused worksheets, or fumbling popsicle stick Jesus' crafts.
The Model also buries the beige and boring classroom in a blizzard of creative kid-oriented design. It says "we're teaching kids, not cons," ...we want them to come back! Because each room is organized around a specific teaching medium, dramatic makeovers don't get torn down a week or a month later like they do in traditional classrooms or VBS. Theater workshops can sprout theater seats and a popcorn machine. Drama workshops get a stage and accumulate props and lighting. Computer workshops get dedicated secure space for their equipment. Art Workshops become messy exciting places to learn.
There is no need to buy curriculum, prompting one denominational publisher to describe it as "the third rail for curriculum publishers." Instead, in a fit of connectionalism, educators are calling each other and saying "I'll trade you my Moses rotation for your Ruth, and do you have any good art projects for the Prodigal Son?" Churches are gleaning from each other. They're digging into their stockpiles of creative materials and hitting their resource centers. In-house "design teams" composed of a minister, elders and C.E. leaders provide the educational and theological backbone. Together they help shape the simple but creative lesson plans and then count on the teacher to improve on them each week. Unlike earlier models which fell by the weight of their planning, this model is proving easier to implement and maintain. Because each workshop uses essentially the same lesson plan for about five weeks in a row, every week isn't a gauntlet of planning.
A website for the Rotation Model ---www.rotation.org-- features
the model manual, complete rotation lesson plans, a resource
directory and a creative ideas area for each workshop, most of
which can be printed out for free. "All along one of the
strengths of this model has been the willingness of churches
to share with each other. We believe that the grassroots sharing
of resources and lesson materials is a vivid manifestation of
the connectional nature we have professed for so long.
The growing success of the model underscores several important issues in Christian education:
First, the model demonstrates that the spirit of innovation is alive and well in the grassroots. Rotation has flourished outside of the traditional curriculum establishment. The gifts to reinvent ourselves and be successful in our ministry are out here at the grassroots level.
Second, the model seriously addresses the underlying problems of Sunday School and offers practical solutions. Because Rotation is a response to realities, its "DNA" understands that we must adapt to changing situations. The mixing and matching of creative workshops, control over the teaching calendar and teaching personnel, and ability to introduce new workshops for specific stories, age groups, and desired outcomes, makes Rotation extremely responsive to changing needs and ideas, and flexible with regard to church size, class size, and church calendars.
Third, the model's early and continuing co-operative impulse -enhanced by the use of the internet, demonstrates the ability of individuals to resource each other outside the publishing establishment and beyond traditional denominational boundaries. In that respect, www.rotation.org is not only a huge sharing effort, it is a proto-type for connecting across the grassroots.
It is a free resource paradigm made possible by new technology that challenges the foundation of traditional curriculum publishing.
| To learn more about the Rotation Model, go to www.rotation.org, To view more of Neil's free articles about Rotation, go to http://sundaysoftware.com/rotation/articles4rotation.htm View more photos at www.rotation.org View
a Flash Presentation about the Rotation Model at rotation.org |
from Neil MacQueen
The name "Workshop Rotation Model" was coined by Melissa Hansche and myself (Neil MacQueen) in 1990 at the Presbyterian Church in Barrington Illinois. We named it that to describe the Sunday School model we had drawn up on a flip chart one summer day in an attempt to rescue our Sunday School and solve specific problems. Initially we weren't fond of the name, but it was descriptive so it stuck. Our congregation called it "that great Sunday School." Like all good cooks, we "created" "our" model from a lot of things we had learned over the years and had seen in other curriculums. We added a few "new" things, --including things like the computer lab, and teaching the same story for 4 to 5 weeks in a row. We also did some "design" things to our classrooms and hallways that you now see in a lot of other Rotation churches, --things such as theater seats, popcorn machines, special lighting, and murals. At first, we were surprised it all worked so well, and worked well for other churches who adopted it.
In the early 90's, Melissa and I published the Rotation concept in several magazine articles and held a series of seminars in the Chicago area about what we were doing. We soon found other churches who had been experimenting with change, and found that some of our ideas were the final piece to their puzzle. And since then, we've run across many churches who were doing something similar to Rotation "way back when" or on a limited scale. Solomon was right when he said, "There's nothing new under the sun." If we Chicagoans created anything, it was a wave of "militant hope" for Sunday Schools looking to break free of the traditional model, and a group they could turn to for help.
Starting in 1993 and throughout the 90's, we attempted to share the growing success of the Model with our denomination's curriculum leaders. Privately, some liked it, but they were too engrossed in publishing new curriculum, -the proceeds of which funded their salaries. The antagonism towards Rotation from some quarters was evident. They viewed it as competition rather than as innovation. That response turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
By 1995, several Chicago area churches using the model began networking among themselves. We shared ideas and lesson plans. Melissa and I produced a xeroxed Workshop Rotation manual which sold for the cost of copying and postage. In 1996 the Association of Presbyterian Educators annual conference came to Chicago. Over 50 participants came up to Barrington and spent the day with us. Another 150 took the workshop the following day down at the conference hotel. From those two seminars WoRM churches began springing up all over the country. Many of those first wave Rotation churches began training other churches in their area.
My personal involvement with the Model changed quite a bit in late 1996 when I left Chicago and the Barrington church and moved back to Ohio to start a new full-time ministry/company called Sunday Software. Of all the things we were doing in Rotation, the computer workshop was one of the truly new and mystifying innovations. Most people didn't own personal computers back then and few had experience teaching with them. From 1990 to 1996 I was in my computer lab every Sunday learning and experimenting with approaches. I networked with others doing the same and started to share "teaching tips" and where to get software.
In early 1996, I set up two church members to handle the inquiries starting to overwhelm my pastoral work. To pay them, we started to sell a couple of programs and our manual, ...and that started the Sunday Software explosion. By mid-96 I knew I needed to make a change. It was a "Who Shall We Send?" moment.
From '96 to '99, I traveled extensively talking at conferences about computers in Christian education, --and at the same time introducing "The WoRM" -as the Workshop Rotation Model had come to be known. Many of my seminars took place in rotation-friendly CE Resource Centers and churches where the Rotation was in full bloom.
In the Fall of 1996, a more formal Chicago-area network was established with the name "Opening the Doors Network." At that time the Network also began sponsoring annual conferences. Some members of that group went on to publish their Rotation curriculum and some created an organization which sponsored national training seminars (now defunct).
By early 1997, the Model was spreading faster than anyone could imagine. Local networks began popping up around the country. Articles started appearing in denominational magazines and even local newspapers. Resource centers started sponsoring seminars, as resource people quickly realized that the Model valued EXISTING creative resources, and not just what was being newly minted by publishers.
In 1997, I launched the www.rotation.org website as a way to give away Barrington's original Rotation manual and lessons, share materials between the Rotation educators I was meeting across the country, and collect the lessons being written by Rotation pioneers. The manual was later revised and published by the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation's Geneva Press (though extensive excerpts remain at the website).
In 2002, it was estimated by a publisher's poll that over 5000 churches are actively using the Rotation Model in the U.S. and Canada (a number which went up significantly when publishers jumped on the Rotation Bandwagon with their own "rotational" curriculum in the early 2000's). Many more non-rotation churches are mining the website for its ideas and lessons. Since its beginning, Rotation.org has greatly expanded. It now contains thousands of free Rotation lessons, articles, and has a very active message board. The message board averages over a quarter million page views each month and has over 15,000 registered users. Also in 2002 we received a grant to fund our part-time resource coordinators, Ken & Phyllis Wezeman. They shape materials, edit the volunteer Writing Team's lesson development process, and respond to the hundreds of requests which come into the site each month. Money to support their part-time salary and host the website comes from donations.
In 2005, Rotation.org Inc was incorporated as a non-profit 501-c3 corporation. At that time I turned over 'ownership' of the domain name and rotation trademark to the Rotation.org Board. I continued to serve on the Board until 2009, but continue to contribute content and serve as the "webmaster" for the site. Learn more about our Board of Directors and work at www.rotation.org/support.htm
Rotation.org is my "volunteer effort" and is not officially connected with my software company (though some folks are occasionally confused about that). The site is now owned and run by a volunteer Board of Directors.
There are many Rotation leaders in the forefront of the movement. They include pastors, educators, denominational staff, and Sunday School volunteers coast to coast from all the major denominations. There are also a number of Rotation churches overseas. While the concept of sharing free materials still lies at the heart of the model Melissa and I emphasize, there are now companies and denominational publishers which sell Rotation curriculum and provide training. Many of us at Rotation.org -the free lesson crowd- view these publishing efforts as complementary and helpful to churches who don't have all the tools to pull it all together on their own.
As the Rotation Model moves into the future, we hope that whoever or whatever is involved with it will remember the original motivation and core of the design:
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Being willing to risk change for the sake of our children, and belief in the message.
Being adamant about creating a program that is attractive, practical and gets results!
Exploring new ways of resourcing each other that facilitate the sharing of grassroots gifts and ideas.
<>< Neil MacQueen
Copyright 1998. Revised 2005, 2010.
Permission granted to copy, reprint, excerpt -provided that the author's name
and "rotation.org" remain with the text.
Neil's Email: sundaysoft@ee.net
| To learn more about the Rotation Model, go to www.rotation.org, To view more of Neil's free articles about Rotation, go to http://sundaysoftware.com/rotation/articles4rotation.htm View
a Flash Presentation about the Rotation Model at rotation.org |