When I was teaching special education, the most useful professional development session I went to was one that brought together Understanding By Design principles with Differentiated Instruction. You don't have to know anything about those to read on; I just want to be clear that the basic concept here is not my own but rather drawn from educational literature.
(That said, I've never seen it applied to ministry settings, so while the basic content isn't unique, the application of it may be.)
As you plan each lesson/unit/year, you can group content into these categories:
- The most important thing: In other words, if the kids in your ministry left this Sunday morning having learned only one thing, what would you want it to be? What would be the perfect answer you'd like for kids to be able to give when mom or dad asks, "What did you learn in class today?" (That's a micro application, but you can also think about from a macro - big picture - level too, asking yourself what one thing you want kids to know at the end of the year or once they leave your ministry, such as transitioning from children's to middle school ministry.) You could consider this to be the "must learn" point in your teaching.
- Other important stuff: This is the second tier. If your kids (or adults!) have grasped the most important thing, what else would you like them to know and understand and apply in their lives beyond that? You could consider this stuff to be the "should learn" points in your teaching.
- Helpful stuff: This is the third tier. If the most important thing and the other important stuff are understood, then what else is in the lesson that or story that could be helpful? You could consider this stuff to be the "nice to learn" points in your teaching.
- Non-essentials: I didn't include this in my image, but it would be in the white space outside of the ovals. It's good to be mindful that there could be things in your lesson that just don't matter. If, for example, you use a Veggie Tales clip, does it matter if your kids can tell you whether or not Junior Asparagus made an appearance? (Not really.)
In other words, if you only teach one thing on Sunday, you'll want it to be the green stuff from the picture above. Then next priority would be the yellow stuff. Then, after that, you can be concerned with the orange items. If you run out of time or if you have fewer teachers than planned, you can prioritize the green thing and even scrap the orange stuff and maybe even the yellow (especially because a point that is merely helpful in one lesson could be a more important point in a future lesson).
Another way to think about this is that each week you'll have some kids who understand the green
and the yellow
and the orange, some who just understand the green and the yellow, and some who only grasp the green. (And, let's be honest, some weeks there are kids who don't get any of that and just have a good time - or even a not-so-good time.) If you know which point is your most important thing, though, you've clarified your purpose and prioritized the content you'll be teaching that day.
By now, you may be wondering, but
how does this apply to special needs ministry?
If an individual with special needs has intellectual limitations or behaviors that make it challenging to remain focused for the entire lesson, it's good to be able to prioritize your instruction. If only one thing gets taught this week, do you want it to be one of the points from the helpful stuff? No! You want to aim for the meaty green stuff in the image above, the most important thing.
But what if the child's disability makes it difficult for him/her to grasp the most important thing each Sunday? That's where the macro-view I mentioned earlier comes in: if you know what the most important thing for the year is or what the most important thing for your ministry as a whole is, then that is what you want to stress, week after week, even if each Sunday's most important thing isn't always understood.
what does that look like?
As I've shared before, we don't have a self-contained class for children or students with special needs at our church. We're not absolutely opposed to that, but right now it's working well to include our kids with special needs in existing classes, often with a one-on-one buddy for support. (We do, however, have a class of about 15-20 adults with disabilities that is separate from our other adult classes, because they wanted and needed a class of their own in which the Gospel could be shared and discipleship could happen in a meaningful way for each individual.)
In one of our classes, we have a boy with Down syndrome who has a very short attention span; let's call him Luke for the sake of this example. His one-on-one buddy - we'll call her Jessica - has a copy of the curriculum (which, by the way, is hugely important - even if buddies aren't teaching the lessons, they need to know what will be taught). Because Jessica knows what is being taught each week, she can reinforce it and, if Luke isn't engaged with the rest of the class, she can work on driving home that one most important thing while they are in another part of the classroom.
It does happen from time to time that the lesson changes or that Jessica or other buddies don't get a chance to see the lesson before Sunday. In that case, Jessica can ask the volunteer teaching the lesson:
What's the most important takeaway from today's story for our students? Even teachers who don't think about their lessons in the framework of the image above can answer that kind of direct question, and then Jessica knows what she'll focus on if she and Luke aren't actively involved in the teaching portion of class.
~+~
Because this works for us, we don't use a curriculum designed for children or students with special needs. I will post a list of curricula I've seen around, but I can't really recommend any, for the sole reasons that I don't recommend resources I haven't used. For our adult class, we use Access from Lifeway; you can find a sneak peek of it here as well as the glance at Special Buddies, their children's curriculum for kids with special needs (the Access sample is at the bottom of the list titled "Bible Studies for Life" and Special Buddies at the bottom of "Bible Teaching for Kids"). They also have great downloads here.
And while this post doesn't relate to it, I had a fantastic time and gained valuable resources at the Accessibility Summit conference this weekend. I'll have several upcoming posts highlighting content or resources from that sweet time in DC.
